The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl (24 page)

And he left.

Jamie sat in the music room for two hours after Mike left. She didn’t play a note. She stared at the wall, wishing she could make sense of everything. Of anything, really. He hadn’t fought her decision to stay, but his reaction to it had been so odd. Maybe he needed more time.

It seemed like time was only adding to their problems, though. With every passing day, she was more in love with him, and things were more impossible than ever. What a crap situation this had turned out to be. Nothing was right in her world. Everything was skewed, tilted, just off enough to make things impossible.

When she stood, her legs were numb from sitting so still. As her circulation returned, the angry pins and needles stabbed her with every step she took, and she was forced to go slowly. Muted voices rumbled inside Mike’s office, but the door was shut tight. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but Thornton wasn’t at his usual post.

Jamie climbed the stairs laboriously, clutching at the banister for support. Muriel was waiting for her in the Lemon bedchamber, and as the maid helped her remove the midnight gown, Jamie couldn’t help wondering if she’d won or lost that battle.

Either
way
, she thought as she snuggled in bed next to a bony gray dog,
I’m here. And I’m not leaving Mike without a fight
.

***

Mike didn’t show up to breakfast the next morning. Jamie hadn’t expected him, honestly, but it was hard not to be disappointed that he was avoiding her so much. She wasn’t really hungry, so she decided to take Baron out for a walk instead of staring at a plate full of food. It wasn’t until she’d grabbed Baron’s leash and tried to exit the front door with the dog that she figured out why Mike was avoiding her.

“My apologies, Miss Marten, but I cannot allow you to leave the house today.” Thornton’s voice was kind but firm as he blocked her way to the exit. “George will take the hound for his walk.”

“What do you mean, I can’t leave the house?” Jamie stared at the old butler as the red-headed footman came forward and took the strip of leather from her nerveless hand.

“His lordship’s orders. I am sorry, miss.” Thornton stared at her, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows high in sympathy.

George’s face was pale but his movements sure as he slipped the lead onto Baron. The footman and the dog disappeared out the front door, Baron’s whip-like tail wagging faster as he trotted out into the sunshine. The door shut softly behind them, leaving Jamie alone with the butler in the dimly lit entryway.

She looked down at the toes of her slippers. “Guess I’ll go walk in the garden, then.”

Thornton stopped her as she turned. “Miss?”

“Yeah?”

“You are not to leave the house.”

Her jaw dropped. “I can’t even go out into the garden?”

He shook his head slowly.

Frustration simmered in her chest as she stomped away from Thornton. She had to leave before she shot the messenger. It certainly wasn’t Thornton’s fault that his master was an overprotective dictator.

Jamie, he loves you. Somebody tried to poison you a couple of days ago. He’s trying to keep you safe.

Shut
up, logical side. I have no time for you.

Jamie flopped down on the settee in the parlor and stared at the ceiling.
Lord, I thought I’d been bored out of my skull before. What the heck do I do now?

The day passed more slowly than any previous day ever had. Jamie tried to bribe Muriel into sneaking her out the servants’ entrance. She just wanted to get some fresh air. The maid agreed but chickened out when Mrs. K began loudly singing as she swept the back stairs. Jamie opened her bedroom window and poked her head out, but the garden was too far down to jump. She’d probably break a leg if she tried it.

Jamie sat in her bedroom, chair scooted as close to the window as she could get it. She propped her chin in her hands on the windowsill and sighed as bluebirds hopped from branch to branch in the garden tree. Since her phone was completely dead now, there was nothing to distract her at all. Her thoughts turned to her real-life adventure game, which could be deadly if she didn’t stay on her toes.

Collette couldn’t know she was still alive. Her poison had worked for Louisa, and there was no reason she should suspect a different outcome for Jamie. Jamie would have to make sure to keep Collette in the dark. Any other attempts on Jamie’s life would probably convince Mike he had to force her to go back home. She’d evaded his wishes this time, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be a regular occurrence. He was too used to getting his way.
Smug, entitled, beautiful, wonderful man.

Jamie killed time staring outside and chucking some hazelnuts out the window to the squirrels. She almost beaned one upside the head with a nut.
Whoops.

She still wasn’t hungry, but she was so excited when lunchtime rolled around to have something to do that she could barely stand it.

When she got into the dining room, Mike was seated at his usual place. Two plates full of food were set in front of him, and two glasses were full beside them. He held a fork, and another lay beside one of his plates.

Jamie walked to her usual spot, confusion wrinkling her forehead as she sat at the empty space. Where her place setting usually was, empty tablecloth gleamed at her. What a way to diet.

“Are you extra hungry? If you’re a growing boy, you can certainly have some of mine, but it’s polite to ask before you steal someone’s food.”

Mike shook his head, not even acknowledging her lame attempt at humor. He continued cutting into a piece of beef on one of the plates. He took a bite, chewing thoroughly before swallowing. His mouth worked, almost looking like he was tasting it thoughtfully.

“Is everything okay? Should I come back later?”

He swallowed and wiped his mouth before replying. “One moment.”

She watched as he finished sampling a bite of everything on the plate, making the same thoughtful tasting face after each bite. He took a healthy swig of the wine in one of the glasses, swished it around in his mouth, then nodded.

He stood, lifting the plate and glass he’d been eating and drinking from, and brought them over to her place. He set the plate in front of her, and the glass at her right hand.

“There. It has all been tasted. I have suffered no ill effects, so you needn’t be concerned with tainted food or wine.”

She stared down at the plate in front of her, trying to process what had just happened. Mike went back to his own plate and began cutting his meat.

Jamie picked up her fork, but the metal was strangely cold to the touch. She put it back down again, rubbing her palm against her skirt. She looked over to Mike, who was now eating like nothing had happened.

“What was that all about?”

He swallowed the bite he’d been chewing and looked at his plate as he spoke. “Since you refused to return to your own time where you are safe, I am taking measures to protect you. Any further attempts to poison you will fail, as you will not consume anything that has not been first tasted by another.”

Bitter, leaden worry filled her stomach like rocks. “So if someone poisons my food, it’s not a problem because you’ll drop dead instead of me. Is that what you’re saying?”

Mike crooked a brow at her as he sipped his wine but didn’t say anything.

“Sorry, but that isn’t really okay with me. Oddly enough, the last few days haven’t made me stop loving you. If someone tries to poison me again but gets you instead, I’d be worse off than if I’d died in the first place.”

He leaned forward, jaw tight and eyes intense. “I asked you to return. You refused. This is my home, and if you wish to stay here with me, then I will do what is necessary to keep you safe.”

Jamie stared at him for a long time. Her brain and her heart couldn’t agree on what to feel. On one hand, Mike’s caring and consideration made her feel priceless, loved, cherished. On the other, his autocratic, high-handed manner and refusal to see her as an equal felt about as great as sandpaper on a sunburn.

She looked down at the plate that he’d set in front of her. If she ate, then she’d be showing him her approval of his actions. If she didn’t, then she’d be throwing his protection in his face. Talk about damned one way or the other.

She shook her head and breathed heavily. The truth. She had to tell him. They couldn’t go on this way, not without her wanting to strangle him with his high-handed attitude. Closing her eyes, she said, “We need to talk.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

“No, Mike, there’s a lot to discuss. I know that things are different here, but where I come from, men and women in a romantic relationship are partners. Equals. I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but you’re making me feel like a child who can’t take care of herself.”

“What would you have me do, Miss Marten? Shall I stand by and watch you waltz into harm’s way with naught but your wits to save you?” The rough edge in his voice pulled her eyes open.

“We need to talk about these things. We need to come to decisions about what to do together. You can’t make up rules for me without discussing them with me first. Tell me the truth about what you’re feeling, what’s going on, and we can decide what to do together. If Collette tries something else, then we’ll…”

“The truth, Miss Marten. What an interesting idea. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me about a truth of your own. Perhaps the proof of your certainty that Collette Dubois is responsible for your most recent brush with death?”

She couldn’t say a word, and the anger and pain that crossed Mike’s face nearly crushed her.
Damn
it, Mrs. K. You have no clue what you’re doing to us.

“I see.” He slid his chair back and laid his napkin beside his still mostly full plate. “Enjoy your meal, Miss Marten.”

He left the dining room without another word.

When he’d gone, she looked down at the plate in front of her. A neat, square segment was cut from the meat. The potato had the marks of fork-tines in it. Everything on her plate bore tiny reminders of Mike’s love, even if it had manifested in an overbearing kind of way.

With a heavy heart, and a head chock full o’ confusion, she proceeded to eat the meal that Mike had placed in front of her.

***

Two more days went by in the same way. Mike barely spoke to Jamie, and when he did, he grilled her more on her certainty of Collette’s guilt. Jamie begged Mrs. Knightsbridge to tell the truth, but she refused over and over again. Mike didn’t kiss her, and he definitely didn’t invite her to his bedchamber after dark. She prowled the house like a caged tiger in the zoo, with a growl and a temper to match. Everyone avoided her with the exception of old Thornton. Jamie thought he kind of liked having someone to argue with.

Jamie sat in the music room, but the notes wouldn’t come. She stared at the pages of a book she’d already read, but her eyes couldn’t focus on the words in front of her. She tried to remember how to make chocolate chip cookies, but Jean Philippe kicked her out of his kitchen when she caught an apron on fire.

She was stir crazy in the worst way, and by the third day, she had decided that she’d almost rather be killed than spend another hour cooped up in that house.

“Baron, this is crazy,” Jamie told the greyhound. He was curled up on the foot of her bed, cheek puffing out with his breaths as he slept.
Even
the
dog
ignores
me.

She talked to him anyway.

“I’ve got to get out. Just for a walk. I learned my lesson last time, and I’ll stick close to the house, but I’ve got to get some air. It’s for my sanity. I’ll sneak out and nobody will ever know. You can keep a secret, right, boy?”

Baron yawned and stretched, long bony legs hanging off the edge of the bed.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Jamie patted his head before walking away from him.

She pulled a cloak on over the plain blue gown that Muriel had dressed her in only an hour ago, plunked on a bonnet, and left the snoozing greyhound in her bedroom. Listening carefully, she waited at the top of the servants’ stairs. Low voices mumbled far away.

She tiptoed on the edges of the stairs, breathing as lightly as she could. Her heart thumped like crazy, and adrenaline thrummed through her body. Her slippers were silent and she moved fast, conquering the stairs before more than a few seconds passed.

She paused, flattening her back against the wall before the door to the kitchen. It stood open, and the voices that she’d heard before were much clearer now. Jean Philippe was going over the night’s menu with the kitchen staff.

“The mutton will be hashed, and the vegetables must be roasted. I will require some wine for the
jus
, and the onions and potatoes must be peeled promptly.”

She chanced a peek around the corner.

The big chef stood in the center of the crowded room, his large hands gesturing fluently as he spoke. The kitchen maids were all clustered around him like so many mobcap-wearing grapes. Their attention was completely trained on the chef. No one even glanced in her direction.

Hey, good luck for once!
Jamie ducked past the doorway quick as a bunny and was out the door and down the alley in a flash.

The sun shone fiercely, and the day was almost too warm for the cloak she’d put on, but she couldn’t have cared less. She was out, and she was free, and she was going to enjoy it, come hell or high water.

It was sort of early in the day for most of society to be out and about, and she was glad for that. There was less chance of running into anyone who would possibly try to kill her. She’d walk for fifteen minutes or so and sneak back in through the back door of the house before anyone noticed she was gone. Piece of cake.

She hummed to herself as she went along, feeling more relaxed than she had in almost a week. Out there in the sunshine, she could almost pretend that things were normal, that she and Mike were good, and nobody was trying to kill her, and they were happy. She wished Baron was with her, but sneaking out with a big greyhound might have been a wee bit obvious.