“Well done.” James tried for a light tone, but she watched him warily out of the corner of her eye after they’d settled into the cab.
“Waverley Station,” he told the driver.
“Are we catching the train, then? We could have walked in the time it will take the cab to deliver us.”
James placed his hand over hers where it lay in her lap, holding tight to her bag.
“The explanation is coming, I promise. I thought the station would be the best place to hire a coach to take us to Invermere.”
She had every right to be curious and wonder at his behavior. Truth be told, he wasn’t relishing the explanation. But she deserved one.
At the station, Lucy seemed as intent as he to find them a coach.
“There he is!”
Before he could stop her, Lucy darted off toward a man in a weathered greatcoat. The man’s coat was pitch-black, clearly not the watcher he’d encountered on Princes Street. James approached as she began a conversation with the man.
“He’ll take us,” she told him. “And helpfully, he knows the way. This is Mr. Tavish. He’s the coachman who delivered me to Invermere.”
The man touched his cap as he acknowledged James. A few minutes later, they were on their way.
Lucy settled onto the bench across from him, loosening the tie of her cloak before slipping it off. Sitting across from her reminded him of their first train ride together.
He’d expected that journey to change his life but never expected it would be because of the noblewoman he’d met on the platform.
She studied him boldly, tracing the features ofhis face, even glancing down at his shoulders, his chest, his legs. As if she was memorizing him or preparing to paint his portrait.
“I’m ready now,” she told him.
Her softly spoken words melted the tension of the past hour, and he smiled.
“I’m ready for your explanation.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lucy had quite a bit of experience with gentlemen being appalled by her. She’d asked enough awkward questions and interrupted a sufficient number of pompous young men to see shock, offense, and even disdain on men’s faces for years.
But she’d never truly cared about any of them. They were cads or fawning fortune hunters who cornered her at a dinner party one moment and were forgotten the next.
However, James Pembroke wasn’t a man she would soon forget, and despite her resolve not to become smitten with the first handsome gentleman she met during this adventure of independence, she feared that she had. Become smitten, that was.
Utterly and irrevocably.
What she saw in his eyes now—fear and the desire to avoid her and this conversation—pained her in a deep part of her heart that she’d thought impervious to things like infatuation and charming scoundrels.
“I need to know—”
“I know.” He didn’t shout the words, but the way he cut her off made her clench her teeth.
She trusted him. So much that she’d allowed him to touch her, allowed herself to be alone with him from almost the moment they met. Good heavens, she’d gone to his bedroom in the dead of night intent on making him the first man—perhaps the only man—to kiss her.
But he couldn’t trust her with whatever seemed to be eating at him from the inside out. And the worst of it was that she’d always known. He’d been reticent on the train, and she’d accepted that because they were strangers, even if there’d never truly been a moment when she hadn’t felt an inexplicable connection with him.
At Invermere, he’d told her more. But still not enough. Just puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit together. Certainly not enough to get a clear picture. So why did she feel so certain that she knew him? Understood him?
She was a young lady who liked facts, and the fact was that she hardly knew James Pembroke at all.
“I’m not sure where to start,” he said roughly.
