It was not a lie, he did make her feel safe for some reason. She put one hand on his arm. Even through the coarse linen of the shirt she had borrowed from one of the waiters, he felt cold. And hard—although she could feel the faintest tremor beneath her palm. He was exhausted, she guessed, and in pain, and the loss of blood cannot have helped. ‘You should go up to bed and rest now.’
He seemed to consider it, then nodded. At least she was dealing with a reasonable man and not a foolish one who felt he had to pretend to be invincible in front of a female. She gathered up his discarded clothing and opened the door. ‘Just one flight of stairs to manage. The door is open. If you drop all your clothes but that shirt outside, I will have them cleaned and repaired.’
He nodded again and made his way out. She left him to it, conscious of his pride, but watched from the foot of the stairs. ‘What is your name?’
‘Ivo,’ he said, then stopped on the next step up without looking back at her. ‘Major Lord Merton.’ He took two more dogged steps up, then stopped again, one big, scarred hand on the rail. ‘Or, no, I keep forgetting: Lord Kendall.’
‘But the Earl of Kendall died just a few months ago...’ Her brain caught up with her tongue. ‘I do beg your pardon—that was your father?’
‘Yes.’ He kept climbing.
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it firmly. The Earl would not want to stand there discussing his titles on the stairs or satisfying her curiosity about what the grandson, and now heir, of a marquess was doing fighting ridiculous odds in an alehouse.
She waited until the door closed behind him, then climbed the stairs and sat three steps down from the top, waiting for there to either be the sound of about six foot of man hitting the floor or for the door to open and the rest of his clothes to appear.
There was some thumping, but no thudding, and then a pair of boots and a heap of clothing were put outside and it was closed again, very firmly. Jane scooped up everything and carried the bundle down. Out of habit she shook each item out and checked the pockets and found only a handkerchief of plain, good linen and a crumpled bill from an inn dated a week before. She set that aside. Then, as she folded the coat, something crackled. Inside the breast pocket was a folded paper, creased and marked with dirty finger marks. It was unsealed. She smoothed it out and tucked it, along with the inn account, into the pocket in the front of the sketchbook that she used to keep notes and spare pieces of paper flat. Neither looked important and she could replace them in his pocket when the maid had finished setting the clothes to rights.
She found a chambermaid and arranged for whatever washing, pressing and brushing could be managed, then ordered herself a pot of tea in the tiny private parlour.
She was not going to fuss over Lord Kendall, she decided as she sipped. Nor, unusually in her experience, did he appear to expect her to do so. Her father and brother always wanted to be made much of when they were ill. Even a mild cold in the head was grounds for medicines, stream infusions, large fires in the bedchamber and much gruel.
In this case she had organised a hot brick for the bed, a jug of water and some willow bark powder for the bedside and His Lordship’s clothes would be returned to proper order—that, surely, was all that would be required of her.
If he was prepared—and able—to escort her to Batheaston in return for his rescue, then she would be happy to accept, because he was certain to be more entertaining than Billing and he would save her from any male annoyances on the journey.
Unless Lord Kendall proved to be a male annoyance himself... She pondered the question, adding sugar to her tea as she did so, aware that her own immediate instincts might not be reliable. But his manner had held nothing of either the predator, or the rake, and she was quite well aware that, although she was perfectly presentable, she was no beauty to tempt a man to try unwelcome flirting.
Goodness, but Melissa would be delighted with news of this accidental meeting, although Jane rather suspected that Lord Kendall was not good-looking enough to satisfy her fantasies. There was nothing wrong with his height or figure; his hair—and he had all of it—was thick and dark and his teeth seemed good. But he was not what one would consider a handsome man, exactly. He was too...too male for elegance. His brows were too heavy, his mouth set too hard, his jaw looked stubborn and his nose was not straight. The heroes of Melissa’s novels tended to be elegant, blond and modelled on Grecian statues—with the addition of clothing, of course.
Jane picked up her sketchbook and studied her drawings. He did have admirably defined muscles which would be both educational, and a pleasure, to draw in more detail. Although that pursuit of accurate detail was what had landed her in trouble in the first place...
I am an artist, I must not be hidebound by convention, I must be prepared to suffer for my art, she told herself. If drawing Lord Kendall naked could be defined as suffering, exactly. As if I could ever pluck up the courage to ask him to pose in any degree of undress.
* * *
When the clock struck six Jane decided to order her dinner and to send one of the waiters up to see whether Lord Kendall was awake and, if so, whether he wanted anything to eat. The parlour appeared to have no bell, so she opened the door. ‘Oh!’
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Newnham.’ The Earl stepped back so that her nose was no longer virtually in his neckcloth. ‘I was about to knock.’
‘You have your clothes back,’ she said.
Idiot, of course he has!
‘As you see.’ A fastidious valet would probably shudder, but the inn staff had done an excellent job and had even managed to iron the neckcloth into some semblance of crispness.
‘Would you like to come in and sit down? I was just about to find someone and order dinner. It is early, I know, but I have to confess to feeling decidedly hungry.’
‘Thank you.’ He stepped into the room just as a maid appeared behind him, looking harassed and wiping her hands on her apron.
‘The missus says, sorry the bell isn’t there, but a gentleman in his cups fell over and pulled it out of the ceiling last week and would you and the gentleman be wanting anything in the way of dinner, miss? Only the London stage is due in about ten minutes and the Mail half an hour after that and
the kitchen will be in a right bustle when they get in.’
‘We were just about to order. Do you have an appetite, my... Ivo dear?’
He gave her a look down that not-straight nose. ‘I do indeed, Jane dear.’
‘Well, we’ve got game pie or a roast fowl or there’s some collops of veal in a cream sauce. And oxtail soup to start and an apple pie and cream.’