A Love That Never Tires (Linley & Patrick Book 1) Read online

  He was a disgrace to bored aristocrats everywhere. He couldn’t even loaf about properly.

  Behind him, two young Arab porters entered the room, dragging his trunks in one by one. When the boys finished, they turned to him and held out their hands. Patrick blinked down at their little brown faces. It seemed these children wanted a tip. As if he would give them any money before they finished bringing in the rest of his luggage!

  “Where is the other trunk?” he asked.

  The tallest boy pointed to the one at his feet.

  “No,” Patrick said. “Not that one. The other one.”

  Again, the boy pointed.

  Patrick sighed. “There were three.” He held up his fingers and counted them off. “One. Two. Three.”

  The boys stared at him blankly.

  “No English, I suppose,” he said, suddenly remembering he was in French Morocco. “Française?”

  The boys smiled and nodded.

  “Où est mon autre malle?” Patrick asked.

  The two boys looked at each other and shrugged. “Nous ne savons pas, monsieur,” the taller one said.

  Clearly, they did not know anything about another trunk. For all Patrick knew, it could have been left aboard that damned sinking ship.

  ***

  “I seem to be missing a trunk.”

  The hotel desk clerk turned to face him. “Monsieur?”

  “I had three—two large and one small,” Patrick explained. “Your porters only delivered two.”

  “Désolé, monsieur. It must have been sent to the wrong room.”

  “I’m very keen on getting it back. You see, it has my evening clothes in it and without them, I cannot go to dinner.”

  “Oui, monsieur. I’m certain it will turn up as soon as the recipients realize a mistake has been made.”

  “It’s a brown Vuitton. Quite large. Monogrammed with the initials P. W.”

  “P.W.,” the clerk repeated. “Oui.”

  “Usually I would have my man look after this sort of thing,” Patrick said. “But I didn’t see much use for a valet in Africa.”

  The man nodded in sympathy.

  “So, you understand my predicament. If you could help me find my missing trunk, I would be grateful,” Patrick said. “Perhaps you could send your porters to look in the other rooms, or—”

  Just over the hotel clerk’s shoulder, Patrick watched a young woman walk through the foyer. He assumed she was a woman because she wore her tangled brown hair tied back with a ribbon. But she was small enough to be an Eton schoolboy and, in fact, it seemed she was wearing one’s breeches.

  “Ah,” the clerk said, noticing Patrick’s fascination with her. “We have asked the mademoiselle not to walk through the hotel dressed like that. But she has been here so long, and always pays her bill on time, it is hard to press the issue.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I do not know her name, but her father is Bedford Talbot-Martin.”

  “The explorer?” he asked.

  “Oui.”

  Patrick studied her more closely. Miss Talbot-Martin was quite thin, with remarkably long, slender arms. Despite her small stature, she carried herself well—cool, detached, and confident, but without the arrogance of many women he knew in London.

  In fact, if Patrick had not seen her wearing those ridiculous jodhpurs, he would have sworn she was a ballerina in some traveling company.

  Instead, she looked like a stablehand from a second-rate American circus.

  Patrick had certainly never seen a grown woman prancing about in gentlemen’s riding breeches before. Although, he doubted whether anyone in his limited circle of acquaintance would ever dare to be so bold.

  Miss Talbot-Martin was bold. There was no doubt about that.

  She was also very tanned—more so than from a few hours on a boat deck or an afternoon on the beach. Clearly, the young woman spent a great deal of time in the elements. It made sense that her father would be an explorer, and that she would go and do as she pleased. That she would wear jodhpurs in public without caring what other people thought of her.

  And it made sense that she would walk right past Patrick without even noticing him. Because a girl like that did not have to notice anyone. They were all too busy noticing her.

  Even if she weren’t dressed so dramatically, there was just something about her. Some wild, honey-eyed recklessness. Like a horse he instinctively knew would bolt the moment he reached out to touch it. But one he would touch anyway, because it was worth the risk. Because he admired its spirit.

  He admired Miss Talbot-Martin’s spirit. He knew that without even meeting her.

  As Patrick watched her disappear up the stairs, he hardly even noticed the small Arab boy pulling on his sleeve.

  And he hardly heard the hotel clerk speaking. “Monsieur,” the man said.

  Patrick turned toward him. “What?”

  “Your trunk,” the clerk repeated. “It has been found and brought up to your room.”

  They both looked at Patrick expectantly. As if finding his trunk was the most amazing thing that could have happened to him. Perhaps it would have been, if they had found it a moment earlier. But now Patrick realized he no longer cared.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After seeing Schoville and the crates off to London, Linley took breakfast in the hotel garden. She sat in a wicker basket chair, eating croissants with fresh jam and drinking orange juice. French breakfasts were better than their heavy English counterparts, and she always looked forward to spending time in a French colony.

  It suddenly crossed her mind as odd that, as an English girl, she’d been around the world, been to almost all of the British colonies, but not to England itself. Never been to London. Never seen the British Museum, even though her livelihood depended on it.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Archie said, strolling across the lawn and taking the chair across from her.

  “I was thinking that I’ve never been to London.”

  “And you’re all the better for it.” He poured himself a glass of orange juice before continuing, “Besides, you have no business there.”

  “But Schoville goes, and Reginald goes. Even you and Papa go,” Linley said. “I want to see the British Museum.”

  “You practically have seen the British Museum—one piece at a time.”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t the same.”

  “The Museum will always be there. This lifestyle—the one you’re living—it isn’t permanent.” Archie leaned across the table. “Your father is an old man, Linley. How much longer do you think he can trek across deserts and crawl through caves?”

  Linley looked away, studying the weave of the wicker chair until the tightness in her throat faded. “You’re being awfully cryptic today.”

  “I don’t mean to be,” Archie said. “I only want to stress the importance of the work you are doing. That we’re all doing. We’re living other people’s dreams, and you want to run off to London! It does not make sense to me.”

  “You’re right, of course. I’m such a silly, stupid girl.” She threw her napkin on the table, and rose from her seat. “Sometimes I forget how lucky I am.” Without another word, Linley turned and stalked across the grass, brushing shoulders with a gentleman as she passed through the hotel doors. “Pardonnez-moi.”

  Patrick stepped aside to let her pass. “I beg your pardon.”

  When she heard his voice, Linley spun around to face him. “You’re English?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m sorry. I was unaware there were other English guests here. I thought everyone was French.”

  “I’ve been mistaken for worse,” Patrick said. He smiled and touched the brim of his hat. “Good afternoon.”

  He turned and walked into the garden, leaving Linley staring after him. It seemed there was not only another English guest in the hotel, but a very good-looking English guest at that.

  ***

  Patrick resisted the urge to turn
around and get another look at her. But ogling young ladies was still considered rude, even if they were in a French colony, and he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than was necessary.

  Instead, he sauntered out into the grassy garden, looking as cool and unaffected by his little run-in as any other gentleman would be. But as he passed the table where Miss Talbot-Martin’s breakfast companion sat, Patrick noticed the man scowling at him.

  Was he as transparent as all that? Surely not.

  Patrick nodded to the gentleman. The gentleman did not nod in return.

  He hoped the daughter of the famous Bedford Talbot-Martin was not kept on too short a leash. He’d like an opportunity to meet her, but if she always had that guard dog of a friend patrolling her perimeter, Patrick might be hard pressed.

  Luckily, obtaining introductions to pretty young ladies was perhaps the only time his illustrious title ever came in handy. The rest of the time, it was a damned burden. And escaping burdens was exactly the reason he was there.

  No doubt people accused him of running. And maybe he was. But he needed to get away from Georgiana and Hereford and their newly wedded bliss, and now there was going to be a baby.

  His little sister, whom he practically raised, would soon be a mother.

  He was happy for her. Truly, he was. But Patrick couldn’t deny that he was also a little bit jealous. Not because he wanted to be a father, or even to be married, but because once Georgiana was gone, he realized for the first time just how alone he really was.

  The home he tried so hard to make happy for her now seemed empty. He rattled through the rooms and haunted the grounds. He sat at the long, polished dining room table and stared at twenty-five empty chairs. At least in the old days, he had Georgiana to talk to. Now he had only the sound of rats scratching in the walls for company.

  It was a miserable existence, but one he took seriously. His employees and his tenants needed him. They relied on him. He endured it all for their sakes, and for Georgiana’s sake, because it would crush her to think his unhappiness was somehow her fault.

  But, surely, no one could blame him for a few months holiday. The house wouldn’t crumble down without his lonely sighs to fill the empty rooms, and the servants wouldn’t revolt in his absence. Nor would the river run dry, or the crops fail, or his tenants starve through the winter.

  It would do Patrick good to get away. He’d been gone for two weeks, and already he found something that sparked excitement in him—Miss Talbot-Martin.

  What kind of girl gave up a life of her own to follow her father to the most remote corners of the Earth? And what kind of girl wore riding breeches in public with as little concern as if she were waltzing in some London ballroom?

  A free girl, that’s who.

  Patrick wanted to talk to her. To experience even a little bit of that freedom for himself. All he needed was a taste of the life she lived, and he would go back home and live out his days as a respectable brother, uncle, neighbor, employer, and landowner.

  No one would hear a peep out of him. He swore it.

  ***

  Linley scrambled upstairs to her bedroom and poked her head between the curtains. The window overlooked the garden below. If she was careful, she could spy down onto the breakfasters without being noticed.

  She saw Archie picking at the croissant she left unfinished on her plate, and as she scanned the other tables, she spotted her Englishman seated beneath the shade of a date palm. The tree hid most of him from view, but she could see enough to know he wasn’t thinking about breakfast.

  The menu lay in front of him, untouched. Either he was a man who already knew what he wanted, or he was a man too preoccupied to bother.

  Linley hoped it was a little bit of both, because she liked her men to have a mind, but she also liked for them to have an appetite.

  Or rather, she thought she would if she ever knew a man to have.

  Archie, Reginald, and Schoville did not count. They were more like brothers than anything else. And Linley’s world was so small that she hardly ever came across a gentleman worth more than just a passing glance.

  But this English fellow, he was something quite different.

  She watched as he removed his straw hat and sat it on the table. Without it, his hair was the color of rich, brown coffee, but his skin was white as milk. He would not be able to withstand the heat of the Moroccan sun for long, even in mid-morning. Linley counted the seconds until he slipped the hat back on his head, and when he did, she smiled to herself.

  “You see,” she whispered. “I already know you.”

  Perhaps he was her man to have. And if not her man, then at least good practice for when the real one came along. At the very least, he could be a friend.

  Linley wanted a friend—someone who did not think in terms of the Stone Age, and the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Or belong to the Royal Archaeological Institute. Or have even ever heard of the Royal Archaeological Institute.

  But what did regular Englishmen think of?

  She had no idea.

  He could teach her! He could probably teach her things not even Archie or Reginald knew, and Reginald, being one of Lord Bredgebury’s sons, knew more about ‘real’ life than anyone she knew. It never crossed her mind that this Englishman might not know anything worth learning. He must know everything about the world—he looked so much a part of it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Linley sat alone in the hotel garden. She toyed with the beading of her gown, humming along to the music flowing through the open windows above. Dinner ended hours ago. Her father had retired to his rooms, and the rest of the men escaped to the bar—part of the boys club that, no matter how hard Linley tried, she would never be a part of.

  Shouts of laughter echoed from the balcony above as two gentlemen stepped out for a cigarette in the balmy night air. The wives of these men sat in the dining room or milled about the hotel lobby, perhaps exchanging decorating ideas for the villas they would have when the ville nouvelle was completed.

  “Excuse me…” a voice said. “May I join you?”

  Linley turned her attention to the speaker. It was the Englishman from before, only he wore black evening clothes instead of white flannels.

  She blinked up at him for a moment, a little stunned, and then, recovering herself, motioned to the wicker chaise beside her.

  Patrick sat down and handed her one of the two liquor glasses in his hands. “I thought you might like a drink,” he said. “It’s brandy and soda-water.”

  “Thank you,” Linley replied, taking it from him.

  Easing back into the chair and stretching out his legs, Patrick took a long swallow from his glass. “Isn’t it rather cruel of your friends to abandon you? Especially on such a beautiful night as this.”

  “I don’t mind. They’re stuck with me for the rest of the year, so they may as well enjoy themselves while they can.” In one fluid movement, she angled toward him and held out her slender hand. “I’m Linley Talbot-Martin.”

  Normally, Patrick would have introduced himself as Lord Kyre, but for some reason, at that exact moment, those two words brought a bad taste to his mouth. “Patrick Wolford,” he finally said, extending his hand.

  “All right then, Mr. Wolford,” she said. “What brings you to Morocco?”

  “A shipwreck, actually. I was on my way to South Africa when we were forced to put in here. I had figured I’d try my hand at the big game this year instead of following the country house circuit.”

  Linley took a sip of her brandy. “Are you a sporting man?”

  “I like to shoot as much as the next fellow.”

  “Well, if you were planning to shoot in South Africa, then you were going about it all wrong,” she informed him. “It’s too crowded there. The best hunting has moved further north.”

  “Do you know much about Africa?”

  Linley choked back a laugh. “I know more about Africa than you. Obviously.”

  Patrick laughed, too.
“Then forgive me for not consulting you first, Miss Talbot-Martin.”

  “I will, but only because you didn’t know me before.”

  “And now?” he asked. “I suppose there can be no excuses after tonight.”

  Linley’s face grew warm, although she wasn’t sure exactly why. She pressed the side of her liquor glass to her face and neck, as if the condensation dripping down her fingers could cool her.

  She was not usually awkward and inarticulate, but as Linley sat in the hotel garden surrounded by not only the scent of orange trees in blossom, but also the crisp aroma of this man’s starched shirt and hair tonic, she could not think of one clever thing to say.

  She downed the rest of her brandy instead.

  Watching her carefully, Patrick did the same. “He who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.”

  “What?”

  He smiled and waved her off. “Never mind.”

  “Were you quoting someone?”

  “I was.”

  She cocked her head. “Whom?”

  “Dr. Johnson.”

  As she studied him in the moonlight, Linley realized she was staring into the eyes of a man with a brain behind them. He was certainly a man who quoted Dr. Johnson at random, which meant he must be well read, at the very least.

  No one she knew read Dr. Johnson.

  And no one she knew would’ve bothered to quote him if they did.

  “Are you an admirer of his?” Linley asked.

  “He was a very wise man,” Patrick said. He paused for a moment and stared into his liquor glass. “My father thought reading his letters would do me some good.”

  “And did it?”

  He grinned. “It taught me a great deal about my father.”

  Linley couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps it was just the brandy working its magic, but Mr. Wolford appeared so charming, so unaffected. It seemed he was not just a handsome, intelligent man, but also a very nice one.