“Sure, love,” Caleb agreed.
“And you should stop with the ‘love,’ ” she added severely.
He gave her a long look. Then, stepping toward her, he leaned in so as to speak in a low, warm voice that, like his manners, had been polished over the years but still occasionallyglided through slum strength and educated softness. It rounded vowels here and there, doing Things to Amelia’s nerve endings.
“I’m never giving up my ‘love,’ ” he said. Then he walked on, the backs of his fingers deliberately brushing against her skirt as he went.
Well, really!Amelia stiffened withtitillationoutrage!But she had to quickly unstiffen and follow him or else she’d be forced to run to catch up.
They arrived back at the carriage in time to hear Vanity say, “Heavens, Sergeant Sheffield, I’msureyou can guess what I spy with my little eye!” The sergeant made no reply, but his silence spoke volumes. Indeed, it was practically a thousand-page Russian novel.
“Miss Tunnicliffe,” Caleb said with a cheerful smile as he sat down, “would you like to see my antique candle snuffer?”
Vanity’s eyes widened. “Ooh, yes, please!”
Caleb took the snuffer from his coat pocket, tapping its side as he did so, and…
“Oops!” he said as he dropped it. His foot jerked, kicking the snuffer beneath one of the bench seats. A faint blue glow drifted across the floor.
And thus they were able to enjoy the next few hours in blessed silence.
Chapter Four
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat
the class if they want to earn their degree.
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
A cold wind sweptover the fells surrounding Staveley, dragging shadows like a warning of the night to come. The village’s lights glimmered pale and fragile within a cocoon of chimney smoke, but not even that uncertain comfort was to be found along the narrow lane leading up to Ravenscroft Manor, home of the baronet Sir Nigel Harroway. This was old land, land like a strange wild dream, and walking it required heart as well as muscle.
“I’m going to perish from exhaustion,” Caleb complained, pressing his hand against his brow. “If pneumonia doesn’t get me first, that is. I can’t believe Ottersock would force us to walk such a terrible road!”
He didn’t have to even glance in Amelia’s direction to know she was regarding him with a cool steadiness. “You haven’t walked it yet,” she pointed out. “You are in fact sitting in a pub, enjoying tea. There’s no reason to be quite so dramatic.”
“I’m preparing myself,” he retorted. “One glance at Miss Tunnicliffe’s map told me all I need to know.”
Amelia remained unimpressed. “It’s just over a mile.”
“A mileuphill,” he specified, jabbing his ham sandwich at her. “I’m an antiquarian; I’m not made for physical labor.”
“You play rugby on the weekends.”
“That’s different. Besides, I heard thunder before. We’re going to be caught in a storm and become lost forever in the wilds.”
“The farmlands,” Amelia corrected him.
“The grimdark hills,” he shot back.
“Ahem.”Vanity cleared her throat with loud impatience. All her cheerfulness was gone, the seven-hour journey from Oxford having eroded it to the degree that she now made Bloody Queen Mary seem jovial. Even her topknot was beginning to droop. “Sergeant Sheffield should be back any moment with a rented carriage or horses,” she said, and glared at the pub’s door as if she could will him into returning. “Any. Minute.”
“I’m not so sure,” Caleb argued. “Sheffield seems like a sensible chap. After spending all day being threatened with charades, chitchat, that brown water the railway company thinks is coffee, and now a long—long—hike uphill”—he flung a pointed look at Amelia—“he’s probably fled back to the safety of the army.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Amelia said, frowning mildly over the rim of her teacup.
“Ridiculous for you, Professor Tarrant,” he replied with a hand on his heart.
Amelia raised her eyes toward the ceiling, on which someone had painted the poet Wordsworth wandering among clouds. But in fact, Caleb had been speaking unironically. She looked tired, her face even paler than usual, her eyes limned with shadows. The least he could do was annoy her into alertness until they were able to rest for the night.
