and plainly ridiculous escapades? How can I turn my back on a disaster in petticoats like you and leave you to wander about the country with no more idea how to go on than my three-year-old daughter?’
‘I know how to conduct myself,’ she informed him in her best mistress-of-all-she-surveyed voice.
‘So well you just informed a complete stranger nobody will notice if you disappear for good, so I could make a quick getaway after foully doing away with you or having my wicked way with you, whatever you have to say about it? I begin to think my Sally has more sense in her currently very little finger than you have in your whole head, Princess Perdita.’
Chapter Three
For a moment the girl looked disconcerted by the realisation he was right and she’d put herself totally in his power. She rapidly rebuilt her innate assurance she was right and the rest of the world wrong and drew herself up to give him a disdainful look worthy of his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Dettingham, in her most formidable glory. Wondering if this aristocrat had ever met the one lady who would be able to stare her down and stand none of her nonsense, Rich tried not to admire the stony dignity she was facing him with. For some reason he liked his granddam a lot more than the rest of the family did and found his unwanted visitor’s steely poise unexpectedly endearing.
‘I trust you,’ she finally admitted very quietly. He felt another burden settle on his shoulders and suppressed a gusty sigh.
‘You can,’ he promised easily enough. ‘I’m no killer and can imagine nothing more repulsive than forcing myself on a woman against her will.’
‘Clearly my judgement isn’t as bad as you think, then,’ she argued gallantly, but he could see the blue shadows under her lioness’s eyes and the stark pallor of her face and knew it was only her steadfast spirit that held her upright in her chair right now.
‘Whether it is or not, mine currently tells me you’re very near the end of your tether, Perdita,’ he told her in much the same tone he used on his stubborn little daughter when she was about to fall asleep on her feet after a long day of mischief and mayhem.
For a moment she raised her chin and looked ready to swear she was fresh as a daisy and ready for her next set of misadventures, then she literally drooped, as if a great wave of exhaustion was about to claim her, much as it did his Sally, who had been known to fall asleep in her dinner only a second after insisting she wasn’t a bit tired. Afraid she might tumble headlong into dreamland in a similar manner, he scooped her out of the chair and up into his arms once more.
‘Quiet,’ he ordered when her eyes seemed about to cross with absolute weariness.
She glared at him instead and he admitted she had a very effective glare by nodding ruefully at the ceiling to remind her they weren’t the only people in the house who needed their sleep tonight. Feeling her relax against him for the short journey from his hearth to the box-bed, he felt that peculiar stir of interest in her as a very desirable young woman once more and sternly ordered his inner satyr back into retirement.
‘I’d best unwrap you and bandage that ankle properly for the night, or you’ll spend a very uncomfortable night in a damp bed,’ he said as he set her down on the side of the bed and knelt at her narrow, but sore and scratched feet once more to do so. ‘Keziah has an evil-smelling salve that will do wonders for these blisters. I’ll get some from her in the morning so it won’t be so painful for you to walk on them once your ankle has healed enough for you to hobble about on it.’
‘Who’s Keziah?’ she asked and he thought her words were saved from slurring into each other only by her stubborn determination to fight the waves of shock and exhaustion finally catching up with her.
‘Keep still,’ he demanded grimly as he realised he was going to have to unlace her gown and strip her, since she was beyond doing anything but pretending she wasn’t half-asleep. ‘Lift up,’ he ordered as if she really was Sally, and perhaps by believing that he could fool himself there wasn’t a mature and very desirable woman under his questing fingers and control his inner beast long enough to get her safely into bed and asleep.
Freya huffed and told herself it was like being back in her nursery, but she managed to raise herself from the feather mattress long enough to feel pain in her ankle and blisters on her feet and flinched when he undid her sash and the side-lacing of her gown, then stripped her once-fine sprigged-muslin gown off in one neat and practised swish that reminded her he had a little girl upstairs he evidently tended himself.
‘Have you other wounds you didn’t tell me about?’ he asked as she slumped back on the temptingly comfortable bed.
‘No,’ she said and had to stop herself tumbling back and falling asleep in front of him.
‘Then stand up as best you can and I’ll pull back the covers so you can finally lie down and rest,’ he ordered abruptly.
‘Yes, Papa,’ she murmured defiantly, but did as he said, trying not to notice that a hot shiver threatened to streak through her as he reached round her scantily clad person to do so.
‘Believe me, I don’t feel in the least bit fatherly towards you at the moment, Perdita,’ he warned gruffly.
Without visible effort he lifted her on to the clean cotton sheet covering the mattress before drawing the bedclothes over her and tucking her in as if it was far safer to have her covered up and neatly pinned into her bed for the night. Sighing with bliss at the feel of clean sheets and a comfortable bed, she opened her eyes long enough to mutter a thank you before tumbling headlong into unconsciousness between one word and the next.
‘You’re welcome, my lady,’ Rich whispered as he watched the strain leave her face and sleep smooth her features into someone softer and younger than she tried to pretend she was when awake.
Shaking his head at the contrariness of fate in bringing her to his door in such a state he couldn’t turn her away, he gestured to Atlas to come outside once more and relieve himself before they both settled down for the night. Reassured that his guest would hardly wake if a battalion of Boney’s soldiers began manoeuvres in his vegetable garden, he waited for Atlas in the cool of the late spring evening and tried to forget he had just put a very adult woman to bed in the corner of his living room and he couldn’t fairly be rid of her until she was strong enough to walk away.
If tonight was anything to go by, he would be raving mad by the end of the week that ankle probably needed for her to be able to put it to the ground for long without pain. He felt raw with unwanted longings, bewildered by the animal need he felt for a female he probably wouldn’t even have liked if he’d met her as humble woodsman to her regal lady of high birth and position. The beast in any man could sometimes shock him, but his seemed to have taken on a life of its own tonight, even though he’d thought his Annabelle had tamed it and spoilt him for any other woman while she was about it.
Urges were there to be controlled, he assured himself, and his high-born waif had been through far too much to suffer from his, even if he wanted her to. He would offer her shelter, food and warmth until she was well, then he would set her back on her way with a huge sigh of relief. A week with a woman he wanted but couldn’t have seemed like a lifetime at the moment, but Rich sighed morosely, whistled Atlas back inside and stole upstairs as quietly as a thief in the night. Closing the door of his narrow bedroom on the world and trying to sleep after a long day working hard, caring for his children and rescuing grumpy young ladies from their own folly, he tossed and turned until exhaustion finally overtook him and all the occupants of the isolated cottage deep in Longborough Forest finally slept.
