Unlacing Lady Thea. Louise Allen

put their foot on the step. ‘Rhys?’

      ‘Not sleeping?’ Shaven but heavy-eyed, he climbed past her, shrugged out of his coat and slid down the bed the footman had created, his booted feet disappearing into the void. ‘Wake me when we stop for breakfast.’ He closed his eyes and curled up on his side. ‘Or for highwaymen.’

      Without his coat Thea had an unimpeded view of the back of his head, his broad shoulders, the quite admirable lines of long thigh muscles and—she made no effort to avert her eyes—a firm, trim backside.

      She stared for a long minute, being only human and female, then fixed her gaze on the postilions as the chaise lurched into motion. Oh, yes, indeed, her childhood friend had grown up. She felt rather as if she had whistled for a friendly hound to come to her side and had found instead she had summoned a wolf. He might be Rhys, but he was also a male. An adult male. With, she recalled, a reputation.

      She brought to mind the sight of him in a box at Covent Garden Theatre, plying a beautiful woman with champagne, and hearing the whispers of the married ladies in her party. He had snatched that ladybird from the keeping of Lord Hepplethwaite and the displaced lord had blustered about calling him out—and had then recalled Rhys’s reputation with a rapier.

      After a few minutes Thea lowered the blind. It was easier on her nerves to see where they were and, if she was looking out of the window, then she was not watching the man slumbering by her side. He was snoring a little, which was not surprising after all he had drunk, she supposed. The sound was oddly comforting.

      A glint of water showed her they were crossing Westminster Bridge, the new gaslights disappointingly extinguished. But the view downriver was as dramatic as when Wordsworth had written about it. ‘The City now doth like a garment wear the beauty of the morning...’ she murmured.

      Beside her Rhys sighed as if in protest at the sound of her voice and turned over, his eyes tightly closed in sleep. His hair was fashionably cropped, but one dark lock fell over his forehead, a vivid reminder of the youth she had known. Thea reached out to brush it back, then stopped, her ungloved hand a fraction above the slightly waving strands. They rose to meet her fingertips like the pelt of a cat that had been stroked until its fur crackled.

      Thea folded her hands in her lap. Some things were better left as dreams and memories. Some things were safer as girlhood follies. After a few minutes she drew the road guide from her reticule, where she had placed it in case she had needed to set out by herself, and unfolded the map.

      They were heading into Southwark. As she had since she had begun this journey, she began to count off milestones in her head. Gathering everything she needed, undetected. Escaping from the house to the King’s Head—not the closest inn, but one where she would not be recognised, despite the extra hour’s walking it added to her flight. Taking the stage. Finding a hackney carriage to Rhys’s house and then, the most difficult part of all, persuading him to take her with him.

      Would he have agreed if he had not been drinking or if he had recognised that she was a grown woman now? She glanced down at his face, pillowed on his bent arm. Those blue eyes were closed, the veiling lashes a dark fringe. The bend in his nose was more visible from this angle and his lips moved slightly with his soft snores. There was a small scar just below his ear. That was new.

      Thea wrenched her attention back to the map and the view from the window. Houses were thinning out; ahead was Deptford, full of history. According to her guidebook, it was where Sir Francis Drake was knighted and where Tsar Peter the Great stayed when he visited England. She watched eagerly for signs of the glamorous past and was sadly disappointed by crowded, dirty streets. They rattled over cobbles, the chaise jerked to a halt several times but Rhys slept on, much to her relief. When he woke, sobered and doubtless with a crashing hangover, would he change his mind about her?

      The road began to climb towards Blackheath. Wake me for highwaymen, Rhys had instructed. Well, if they were to find any, this was a likely spot. She found she could not become very apprehensive, not on a clear June morning. More worrying was wondering where he had given the order for the first change. If it was too close to London, then there was the risk he would send her back. They rattled past the Sun in the Sands, the Fox under the Hill and the Earl of Moira as the road kept climbing. Shooter’s Hill, she supposed, and relaxed a little.

      Now they were slowing. Ahead she could see buildings, swinging inn signs. The postilions turned into the Red Lion’s courtyard and ostlers ran out to make the change as the landlord strode across the yard towards them, attracted no doubt by the coat of arms emblazoned on the carriage doors.

      Thea dropped the window. ‘Shh! His lordship is sleeping,’ she whispered to the man. Hodge appeared beside him and she murmured, ‘Please have something if you need to, but don’t wake his lordship.’

      Hodge showed no surprise, but then, he must have been aware of the state his master had been in when he boarded the chaise. He nodded and went into the inn, her maid on his heels. Thea closed the window and sat on guard, her veil in place, jealously watching for anyone who might disturb Rhys’s sleep. But after the arrival of a stagecoach, an altercation between two stable dogs and the shrill laughter of a kitchen maid flirting with an ostler all failed to do more than make him bury his head more firmly in his arms, she began to think he might sleep all morning, and began to doze herself.

      Hodge opening the door woke her with a start. He passed her a mug of coffee and a napkin wrapped around a bread roll stuffed with bacon and glanced at his unconscious master.

      ‘Does he always sleep like this?’ Thea whispered.

      The valet shook his head. ‘No, my lady.’ He took the mug when she had gulped the cooling coffee and closed the door softly, leaving her more than a little disturbed. Did Hodge mean he always drank that much and therefore slept heavily?

      It had shocked her to find Rhys castaway and to see him toss off brandy as though it were lemonade. The rumours immediately after the fiasco of his wedding day were that he was a man who did not care, who had been glad to lose the responsibility of a wife and that he had plunged into a life of rakish dissipation.

      He had cared, of course. She had seen his face in that first shock of betrayal; she had felt his fingers shake as she had pressed her pocket handkerchief into them, had felt his body rigid with pain when she had risked a brief hug. But then he had turned from the altar rail, a rueful smile on his lips, confessed that he had suspected the impending elopement all along and that he wished the scandalous couple happy.

      For a man not given to falsehood, it was an impressive performance. It confused the gossipmongers, deflected some of the opprobrium from Serena and Paul and, she supposed, it salved Rhys’s pride not to appear a victim, someone to be sorry for.

      When she had been in London for her first Season the only news she could discover of him was that he had steadied, taken his seat in the House of Lords and was managing his estates with a firm hand—but that he had a shocking reputation with women. Far from seeking a new bride, he flirted as if it was a form of elegant warfare, while keeping a string of mistresses who were, she gathered from the whispers, both beautiful and expensive. He was either not invited to the entertainments thought suitable for innocent young ladies, or he chose not to attend them.

      The mothers of hopeful daughters were outraged: a young, wealthy, handsome earl should be setting up his nursery. Preferably with one of their girls, any of whom had been better brought up than that flighty Lady Serena Haslow. If Lord Denham would stop indulging in the pleasures of the flesh and the gaming room long enough, he would soon come to his senses and marry one of them.

      The chaise rattled out of the yard and turned east towards Dartford. No one was forcing Rhys to go on this European trip. A few months ago, with the Continent at war, he could not even have contemplated it. So why was he going now, and why had she sensed such equivocal feelings about it the night before?

      * * *

      The bed, unaccountably bumpy, suddenly tipped. Half awake, Rhys grabbed for the edge, missed it and slid down until his booted feet hit some obstacle. Boots in bed? A gentleman always takes his boots off, at the very least. ‘Where in Hades...?’

      ‘This