“Then enjoy it, dear.” Fancy smiled. “No one deserves it more.”
As the day of departure approached, Severin felt increasingly on edge.
He’d had the unsettled feeling since Lady Beatrice had agreed to the London plan. In his experience, the warp and weft of life was never without wrinkles. Call him cynical, but when things seemed to be going too smoothly, he knew he was about to hit a snag. His history had taught him this.
At age fifteen, he had hauled a girl out of the path of a runaway carriage, only to be struck down himself by Cupid’s Arrow. He’d lost his heart that day to Imogen and had it crushed when she’d married another man ten years later.
At age eighteen, he had quit the Hammonds to work as a guard-for-hire. He’d proven good at the job and saved up enough money to finally get his maman out of the madhouse. He’d paid a mad-doctor to certify her sane, found an attendant who could look after her while he was at work. When he’d told her that during his last visit to see her, his mother’s grey eyes had lit up with rare joy and lucidity. When he’d arrived to take her from Bedlam the next day, an attendant had broken the news: she’d died during the night.
This year, his life had taken perhaps the most unexpected turn of all. He’d inherited a duchy and the guardianship of four siblings. Two of whom hated his guts for trying to curb their wild ways and the other two, well, he hadn’t a clue what to do with thirteen-year-old twins. Yet he couldn’t leave the four to fend for themselves; he knew what that was like and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
In short, life was not easy. If it seemed to be, then trouble was just around the corner.
Thus, Severin was not surprised when Milton Sheridan strode into the drawing room, where he, Lady Beatrice, and Murray were discussing the plans for departure. Severin rose, the hairs on his nape prickling. Even the tinker’s mishmash of an outfit—an appalling mix of puce, saffron, and rust—did not detract from the resolute set of his features. Milton Sheridan looked gravely determined, and that did not bode well.
“We won’t be going to London with you, Miss Bea,” Sheridan announced.
Lady Beatrice’s cup rattled into her saucer. “Why not?”
“Sheridans ain’t city folk,” he said. “We do be’er in open fields, with the sky above our ’eads.”
“But it’s not safe here,” she protested. “After what happened to Fancy—”
“It’s precisely what ’appened to me girl that has me mind made up. We be moving on, Miss Beatrice. The road’s our true ’ome and where we be the safest. We travelling folk know places that others don’t and, what’s more, we be looking out for one another.”
It was clear to Severin that the bloody tinker had made his mind up. Gone was the fellow’s usual good cheer; everything from his posture to his tone said that he would not be moved. Goddamnit. The pressure in Severin’s veins rose; he wanted to throttle some sense into the man. Didn’t Sheridan realize the danger to which he would be exposing his daughter? Did he really think that he and his ragtag comrades could protect Fancy from harm?
When Severin had paid her a brief visit, his chest had clenched at her fragility. She’d looked so small and vulnerable amidst the mounded pillows, her thick locks streaming over her shoulders, her big brown eyes dwarfed by the purplish lump at her temple. And her fear…by Jove, it had shown in every delicate line of her face.
She was terrified, and she needed protection.
Try as he might, he couldn’t shake off the need to give it to her. Logically, he knew it was a bad idea. He had a wife to find, siblings to corral, estates and businesses to run. More to the point, Fancy was a temptation he could ill afford. She was not suitable to be his wife or his mistress…hell, she was like no female he had ever known.
He’d rationalized accompanying her and the others to London; he was headed back in that direction anyway. Sheridan’s new plan, however, was far less convenient. To protect Fancy, Severin would have to take off for parts unknown and for God only knew how long.
“But Fancy’s not fully recovered.” Lady Beatrice went over to Sheridan, as if her proximity would persuade him. “She needs to be looked after.”