nonpareil, according to Piers.’ She passed him the bread and helped herself from the platter. ‘I am starving.’
‘Yet you asked me if I was any good?’ That obviously rankled.
Bree smiled sweetly. ‘I could not resist. I was somewhat annoyed with you, if you recall.’
‘You, Miss Mallory, are a minx and I hope your young man has the measure of you,’ Max said warmly, taking out his feelings on a slice of ham.
‘My what?’
‘Young man, follower, betrothed.’
‘I don’t have one.’ She regarded him, surprised, her forkful of food half-raised.
‘Why ever not?’
‘Most of the men I meet are employees. And I don’t mix socially with the other coaching company proprietors, because … I don’t know really, I just don’t. When we are at the farm there are our neighbours, but I’ve never met anyone I felt I wanted to be closer to, somehow.’ Her voice trailed away.
How could she explain that the farmers and the coaching proprietors all regarded her warily because of her titled relatives, and her half-brother and that side of the family thought of her and Piers as an embarrassment hardly to be acknowledged. She fell neatly between two stools, but she had no intention of revealing her family circumstances to the earl. He too would despise what she knew James regarded as her mongrel breeding.
The vertical line between Max’s dark brows was deeper now. ‘That’s a waste.’
‘I am too bossy anyway,’ she said with a laugh, determined that he would not pity her. ‘What about you? Is Lady Penrith wondering what has become of you?’
‘I am not—’ He broke off. ‘There is no Lady Penrith at home waiting for me.’
‘So is there a young lady expecting to become a countess shortly?’
‘No.’ He frowned again and there was a bleakness at the back of those warm brown eyes that spoke of banked emotion. ‘If I were looking for a wife, I would first have to find one who isn’t a ninny.’
‘They can’t help it, you know.’ Bree cut some more bread. ‘They are brought up to believe that the slightest show of independence, the merest hint of taking an intelligent interest in anything besides fashions and dancing, housekeeping and babies, will brand them as either bluestockings or fast.’
‘How do you know?’ Max was enjoying watching her eating. Her table manners would have graced a banquet, but her appetite was extremely healthy. It occurred to him that Bree Mallory was one of the freest women he knew: she said what she thought, she made up her own mind about things and she did not appear to feel she had to hide things just for the sake of convention.
‘I …’ It seemed he was wrong. What had he said? She had coloured up and was looking thoroughly self-conscious. ‘I read fashionable journals, if you must know. And I observe people.’
‘Of course,’ Max agreed. There was a mystery about Miss Mallory, and one he was only too well aware he was not going to be able to investigate. Whatever he felt about her—no, because of what he felt about her—the only honourable thing to do would be to drop her at her own front door and never see her again.
Chapter Four
‘That was a good stretch,’ Bree remarked, looking out on the countryside rushing past as the postilions took advantage of the famously fast road between Staines and Hounslow.
‘Yes.’ Max nodded agreement. ‘I would reckon we made thirteen miles an hour there. We’ll be at the bridge over the River Crane in a moment.’
‘Then the Heath, then Hounslow and we’ll be back where we started,’ she said brightly, trying to keep the conversation going. That sentence was the longest Max had uttered since they left the inn, replete with ham, eggs and cherry preserve.
‘Yes.’
Bree watched him from under her lowered lashes as the chaise slowed and clattered over the bridge. He wasn’t sulking; he did not appear to be sleepy. Perhaps he was simply irritated to have lost so much time over her concerns. She hoped it was not that; she had been enjoying the adventure—even her wrist had stopped aching so much. And, if truth be told, she was enjoying Max’s company.
The chaise lurched on the well-worn road and the Heath unfolded on either side with its rough grazing, spiny cushions of gorse and occasional copses of trees.
‘The gorse is still in flower.’ Max was resting his forearm on the window ledge.
‘Love is out of fashion when the gorse is out of bloom.’ Bree quoted the old adage with a smile. ‘I love the scent of it in the summer when the sun’s on it. It smells of—’
There was a shot, very close, and the chaise juddered to a halt to the sound of shouting outside.
‘Hell.’ Max shifted to stare forwards out of the offside window, pushed Bree firmly into a corner and rummaged urgently in the pockets of his greatcoat as it lay on the seat. ‘Highwaymen. Two of them.’ He dragged a pistol from the pocket. ‘Stay there.’ He opened the door and climbed out slowly, the hand holding the pistol slightly behind his back.
The moment he was out of the door Bree slid along the seat and squinted round the corner of the window frame. There were two of them, each with an ugly-looking horse pistol, one covering the postilions who were out of her sight, the other now training his weapon on Max.
‘Not good odds,’ Bree muttered. Her heart was banging somewhere in the region of her throat, but she tried to think calmly. The fact that they probably did not have much of value about them, beyond a few coins in her pocket and Max’s watch, signet and what money he had left after hiring the chaise, was not particularly encouraging. She had heard of highwaymen shooting travellers out of sheer frustration at a disappointing haul.
She dug into the pocket of her own greatcoat and produced her pistol. Not as large, and by no means as elegant, as the firearm Max was carrying, it was still perfectly capable of doing the job. Not that she had ever used it in anger. Bree checked it carefully, brought the hammer to half-cock and slid out of the opposite door, opening it as little as possible.
‘Hand it over, guv’nor.’
‘I am not carrying more than a few sovereigns.’ Max sounded bored.
‘We’ll have them. And yer watch and yer rings.’
‘I’ll be damned if you do.’
Bree peered round the back of the chaise. The position hadn’t changed, although the man covering the postilions had turned slightly, his pistol wavering between the riders and Max.
‘Well, if you wants to go to hell, guv’nor, I’m sure we can manage that. Just hand the dibs over first.’ The closer man seemed to be the leader—he was certainly doing all the talking. She tried to commit his appearance to memory for later reporting to the magistrates, but between a kerchief covering him from the nose down, and a battered tricorne jammed on his head, there was little to identify him.
She couldn’t see properly to get a clear
