“You get her some tea.”
“I'm not leaving you alone with her. It wouldn't be proper.”
“Oh, and I suppose it would be proper for you to remain with her?” Blake scoffed. “Your reputation is blacker than the Death.”
“Of course, but—”
“Out!” Caroline croaked. “Both of you.”
They turned to face her, seemingly having forgotten that the subject of their argument was still in the room.
“I beg your pardon,” the marquis said.
I would like a few moments alone, she wrote down, shoving the paper in his face. Then she hastily scrawled, my lord.
“Call me James,” he replied. “All of my friends do.”
She shot him a wry look, clearly doubtful that their bizarre predicament qualified as friendship.
“And he is Blake,” James added. “I gather the two of you are on a first name basis?”
I didn't even know his name until just now, she wrote.
“Shame on you, Blake,” James said. “Such manners.”
“I'm going to forget you said that,” Blake growled, “because if I don't, I will have to kill you.”
Caroline chuckled despite herself. Say what you will about the enigmatic man who'd abducted her, he did have a sense of humor to match her own. She glanced at him again, this time doubtfully. At least she hoped he was joking.
She shot him another worried glance. The glare he was sending the marquis would have felled Napoleon. Or at the very least delivered an extremely painful injury.
“Pay him no mind,” James said cheerfully. “He has the devil's own temper. Always has.”
“I beg your pardon,” Blake replied, sounding very irritated.
“I've known him since we were twelve,” James said. “We roomed together at Eton.”
“Did you?” she said hoarsely, testing her voice out again. “How nice for you both.”
James chuckled. “The unspoken portion of that sentence, of course, being that we deserve each other. Come along, Ravenscroft, let us leave the poor girl to her privacy. I'm sure she'll want to dress and wash and do all that stuff females like to do.”
Blake took a step forward. “She's already dressed. And we'll need to ask her about—”
But James put up a hand. “We've all day to badger her into submission.”
Caroline gulped. She didn't like the sound of that.
The two men left the room, and she jumped up, splashed some water on her face, and donned shoes. It felt heavenly to get up and stretch her muscles. She'd been stuck in bed for the past two days and was not used to such inactivity.
Caroline righted her appearance as best as she could, which wasn't saying much, as she'd been wearing the same clothes for four days. They were horribly wrinkled, but they looked clean enough, so she arranged her hair in a single thick braid, then tested the door. She was delighted to see that it was not locked. It wasn't difficult to find her way to the staircase, and she quickly ran down to the ground floor.
“Going somewhere?”
She looked up sharply. Blake was leaning insolently against the wall, his sleeves rolled up and his arms crossed. “Tea,” she whispered. “You said I could have some.”
“Did I?” he drawled.
“If you didn't, I'm sure you meant to.”