November 20th, 1808
Bristol
Icarus drifted awake. He blinked his eyes drowsily open, saw a bedchamber and faint light creeping through chintz curtains, and closed his eyelids again, sinking back into warm, lingering contentment, sliding back towards sleep. The sound of his door quietly opening caught his attention.
Icarus reluctantly opened his eyes again.
Green peered around the door. The young man’s face lit up. He advanced into the room, a steaming ewer in his hands. “You’re awake, sir!”
Regretfully, Icarus abandoned thought of sleeping again. He levered himself up to sitting, and yawned. He felt deliciously relaxed, deliciously rested. He rubbed his face, raked his hands through his hair, yawned again. “What time is it?”
“Half past eleven, sir,” Green said, putting down the ewer and drawing open the curtains.
“Half past eleven?”
Green grinned, an expression almost of pride on his face. “You slept the clock round, sir.”
“Half past eleven?” Icarus repeated foolishly, his brain still half-asleep.
“Mrs. Reid said not to wake you. And she said to tell you that she’s gone visiting some churches, and she’ll be back for luncheon at one, and she’s ordered breakfast for you, and it’s eggs and sirloin, and you’re to eat all of it.” Green said this all in a rush, with an expression on his face that made Icarus think of a puppy wagging its tail, eager to please.
Eggs and sirloin? All of it? Icarus tried to feel annoyed by this high-handedness, but all he felt was hungry. Green was still looking at him with that eager-puppy expression. Clearly a response was required. “Very good,” Icarus said.
Green grinned again, and busied himself at the washstand, laying out Icarus’s razor and a towel, pouring hot water into the bowl. “Would you like some tea, sir? I can fetch a pot right up.”
What I need is to pee. “Yes, thank you,” Icarus said.
He pissed in the chamber pot while Green was gone, and placed it back under the bed. The brandy bottle caught his eye. Memory surged back. Miss Trentham sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed, the taste of brandy on his tongue, the sound of her voice, cool and melodic, easing him towards sleep.
The surge of memory rolled over him like a tidal wave: he’d told her he was already dead, and she’d cried, and he’d kissed her.
Icarus halted, barefoot on the rug. I made Miss Trentham cry? I kissed her? He shook his head sharply and advanced to the washstand. That wasn’t memory; it was a dream. Of course he hadn’t kissed her. But even as he washed his hands, he knew he was lying to himself. Miss Trentham had definitely cried last night, and he had definitely kissed her. Kissed her for a long time. Kissed her until he’d fallen asleep.
Icarus found himself reluctant to face Miss Trentham over luncheon. He washed and shaved quickly, went down to the private parlor and ate three eggs and a piece of sirloin, and took the stairs two at a time back to his room, where he shrugged into his greatcoat and tucked the landlord’s map into a pocket. He pulled on his gloves and set his hat on his head. “Mrs. Reid will be back shortly,” Green said, observing these signs of imminent departure.
“Tell her I’m sorry to have missed her, but I have some business I must attend to.” Miss Trentham would have heard the lie in his words, but Green didn’t. “I’ll see her this evening at dinner.”
He hastened down the stairs and out into the street, telling himself that he was not fleeing—but he knew this for self-deception. He was fleeing. He didn’t feel remotely up to facing Miss Trentham. How on earth was he going to look her in the eye? He’d kissed her, for Christ’s sake! And not just a peck on the cheek. A thoroughly intimate kiss, his tongue in her mouth.
Icarus winced. How had he forgotten himself so far as to do that? It was beyond improper!
He hurried off, his gaze fixed on the grimy cobblestones. If Miss Trentham was coming along the street, he didn’t want to see her.
He hailed a hackney and chose a parish at random. By the time he discovered the churchwarden’s name, located the man, and ascertained that Sergeant Houghton wasn’t one of the parish’s pensioners, it was nearly two o’clock. He visited three more parish churches, with similar lack of results. At dusk, he gave up and walked wearily back to the Swan. Coalsmoke was acrid in his mouth. A light drizzle fell. He turned up his collar and hunched his shoulders. A hackney clattered past, but Icarus ignored it. He was in no hurry to return to the Swan, and in no hurry at all to dine with Miss Trentham. Lord, how was he going to meet her eyes? What on earth was he going to say to her?
An apology was clearly required.
Icarus spent the next twenty minutes trying to come up with one. The trouble was, they were all so damned stilted and awkward and—if he wasn’t careful—obliquely insulting to Miss Trentham. And on top of that, whatever he said had to be truthful.
He settled on a beginning—I apologize for my lapse of good manners last night—and an end—I give you my word of honor it won’t happen again—but the middle eluded him.
His steps slowed when he neared the Swan. The cobblestones were slick with moisture and slightly slippery. At the corner, Icarus halted and gazed across at the inn. He was nervous, and that realization annoyed him. He was thirty years old, for Christ’s sake. It was absurd to be put out of countenance by a kiss.
He crossed the street briskly. He’d made a mountain out of a molehill. It was quite simple: go in, meet her eyes, apologize. His apology didn’t need to be grandiloquent. It didn’t need a flowery middle. A beginning and an end were fine. I apologize for my lapse of good manners last night. I give you my word of honor it won’t happen again. Short and simple. And then they could go back to how things had been.
Even so, he was extremely relieved not to meet Miss Trentham on the staircase, and equally relieved to find the door to her bedchamber closed. Icarus gave Green his hat and greatcoat to dry, washed his hands and face, tied a fresh neckcloth, and went reluctantly down to the private parlor. He took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Letty lifted her gaze from her book. Don’t blush, she told herself sternly. She closed the book and put it aside, trying to look calm, but she wasn’t calm at all. Her heart was beating far too fast and her lungs seemed to be half the size they normally were.
Icarus Reid had kissed her last night.
Reid shut the door. She thought his cheeks colored faintly beneath his tan, and realized that he was just as embarrassed as she was.
That realization gave Letty a little courage. She found a smile. “Good evening, Mr. Reid.”
“I apologize for my lapse of good manners last night,” Reid said, and his cheeks definitely did color. “I give you my word it won’t happen again.”
Letty’s smile faded. He regrets kissing me. And how could she have doubted that he’d regret it? She was no beauty. Of course he regretted kissing her.
A tight, nauseous feeling grew in her belly. Make a joke of this. Don’t let him see you’re upset.
“What a shame.” Her voice was light and amused. “I had quite hoped it would.” The truth, spoken as if it was a jest, as if his kiss hadn’t been the most important thing to ever happen to her.
“Of course not!” Reid said. “It would be grossly improper and . . . and wrong. Your reputation—”
“My reputation?” What that was this was about? “Mr. Reid, if we’re discovered traveling in each other’s company, my reputation will be worth no more than a ha’penny. Less, probably!”
Reid grimaced, and didn’t dispute this truth.
Letty tried to read his face. Did he want to kiss her again, or not?
She hadn’t the courage to ask him directly so instead she said, in as careless a tone as she could manage, “And if we’re not discovered, then it doesn’t matter what we do, does it?”