The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [20]
“And just who’d you be, my fine lad?” she said, striking a pose, one hand on her hip and her chest poked out.
The fine lad answered with a wide smile, “Who do you want me to be? Your father, perhaps? No, that isn’t possible, is it? I would have to scold the gentleman who was making you laugh, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Oh, you’re a fine one, you are! All jests and games and a well-oiled tongue. You want to see someone here?”
Sinjun nodded. She saw a gentleman from the corner of her eye as he slipped into a door off the main corridor. “I’m here to see Lord Ashburnham. Is he in?”
The girl struck another pose, this one even more provocative, and giggled once again. “Aye, a pretty one, his lordship is. But he’s poor, you know. Can’t afford a nice girl, he can’t, or a gentleman’s man to help him. Talk is he’s marrying an heiress, but he won’t say boo about it. Probably the heiress is a stoat all dressed in fancy silk, poor man.”
“Some heiresses can even whistle, I’ve heard,” Sinjun said. “Now, his lordship’s apartment is on the second floor, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” the girl said. “Hey, wait! I don’t know if he’s here or not. Haven’t seen him for two days now. Tilly, one of the girls, went up to see if he wanted some fun—all willing to give it to him on the house, she was—but he wasn’t there. Leastwise he didn’t answer. And what man wouldn’t answer when he heard Tilly calling out to him?”
Sinjun took the stairs two at a time, saying over her shoulder, “If he isn’t there, perhaps I shall return and you and I can, er, have a cup of tea and a chat.”
The girl giggled. “Ah, go along with you, my cute lad! Ah, ’tis you, sir, back again. Now, where were we? Ah, what naughtiness you are!”
Sinjun was still smiling when she reached the landing. It was a solid house with a wide hallway. Well maintained, the paint fresh, a gentleman’s establishment. Were the pretty girls here all the time? She found Colin’s door and knocked. There was nothing. She knocked again. Please, she thought, please let him be here. It had been too long. Four whole days without him. It was too much. They’d fooled Douglas that first morning, but Colin hadn’t called on her since. She had to see him, to touch him, to smile at him.
Finally she heard a deep voice call out, “Whoever you are, go to hell.”
It was Colin, but he sounded strange, his voice low and raw. Was he with someone? A girl like the one downstairs?
No, she wouldn’t believe that. She knocked again.
“Damnation, go away!” The curse was followed by a hacking cough.
Sinjun felt a spurt of fear. She gripped the door handle, and to her immense relief it wasn’t locked. She pushed the door open and walked into a small entrance hall. She looked to her right into a long, narrow drawing room that was well enough furnished, she supposed, but impersonal, without any individual character. It called up nothing of Colin. Nothing of anyone except perhaps a musty gentleman from the past century. She called out, “Colin? Where are you?”
She heard some cursing coming from beyond the drawing room. She hurried now, pushed the door open, and came face-to-face with her betrothed. He was sitting up in the middle of a rumpled bed, quite naked, the sheets drawn only to his waist. Sinjun stood there a moment, just gawking. Goodness, he was big, and there was black hair all over his chest, and he looked strong and muscular and lean and she couldn’t stop staring at his chest and his arms and his shoulders, yes, even his throat. There were black whiskers on his face, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was standing on end. He looked quite wonderful.
“Joan! What the hell are you doing here? Are you out of your damned mind? Are you—”
His voice was a croak. Sinjun was across the room to him in a moment to stand by the side of the bed. “What’s wrong?” Even as she asked him, she realized he was shaking. And she’d been standing there staring at him like a half-witted fool. “Oh goodness.” She pushed him back down and pulled the covers up to his chin. “No, no, just hold still and tell me what’s wrong.”
Colin