Toby had no right to feel that deep ache of need when he looked at her.
“What happened?” she asked as he took what she held out to him.
He struggled with what to do for a few seconds, and then opened his door wider, and waved her inside, as clearly she wasn’t about to leave.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not coming in there. I know your reputation.”
He snorted. “In my current state, and because you hate me, I’m thinking you’re safe.”
She just stood there looking at him out of those cool blue eyes.
“I think that whoever is supplying the whiskey for the Gill is supplying this inn,” Toby said. “And if you want to know more than that you have to come inside, because I need to sit down.”
Toby walked away from her and fell into the seat he’d recently left. He heard her move, and then she was standing a few feet to his right.
“A man approached me downstairs wanting to know why I was enquiring about the whiskey, and I recognized him as he’d been in the Gill earlier and made Liam uncomfortable. He wasn’t happy that I was asking questions and threatened me.”
“He threatened a viscount?”
Toby nodded. “He took exception to something I said, and we fought. Jasper and Rory were there too.”
“Are they all right?” Concern was clear on her face.
Her worry was for them, not him.
“They are. I think whatever this business with Bidham is, it’s dangerous and concerns the whiskey in some way, my lady. I think you should—”
“I know what you think, and I’m not interested.” She gripped the blanket tighter. “Bidham is my village too, and I will not shy away from helping the people who live in it, as you have.”
He ignored that comment as it was true and instead said, “This is not a game, Lady Liberty.”
“Oh, because I thought it was, clearly,” she said in a mocking tone, which made him grit his teeth. She’d always been able to annoy him into a response, but he was no longer that boy.
“Anything you hear, you must tell me,” Toby said deliberatelymaking his words sound threatening. “Take no risks.”
“I am nobody’s fool, my lord.” She then walked out of his room slowly, closing the door softly behind her.
“When did my life become so complicated?” He knew the answer to that question. This morning, when he’d seen Liberty walk out of that bakery.
Deciding that tomorrow was soon enough to think more about what he’d learned regarding Bidham, Toby stripped off his clothes, washed, and fell into bed. Tomorrow he would reiterate once more that Liberty was to take no risks. For now, he needed sleep, and he would get it with his old friend in the room next door.
He woke six hours later, to be told by Rory that Lady Liberty had left for London as the sun rose. Ignoring the anger he had no right to feel, he was soon following.
Chapter Seven
Aweek afterhe’d found Liberty injured on the side of the road, Toby was still struggling to get her out of his head.Was she healing?He’d not seen her at any society functions and could not simply turn up at her door asking after her, when he’d ignored her for years.
Was her head actually worse than he’d originally thought?
Toby wanted to knock on her father’s door and demand an explanation why she’d left that inn without telling him. Then he wanted an assurance she was indeed healthy.
The woman had not crossed his mind in years, other than when he saw her at a society gathering, but one encounter and he could think of little else. She believed him to be a womanizing rake and a wastrel, which in part was true, but it bothered him Liberty thought of him that way.
“Because you’re a fool,” he muttered, gripping the rope tighter, and beginning to climb. Beside him his friend, Lord Jamieson Stafford, was doing the same, and faster, which annoyed Toby excessively. He’d always been fiercely competitive.
