Page 23 of Discovering Her Earl

“Very well, I should get back to this. We don’t want to leave our poor Emily in a lurch now do we?” He picked up the book to start reading again, but she wasn’t ready to drift back into the story.

She wanted to talk with him some more.

“You have a lovely voice,” she said before she’d thought to stop herself.

“Thank you,” he shifted, and his cheeks darkened the slightest bit. “My accent doesn’t put you off?”

“No. It is quite lovely.”

He cleared his throat.

The earl, as outlandish as he sometimes seemed to be, was uncomfortable with true compliments. Interesting.

She imagined it had something to do with his father. If he was even a fraction as awful as Signor Montoni, he would have to be a monster indeed. How had Lord Melville survived living with such a man while still holding on to his pleasant disposition?

She might have asked more, but the sound of the carriage traveling over dirt, changed to the louder rumble of wheels on wooden planks.

A bridge.

She bolted back up to a sitting position and gasped while reaching out for the side of the carriage.

The earl sat up as well, his face shifting from his relaxed expression to one of concern. Before she’d had the chance to completely come undone, the sound changed back again.

A small bridge. And they were over it already before fear could grip her too terribly. But not before the earl had noticed.

“Are you well?” he asked, his hand reached out as if to steady her, but it hovered just short of actually making contact. She found she would have welcomed his touch. But of course, that wouldn’t have been proper. And he was a gentleman as he’d claimed.

She couldn’t doubt that.

“Yes. Forgive me. It was nothing.” She forced herself back to her earlier position of leisure even while her heart battled to escape her chest. “Please continue.”

His gaze narrowed slightly, but he nodded and did as she asked without pressing for more information regarding her strange reaction.

She was more thankful than he would ever know.

*

The panic he’d seen in Miss Bantham’s eyes concerned him, but satisfying his curiosity was not justification enough to force the woman into sharing her fears with a near stranger.

He wondered what had happened to bring forth this lasting fear in Miss Bantham. As they continued their travels north, he saw her respond in a similar way a few more times. Once while she was laughing, it caught her completely off guard.

He’d pieced together the cause, though he didn’t pry to learn the reason.

Bridges.

The longer the bridge, the more severely the fear stole her breath and leeched her knuckles white as she grasped onto anything she could reach, including his knee on one occasion.

Each time, she seemed embarrassed and upset, so he took to reading louder, or filling the moment with chatter until the episode passed.

She had dozed off on the rear facing seat while he was reading. The sun, which had not shown itself all day, was giving up the fight with a hazy finish.

Unable to see to read, he set the book next to him and looked out the window. The road curved toward the left, and Julian saw the reason. They would be crossing a river up ahead and the only way to do so would be to travel over a bridge.

He reached out and woke Miss Bantham.

“Sit up,” he instructed.

“What is it?” she asked.