Part 13 (1/2)
Tanner pressed the cool wet cloth to her mouth and told her to hold it there. ”That will calm the slight redness I seem to have caused. Yes, Justin's a strange man as well as quick to notice things like a just-kissed mouth. I don't think we want to amuse him any further, do you?”
Lydia pulled the cloth away from her mouth and shook her head. ”We most certainly do not. How is it now?”
”Your mouth?” Tanner smiled, and her heart melted. ”Eminently kissable, as always. Frankly, I should thank Justin for knocking on the door when he did.”
She felt a blush stealing into her cheeks. ”Yes, I suppose we should be grateful to him.” But I'd rather box his ears.
Tanner put a bent finger beneath her chin and raised her face to his. ”We have time, Lydia. All the time in the world to be sure. And tomorrow we'll be at Malvern.”
Nodding, she stepped back, away from temptation, fighting back the words Fitz thought he had all the time in the world, too.
Tanner leaned in and kissed her cheek, lightly squeezed her upper arms. ”I'm now going to do the bravest thing I've ever done. I'm going to turn and leave you here. I'll see you again downstairs.”
Once he was gone, she leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. She'd kissed him? She'd really kissed him? He may have talked as if he wanted to kiss her, had even asked if he could kiss her, but it was she who had kissed him. And he'd walked away?
If he got any more honorable she might have to box his ears, too!
After checking her mouth in the mirror, and then resorting to a bit of rice powder from her dressing case to cover a slight redness on her chin that hadn't been there before Tanner had kissed her, Lydia stepped out into the hallway, turning left toward the stairs.
She was greeted at the bottom of those stairs by a tall, well set-up red-haired man wearing a rather flattering black patch over his left eye. ”Good evening, miss,” he said, bowing politely, if rather nervously. ”Would you perchance be either the Lady Lydia, or Miss Harburton?”
She felt a small stab at the revealing lilt in his voice, but only smiled. ”I am Lydia Daughtry, yes. And you must be Mr. Flynn?”
”That I am, my lady, standing here and feeling as helpless as the devil in a high wind that I don't recognize a duke when I'm riding next to one. Imagine, having the cheek to just go sticking out my hand to a man I should be bowing to and pulling at my forelock, I suppose. I've been pacing about out here these past five minutes or more, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the courage to either sit myself down with my betters or just to take myself off.”
”If His Grace invited you, he meant what he said, Mr. Flynn.” Goodness, but he was big. Just like the captain, who could make her feel small and coddled, protected. There was just something comfortable and soothing about the lilt in an Irish voice, the softness in Irish eyes. ”Now why don't you please escort me to the dining room, as I've just realized I have no idea where it is.”
Flynn inclined his head to her and offered his arm. ”It would be my distinct pleasure, Lady Lydia, and my greatest hope that you tell no one I'm hiding behind your skirts.”
She laughed at that, and was still smiling when they entered the private dining room at the rear of the inn to see that everyone else was already there.
Tanner and Justin rose to their feet, shook hands with Mr. Flynn, and Tanner introduced him to Jasmine.
”It is an honor and a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Harburton,” Flynn said, bowing.
Jasmine quite pointedly ignored him. ”Tanner? Can we please eat now. I've been patient ever so long. Really, Lydia, I would think you could have been down sooner. In consideration of others.”
Lydia felt an unaccustomed urge to box ears this evening, it seemed, because she would like nothing more than to box Jasmine's at the moment. The girl had wandered off twice today, upsetting her cousin, delaying their journey, and now she was complaining about being forced to wait on somebody else?
”You're right, Jasmine,” she only said, taking up the chair Mr. Flynn had pulled out for her. ”I do apologize for my tardiness. Thank you, Mr. Flynn.”
”Always my honor, Lady Lydia, to a.s.sist a beautiful woman,” Flynn said, seating himself beside her before unfolding her serviette and handing it to her.
”Jasmine,” Tanner prompted. ”Lydia has apologized. As should you, frankly.”
But, and probably more noticeable for how seldom silence was all that was heard when Jasmine was in a room, the girl did not accept the apology.
Lydia spread her serviette in her lap before looking across the table at the young woman, who was now glaring at her with hatred naked in her lovely green eyes.
”I'm no longer hungry. And I think you're horrid, all of you,” the girl said, and the gentlemen pushed back their chairs and hurriedly got to their feet as Jasmine, her own serviette pressed to her mouth, raced out of the room, sobbing.
”Volatile little thing, isn't she?” Justin said calmly, seating himself once more and reaching for the domed lid of one of the many silver pieces that adorned the table. ”Ah, well, more for the rest of us, as they say. Mr. Flynn, do you perhaps care for some Potage a la Monglas? It's a particular specialty of my man, Wigglesworth.”
The look on Mr. Flynn's face was so comical that Lydia had to cough to cover a laugh. ”Chicken soup, Mr. Flynn. The baron is only having fun with you.”
”The correct term is fowl, Lady Lydia, if you please. White-legged, as Wigglesworth will settle for nothing less. We don't insult such fine birds by calling them mere chickens.”
”I stand corrected, although I doubt the fowl, in its current condition, really cares overmuch,” Lydia said, as always enjoying the baron's banter. ”But I notice you haven't corrected me on the notion that you're having yourself some fun at Mr. Flynn's expense.”
The big man visibly relaxed. ”Oh, so is that what he's doing? He needn't have bothered. I'm already shocked all hollow by this lovely ma.s.s of silver everywhere. I didn't know any inn could be so fine.”
Justin laughed shortly. ”And now who is having fun with whom, Mr. Flynn? Tanner, pour the man a gla.s.s of wine. I do believe we're going to pa.s.s a most enjoyable evening. Why, we may all even be able to get a word or two in edgewise.”
Lydia was inclined to agree, but couldn't help but worry about Jasmine. ”Should I go upstairs to see if I can coax her back to the table? She really should eat something, Tanner.”
”No,” he said firmly. ”If she wants to sulk, let her sulk. I'll have a tray sent up to her room. I don't know what set her off, and I find that I really don't care to know.”
”Then perhaps I should join her, and leave you gentlemen to your meal,” she said, realizing that she was now the lone woman at table with three gentlemen, and with Mrs. Shandy and Sarah still not arrived at the inn. Drat Jasmine for being so selfis.h.!.+
”Do you really want to join her, Lydia?” Tanner asked her.
”No,” she admitted quietly. ”I'm afraid I have little patience for sulks.”
”Yet such a pretty little thing,” Mr. Flynn said, lifting his wine gla.s.s. ”To all the pretty ladies, absent or otherwise. Where would we be without them?”
”Out hunting for them?” Justin opined merrily, clinking gla.s.ses with the man.
Lydia smiled, as she knew she should, but then thought again of the look of hatred in Jasmine's eyes. That look had been directed straight at her, certainly not at Mr. Flynn, who she didn't even know. But why? Had she somehow found out that the letter in her reticule was no longer her secret? If so, she really did have to apologize, which would be horribly embarra.s.sing for both of them.
She was saved from making a decision with the arrival of Mrs. Shandy, who bustled into the room with many a head bob and curtsy before taking up a chair in the corner and pulling her knitting from a huge bag she'd carried with her.
”Oh, good. We're all decent now,” Justin remarked before personally preparing Jasmine's empty plate for the woman and then placing it on a small table Tanner had drawn up to her chair.
”Oh, Your Grace, but I couldn't,” Mrs Shandy said, actually blus.h.i.+ng.
”Nonsense,” Tanner said. ”Lady Lydia is made that much more comfortable by your presence, and everyone else, I'm a.s.sured, is already being fed in the taproom. You should not have to forgo your dinner. You've been on the road all the day long. Justin, some wine for Mrs. Shandy?”
”Certainly. And shall I cut her meat for her while I'm at it, do you think? Trim away any little bits of fat?”
”This was your idea, you know,” Tanner said as Lydia placed Jasmine's knife and fork on the small table, along with handing the thoroughly fl.u.s.tered chaperone a serviette.
”I think you're both very sweet and considerate,” Lydia said, returning to her own chair.
”We're adorable, actually. Especially my good friend, Tanner. I, on the other hand, always have ulterior motives.”
”Yes, I know,” Lydia said quietly, not that the deaf-as-a-post chaperone would hear her at any rate. ”You have amorous designs on Mrs. Shandy.”