My Travel Companion Made A Ridiculous Assumption — I Refused To Play Along

Part 1

I smoothed the fabric of my gloves and watched the carriage turn through the gates below.

It was an exceptionally good carriage.

I had not expected that.

Henry had mentioned at supper the evening prior that a friend of his would be passing through and had offered to escort me to Arthur’s estate party.

A practical arrangement, he had called it.

I had accepted just as practically.

I needed to arrive, I had no available companion, and Martha had vouched for the man’s steadiness.

I had gone to bed without thinking further on it.

The carriage below was dark blue, immaculate, drawn by four matched bays.

The crest on the door was obscured at this angle.

I began to put on my gloves.

Henry appeared on the steps below.

Beside him stood a man moving with the particular ease of someone who did not need to announce his consequence because it arrived before him.

I finished with the gloves.

I went downstairs.

The introduction was made in the front hall, where the morning light came through the tall windows.

Martha stood slightly to one side.

“Alice,” Henry gestured toward the newcomer.

“May I present Thomas.”

Thomas was thirty-one and looked it in the best possible way.

Not young, not old, settled into himself.

He possessed a kind of attentive stillness that I associated with men who listened before they spoke.

He bowed with clean economy.

I met his eyes, gray and direct, and found nothing in them to alarm me.

That in itself was slightly alarming.

“The roads should be good until Oldbury,” he observed.

“After that, I cannot promise.”

I adjusted the fastening on my reticule.

“I have no objection to leaving within the hour.”

Martha made a sound that was not quite a smile.

The carriage was as good inside as out.

Well-sprung, well-fitted, the seats covered in dark wool.

Outside, the landscape passed in its November colors, bare hedgerows and frost still clinging to the north-facing ground.

Thomas opened a letter.

I watched him read it for approximately four minutes, then looked out the window instead.

A crow sat on a fence post.

It regarded the passing carriage with elaborate contempt.

“I apologize,” he kept his eyes on the paper.

“One more minute.”

“Take your time.”

I leaned back against the squabs.

“I am not easily bored.”

He looked up then.

“What do you find to think about?”

I nodded toward the window.

“Whether that crow has opinions about us specifically or whether it disapproves of carriages as a category.”

He followed my gaze.

“Carriages as a category, I expect.”

He folded the letter.

“Crows are consistent creatures.”

I tilted my head.

“You say that with some feeling.”

“I respect consistency.”

He placed the letter in his coat.

“It is rarer than people claim.”

I considered him.

He was watching the road now with complete, effortless attention.

He seemed genuinely unaware that he had just said something worth saying.

I adjusted my left glove.

The journey might be less predictable than I had planned for.

“Henry speaks of you often,” I tested the waters.

“He speaks well of everyone.”

“He does not, actually.”

I smoothed the fabric over my wrist.

“He is quite precise about it.”

I met his gaze.

“He speaks well of people he thinks deserve it and says nothing at all about the rest.”

He turned from the road to look at me.

“Then I am complimented by the economy.”

A beat passed.

“He speaks of you as well.”

I waited.

“He said you were the most honestly entertaining woman of his wife’s acquaintance.”

I let out a small breath.

“That sounds like Henry.”

I folded my hands in my lap.

“He makes compliments sound like assessments.”

“He is an assessor by nature.”

He rested one arm against the window frame.

“It is why we get on.”

The road climbed slightly through a small village.

We slowed for a flock of geese crossing with absolute authority.

I watched Thomas watch the geese with an expression of perfect patience.

This was a man who was not easily rattled.

“Do you attend many parties of this kind?”

I asked.

“Less than I used to.”

He turned his hat in his hands.

“I find I am invited more and inclined to go less.”

I recognized the small, unconscious movement.

“The curse of a good reputation,” I offered.

“Something like that.”

He leveled a look at me.

“And you?”

“My brother Greg’s estate is nearby.”

I paused just a fraction.

“I visit frequently enough to be fond of it, not so frequently as to be absorbed by it.”

He said nothing.

The quality of his attention sharpened.

He had understood precisely what I meant.

Not just the words, but the grammar under them.

He was deciding whether to say so.

He did not say so.

I approved of this.

There was a kind of man who, upon glimpsing something private in a woman’s answer, immediately tried to excavate it further.

He was apparently not that kind.

We passed Oldbury.

The road deteriorated exactly as promised.

The carriage swayed more forcefully on its springs.

I put one hand on the window frame for balance.

Outside, the trees pressed closer, the light going greenish and dim.

“You do not talk the way the city women talk,” he broke the quiet.

“No?”

“They talk as though they are aware of being listened to.”

I waited for the rest.

“You talk,” he held my gaze, “as though the conversation itself is what matters.”

The carriage lurched on a rut.

I steadied myself.

“That is either a compliment, or an elegant way of suggesting I am insufficiently on my guard.”

“I intended it as a compliment.”

I gave a slight nod.

“Then thank you.”

The country opened again on the far side of a small village.

He adjusted his posture, the manner of a man who had not quite planned his next sentence.

“People will assume, you know, arriving together.”

I turned to look at him fully.

He was looking slightly past me.

The words seemed to have surprised him as much as they had surprised me.

“Assume what precisely?”

I pressed.

“That there is…”

He stopped.

“A shared carriage without formal prior introduction, it will be remarked upon.”

I studied him.

His jaw had set.

He was a man who had said something he hadn’t intended and was now stuck having to either advance or retreat.

I felt a small warmth toward him for this breach in his polish.

I settled back slightly against the seat.

“Well,” I kept my voice perfectly light.

“I should say we do.”

He looked at me directly for one complete moment.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Have a romantic attachment.”

I smoothed my skirt.

“If people are going to assume regardless, we might as well give them an interesting version.”

The word ‘interesting’ had barely cleared the air before he reassembled himself.

I watched the slight squaring of his shoulders.

He delivered his next words with the courtesy of a man who would not allow himself to be off-balance twice.

“You will smile and say nothing.”

I looked him dead in the eye.

“I never smile and say nothing,” I replied.