me to escort you back, Miss Whiston! We may become better acquainted!”
Caroline gritted her teeth. That was the last thing she wanted, and if Julia should witness Captain Brabant’s arrival at the Manor with her in attendance…Well, it did not really bear thinking about.
“No, indeed—”
“Perhaps you could explain why you were running away from me,” the Captain continued affably, as though she had not spoken. “After all, it was your own behaviour that sparked the whole incident!”
Caroline blushed. She knew that he was right, but felt it was not gallant of him to remind her. “I apologise, sir,” she said tightly. “I fear I was nervous. You must think it quite odd in me—”
“I do! To startle my horse and then to run off as though you were a miscreant! What was I to do?”
“You cannot truly have thought me a poacher, sir—” Caroline stopped, realising that she was once again being drawn into a ridiculous conversation.
“Not once I had caught you, of course,” Captain Brabant said, with a quirk of his brows. “When I was holding you, I thought—”
“Thank you, sir, it is best forgotten, I think!”
The Captain seemed undiscouraged. “This must be yours, I think, ma’am.” He was holding out her book of sonnets to her. “Shakespeare? Do you also read the romantic poets?”
Caroline practically snatched the book from his hand, thrusting it back into her pocket. Why must the man insist on making conversation?
“I have little time,” she said crossly.
“For poetry or for romance?” Once again he was smiling at her quizzically.
Caroline concentrated on picking her way through the brambles and did not reply.
“You would probably find walking more comfortable in suitable clothing,” the Captain continued, from close behind her. “That evening dress, whilst most appealing, is not very practical. Though with the boots,” he sounded as though he was giving the matter real consideration, “it is particularly fetching—”
Caroline set her lips in a tight line and still said nothing. She could not believe how unfortunately everything was falling out. Here was Captain Brabant, authoritative, assured and utterly unlike Julia had described him. Why could he not have been the gentle dreamer of Julia’s memory, or at the least a bluff old sea-dog with hair prematurely grey and an everlasting fund of boring tales? She watched him covertly as he retrieved his horse from the forest edge, where it had been happily munching its way through a brambly hedge. She was forced to acknowledge that there was something powerfully attractive about Captain Brabant’s loose-limbed grace, something deceptive about that air of abstraction. A thinker as well as a man of action. In Caroline’s experience that made him all the more dangerous.
It was the worst possible luck that they were obliged to be under the same roof, but she comforted herself with the thought that she need not see him much. Now that he knew she was not a guest but a servant his interest must surely wane, and any further unsuitable interest would have to be discouraged. It was a pity that he did not have enough proper feeling himself to understand the indelicacy of their circumstances. She was sure that she could hear him whistling under his breath, a sure sign that he did not take the situation seriously.
“Your basket, Miss Whiston.”
Caroline jumped. Captain Brabant gave her a slight bow and presented her with the woven reed basket, a few solitary mushrooms rolling around in its base. She had dropped it when she ran away, and she could see the rest of her crop scattered about on the path and in the undergrowth. He followed her gaze.
“We could pick them all up, I suppose,” he mused, “although in a ballgown it would be quite difficult—”
“Pray do not put yourself to any trouble, Captain!” Caroline said hastily, feeling cross and foolish in equal measure. Would the man never cease to remind her of her idiocy in wandering about in the scarlet dress? Now she was well served for her vanity! The dress would be banished to the back of the wardrobe and never see the light of day again!
She reluctantly allowed Captain Brabant to fall into step beside her as they made their way along the path towards Steep Abbot. Caroline tried to preserve a chilly silence, but found that that seemed to make her even more aware of the Captain’s presence at her side. Eventually she was forced into speech by her own self-consciousness.
“Did you have a good journey home, Captain?” she asked politely, picking on the most innocuous topic she could think of. Lewis Brabant smiled at her. It was decidedly unsettling.
“Yes, I thank you. I spent a few nights in London on my way up from Portsmouth. It was strange to be back.”
“Cold as well, I shouldn’t wonder,” Caroline said encouragingly, glad to see that he was capable of holding a proper conversation. “After the Mediterranean, autumn in England must seem very cold.”
There was now a decided twinkle in the Captain’s eye. “Oh, decidedly, ma’am! Cold and wet.”
“It has not rained here for several weeks, although the summer was very wet,” Caroline observed, ignoring the fact that he was now grinning. She knew he was funning her but she was determined to disregard it. She knew how to behave even if he did not.
“I had also forgotten,” the Captain said conversationally, “how the English are obsessed with the weather! Or perhaps,” he turned slightly to look at her face, “it is a defence against too personal a conversation? One thing I have not forgotten is society’s ability to discuss trivia for hours!”
Caroline knew what he meant and she agreed with him. She had spent many a long hour in various drawing-rooms, listening to ladies chatter inconsequentially about something and nothing, gossiping on fortune, connections and scandal. It was galling to think that she was sounding just as hen-witted as they. Yet how to avoid it? She already suspected that Captain Brabant was a man who had little time for prevarication and she felt she had to keep him at arm’s length.
She put up the hood of her cloak. The morning was chilly, though the sun was now breaking through the branches. She knew she looked most disheveled, with her hair in disarray, and she was anxious not to arrive at the Manor looking as though she had been dragged through a hedge—or thoroughly kissed.
“Ah,” she heard the smile in Captain Brabant’s voice, “there are other defences, are there not, Miss Whiston? Hiding away inside your cloak must be one of them! So I suppose that it is out of the question to ask you to tell me a little about yourself? After all, we shall be sharing a roof…”
Caroline did not like the sound of that. The implied intimacy made her blush and she was glad of the concealment of the hood. They had reached the edge of the wood now, and Lewis held the gate for her before leading the horse through. The path crossed the Steep River and approached the village. The river ran in lazy bends here, bounded by trees that in the summer bent down towards the slow, brown waters. This morning, with the sun gilding the frosty branches and glittering on the water, it looked very pretty.
“There is little to tell,” Caroline said, coolly. “I am a very dull subject. I have been a governess for eleven years, since I left the Guarding Academy, and I am now Mrs Chessford’s companion. A paid companion,” she added, to make her meaning crystal clear. For a long moment, blue
