By evening, it became obvious that the ship would not make the mouth of the Tyne at a reasonable hour. Erran gathered up hammocks from below and carried them to the cabin, where Miss Rochester sat on a smaller bench and sewed by the light of an oil sconce. Her useless companion still lay groaning on the larger seat.
Erran seriously regretted letting the lady talk him into this. No matter how much he wanted to succeed at the task of removing the Rochesters to their own home, he knew better than to travel with a woman, and still, he’d let her overcome his common sense with female illogic. At the moment, he was just relieved that he wasn’t being battered by bitter complaints. Yet. As the ship pitched and night fell, he braced himself for a tirade.
“Even if we can sail upriver and reach port tonight, it will be too late to disembark and find an inn,” he explained as he hooked up the hammocks. “We will have to sleep on board.”
The storm had mostly passed, but the sea was rough. Miss Rochester cast her moaning companion a look of concern. “I don’t suppose there are blankets or pillows to make Mrs. Lorna more comfortable?”
“I’ll find blankets. Is there anything in your trunks that might be rolled into a pillow?”
She wrinkled her patrician nose. “My petticoats will have to do. I’ve more linen in my sewing basket. I can wrap them in that.”
Expecting the usual female complaints, Erran was surprised by her calm resilience, but he refused to give her the pleasure of knowing it. He nodded curtly. “I’ll leave you to prepare for bed. I trust our crew, but once we’re up the river in Newport, the ship will be accessible to thieves. I cannot in all conscience leave you alone. If Mrs. Lorna sleeps on the bench, I’ll take this other hammock.”
He watched in satisfaction as her eyes widened in alarm, but still, she said nothing. He’d really wanted her to speak so he could judge whether she hated the idea or not. But she was perceptive and had learned to stay silent to give him no hint.
After he’d correctly judged her relief beneath her earlier cold declaration that he could leave or stay, she was rightly wary of speaking.
She wanted him near her. To his disgust, Erran was learning how a beautiful woman could inflate his pride. Previously, his only relationships with women had been of the mutually satisfactory physical kind. He’d never tried to please one.
He wanted to please Miss Rochester.
The companion did not do no more than moan while they made arrangements. By the time Erran returned with blankets, Miss Rochester had turned off the lamp so he could not admire the full effect of her slender form without billowing skirts. But he was painfully aware of her as they arranged the hammocks and blankets in such close proximity.
Their chaperone was almost completely useless.
Acting on his urges was a sure way to fall into the parson’s mousetrap. Unlike most of his infamous family, he did not intend to support a raft of bastards.
“We will be in Newport by morning?” she whispered as they settled into their respective canvases.
“If the tide is right, we’ll be there before midnight. In the morning, I will find transportation north. Lady Aster has given me a list of inns where we might stop for the last few days of our journey. You should sleep better tomorrow night.”
“I have not slept well since we left Jamaica,” she said sadly. “I will be content to sleep at all.”
Erran had no reason to feel guilt at her admission, but he winced at her honesty.
***
Two men had to haul Mrs. Lorna into the dinghy the next morning.
“I don’t think she is well enough to travel further,” Celeste murmured in dismay as they climbed up the embankment from the river, with Mrs. Lorna still clinging to one of the crew.
She had passed a restless night with Lord Erran only a few feet away. He didn’t snore, but she had been painfully aware of his masculine proximity. He had been the perfect gentleman, though. She had almost been disappointed.
“We’ll find an inn to break our fast and discuss what to do next,” Lord Erran said grimly, casting about for transportation.
They pried the older woman, moaning, into a battered open carriage. The crew tied on their trunks, and Lord Erran rode with the driver as they traversed pitted roads to the inn that had been recommended. Celeste held up Mrs. Lorna’s head and patted her hands and watched their surroundings with interest.
The Jamaica she knew was sprawling green and fields of sugar cane. It had no manufactories, no coal heaps, no burgeoning industry of the likes she saw around her. Coal dust and neglect had left much of the town dilapidated and filthy, but the streets bustled with activity.
This was the world to which Lord Erran aspired with his mechanical friends?
He had never said as much, but she had heard his fascination when he spoke of the sewing mechanism and talked with his friends about the amazing steam engine that had allowed them to travel so swiftly. She liked the notion that the fastidious gentleman didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when he was playing with machines. It was an interesting dichotomy of intellect and manual skill—pursuits only a young, unattached man might follow.
She would remind herself of that every time Lord Erran looked at her as if she might actually hold his interest. He no doubt thought of her as a puzzle to be solved and certainly not in a way that might suggest permanence. She needed a real home and security. She would more likely find that in Jamaica than with lordly English gentlemen.
Once settled at the inn in a comfortable parlor with tea and coffee and a large breakfast, Mrs. Lorna showed signs of recovery. She asked to be excused to repair herself, leaving Celeste alone with Lord Erran—not an auspicious sign that her companion had all her faculties about her.
“I hate to mention this,” Celeste said as she studied the situation. “But I fear we have somehow convinced Mrs. Lorna that we . . . are above the usual propriety?”
Pacing the small parlor while sipping his coffee, Lord Erran scowled. “She’s just not well.”
“I will not cast aspersions on Lady Aster’s trained employees. A proper companion would insist that I go with her so we could help repair each other. She has left me here as if I am of no moment. My choice is to believe she thinks I’m not a lady or to believe she thinks I am above reproach. I have chosen to believe the latter.” Celeste buttered her toast and ate hungrily, undisturbed that he did not understand what she was telling him. He didn’t want to believe in his gift, so he wouldn’t acknowledge hers.
“She is not well and I cannot see how we can go on,” he insisted. “I don’t want to leave you here alone for the week or more it might take me to journey to Wystan and search the library. But I cannot punish that poor woman by rocking her about in a post chaise over rutted roads.”
Celeste considered her options as she ate. She was fairly certain she would not reach the same conclusions as Lord Erran. Unfortunately, he was not susceptible to her counter suggestions. She would have to work around him.
The merit of clearing her name, establishing the date of her father’s marriage, and possibly finding information about where he may have stored copies of his will far exceeded that of propriety, in her opinion.
Rather than argue, she waited for Mrs. Lorna’s return. Lord Erran finally took a seat and emptied his plate. She could feel his tension as much as her own. He knew what they had to do. He simply would not admit it, stubborn man.
Even after a night in a hammock, he managed to look unrumpled and elegant. Yes, his linen was a little worse for wear, but his tailored coat would not dare possess a wrinkle, it clung so lovingly to his broad chest and slim hips. And he’d already had someone wipe the mud from his boots. On a practical level, he’d donned mud brown for his traveling attire instead of the white and gray he often wore at home. Only his gold vest revealed his dandyish side.
She was starting to understand that Lord Erran presented the casual elegance of wealth to influence the company his brother’s business needed. He no doubt needed that image in court as well. On his own—he would have fixed things by grubbing in oily machines.
Mrs. Lorna hurried in, using a damp handkerchief to wipe her brow, pushing at her spectacles, and trying to tuck straying gray curls back under her cap. “I am so sorry. I usually do not do so poorly. I fear I have been a terrible burden on you.”
“Dear Mrs. Lorna,” Celeste said in her most charming voice. She patted the chair beside her. “You will make yourself ill by fussing so. We have decided that it would be best if you stay here with your feet up, and a maid to look after you until you are well enough to travel again. You deserve every consideration after that horrible steamship.”
Lord Erran sent her a sharp look, apparently hearing her persuasion. Celeste ignored him to fuss over the older lady.
“That is very kind, I’m sure,” the lady said with some bewilderment, settling into her chair. “I do not wish to be a burden in any way.”
Since she was saying exactly what the woman wished to hear, Celeste was confident her charm would sway her. “And you are not a burden! I’m sure dear Lady Aster will approve, if you do not mind staying at an inn. I would not ask you to stay somewhere that you’re not comfortable.” The beauty of her charm, Celeste knew, was that she meant every word.
“I have an aging aunt,” Mrs. Lorna said with eagerness. “She lives close by. Perhaps I could stay with her and be useful.”
“That is perfect!” Celeste cried. “We’ll arrange for you to see her, then. Perhaps when it is time to take the return journey, you will be feeling hale and hearty, and we’ll make a party of it.” She turned a smile to his disgruntled lordship. “You will not need to hire a horse, just the post chaise, correct?”
She feared he struggled against bellowing at her in his riot-inducing voice. But this was the only way. Mrs. Lorna might fret later, when not under the influence of Celeste’s appeal, but for now, her companion was quite happy to be charmed into doing what she wanted to do anyway.
“I will make the arrangements,” Lord Erran all but growled, glaring as if he’d have a word to say to her later.
It was quite freeing not to have to please him, Celeste decided, sipping the inn’s horrible coffee. She could learn to enjoy her independence, if she could just overcome her terror.