“I am,” she said, concentrating like a soldier at a drill. She plucked one apple, then another, passing them down to him. The third required a small leap. She made it, neatly, and a shower of dew shook loose, spotting his cheek and jaw.
“That’s cheating,” he said.
“It’s efficiency,” she said, flushed from the effort. “How many?”
“A dozen at least. Mother will accuse us of greed.”
“She’ll eat two and say the rest are for Louisa.”
“That’s likely.”
Adeline reached again. The branch gave under her weight. She laughed, tried to correct, and the world slid an inch. Winston shifted to catch her. They both overcorrected and went toppling together in the grass with an unceremonious thump and a rain of apples thudding about them like soft stones.
She landed across his chest. He groaned once, both from surprise and from ribs that had not yet forgiven him for placing them in the path of a pair of horses and a carriage. She scrambled to push away.
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t move,” he said through a breath that wanted to be a laugh. “Everything hurts less when nothing moves.”
“You’re insufferable,” she said, and then began to laugh because the sight of apples rolling toward the hedge in slow, dignified escape would have set a saint laughing.
He laughed too, helplessly, until the ache told him to stop. She rolled to the grass at his side and stared up through the grid of branches.
“The Dowager will say we deserve a lecture,” she said.
“She will. I’ll act penitent. You’ll succeed at it.”
They lay in a clean quiet. It was so easy like this that he nearly forgot the questions dogging him. Nearly.
He turned his head. “Adeline…”
The first droplets of rain struck the back of his hand. Another hit her cheek. She blinked. The next came harder. The sky, which had been a calm, flat grey, drew itself into lines of rain.
“Oh,” she said simply.
“Run,” he said, and scrambled to his feet with more speed than wisdom.
They gathered the horses, swung up, and rode. The lane had turned slick in minutes. Water sheeted off the hedges and ran in quick threads across the road. Adeline’s bonnet brim funneled drops into her lashes until she gave up and pushed it back.
“There,” Winston said, nodding toward a signboard at the bend of the road, a painted bell crossed by a hunting horn.
“The Bell and Horns.”
“Half a mile?”
“At most.” He set his jaw against the rain and urged his horse on.
By the time they reached the yard, they were soaked through. The ostler ran, took their reins, and shouted for a boy to fetch dry linen. The inn’s door stood open, heat and the smell of ale and stewing beef rolling out like a promise.
“Rooms?” Winston asked the landlord, who had appeared in an apron that had seen a day’s work already.
“Two, sir, if you’ll take them adjoining,” the man said, quick to place manners above curiosity. “We’ll bring hot bricks and set fires.”
“Do so,” Winston said, and pressed a sovereign into his palm to encourage speed.
They were shown up a narrow staircase to two small rooms with a connecting door. Each had a low hearth, a narrow bed, and a chair with a sagging cane seat. The boy laid kindling and had flames going in moments. The landlord’s wife brought a rack for their garments and two rough pieces of cotton that still smelled faintly of lye. Adeline stood still for a moment in the middle of her room, water pooling under her hem. The fire crackled. Her fingers slipped on the fastenings of her dress.
On the other side of the adjoining door came the scrape of a boot, the soft curse of a man whose shirt stuck to him in all the wrong places, and the steady pace of someone thinking too hard. She undressed to her stays and shift, wrung water from her stockings, and hung them before the fire. The heat smarted her skin to life. She stood close and reached her hands toward the flames. The room was quiet now except for the fire and the dull thud of her own heart.
