As they ate some of the hearty country soup and fresh bread provided by the inn, Henrietta asked Trem when he wanted to return to London.
“Return to London?”
“Well, yes.” She colored, feeling the blush burnish her cheeks. “I was foolish to try to see Mary Forster. I can always visit her once we are married.”
“You say this after the gunshot wound? No, we’re seeing Mary Forster.”
“I never planned to be gone from London this long. We still have so much to do for the wedding.”
“Leave it to John and Catherine. This is important to you. You want to see your mother. And so we are going to.”
“Are you sure?”
“We can meet everyone at Tremberley for the wedding. We have two weeks. I’ve already settled all the arrangements at the manor with Mr. Foxcroft.”
Henrietta considered this possibility. She wasn’t sure that traveling further and going to see Mary Forster was a good plan. What was the point of such an excursion? When she had left Breminster House, it had seemed so clear, but now she felt wiped clean, like the beach cleansed by a wave. All her previous motivations had been swept away by having almost lost him.
“I don’t even know what I want from her. What am I even looking for? I’m afraid we’ll go to see her and it will be pointless.”
Trem shook his head. “I stand by what I said. I never met my parents. Or, at least, I can’t remember them. I have no idea what either of them were like—their personalities or what their voices sounded like, other than what other people have told me. If I had the opportunity to discover what they were like, I’d take it.”
When he described the situation that way, it did restore dignity to her quest. Henrietta’s stomach lurched at the thought of encountering her mother. What would she even say? How would she explain herself?
“What if she doesn’t want to see me?” The question came, unbidden, from her lips. But that was the question that held her back now—even though it was not one she had thought of when she left Breminster House. But now it seemed a painfully obvious problem.
“Then we’ll tell her to go to the devil. But you said that seeing her was something you wanted to do before you married. And I can hardly fault you for that. Especially when I didn’t give you much time to make your arrangements.”
At his choice of words, Henrietta giggled. “Make arrangements” made marriage seem awfully like death.
“And what arrangements did you make, my lord?”
“Oh, not many,” he said, biting into his bread. “Just settled money on half a dozen bastard children and gave an elaborate congé for the ruffians who I wouldn’t want associating with the new Viscountess of Tremberley.”
“You know you’ll never abandon Montaigne,” she teased. Montaigne was the most scandalous of her brother’s friends—especially now that John had settled down. “I personally can’t believe that he was shot in a duel. No one ever tells me anything.”
“Yes,” said a voice from behind Henrietta, and she turned to see Mrs. Bercine standing in front of their table. “And he nearly died, too.” She smiled, at once ladylike and cocksure. “Until I brought him back to life.”
Henrietta suppressed a scowl at this double entendre. She couldn’t help but be wary of the unusually beautiful innkeeper. The woman had long dark hair braided in an elaborate coiffure, almost of the type that one would find on a lady of the ton but with slightly more practicality.
It wasn’t in Henrietta’s character to be jealous of other women, but with Trem she always lost her head. She had always hated on instinct the married women that Trem had affairs with, but she found her possessiveness at a new pitch of intensity now that he was actually her fiancé. And even though he insisted that he had never had a relationship with the innkeeper, it seemed hard to believe—with her beauty and his historical susceptibility to the charms of the female sex.
“He owes you his life,” Trem said, smoothly, his hand moving to cover Henrietta’s in a reassuring gesture. “As I owe you mine. I would have surely bled out in the carriage if we had been forced to go all the way to Woking.”
“I am very glad you did not bleed out, my lord,” Mrs. Bercine said, her manner suggesting that he was being a touch overwrought in his gratitude. “Are you feeling well now?”
“Better,” Trem said. “We should be ready to travel again tomorrow.”
“Very good,” the woman said, gliding away with another smile that managed to blend elegance and sensuality. Henrietta watched the woman retreat with a knot of uncertainty in her belly.
“You don’t have to worry about Mrs. Bercine.” Trem said the words nearly in her ear. The closeness of his voice made her start, but he steadied her with his good arm.
“I wasn’t aware that I was worried,” she countered, embarrassed that he could read her so easily.
“Please, I haven’t seen you treat another woman with such frostiness since you thought that buxom young kitchen maid was flirting with me three Christmases ago at Edington Hall.”
“I—I didn’t—no,” she stammered, wondering how he could turn her crimson from words alone when he had done so many other wicked things to her. She sighed. “The kitchen maid was flirting with you.”
“I know she was.” He laughed. “And now I see why you were so eager to send her for an early holiday in the village.”
