your penury, and your foolish attempt to evade me, and now a pack of lecherous young fops.’
For a moment his pointing all this out robbed her of speech. But she soon made a recovery.
‘Oh? Well, I do not recall asking you to do any of those things!’
‘Nevertheless I have done them. And what’s more I fully intend to keep on doing them.’ He halted, frowning in a vexed way at the clumsiness of the words that had just tumbled from his lips. ‘That is,’ he continued, ‘I am going to stick to your side until I know you are safe.’
‘Well, until we reach wherever it is that your dragon of an aunt lives and you hand me over to her, I reserve the right to...to...’
‘Be mean and ungrateful?’
‘I’m not ungrateful.’ On the contrary, she’d been so grateful when he’d shown up just now and sent those horrible men packing that she’d fallen on his neck and embarrassed him. Embarrassed herself. In fact she suspected that half the reason she was suddenly so cross with him again was because she was ashamed of appearing clingy and weepy. Right after vowing she wasn’t going to rely so totally on him.
‘Of course I’m grateful for everything you’ve done,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to...to...dictate to me.’
‘Is that what I was doing? I rather thought,’ he said loftily, ‘I was making helpful decisions which would keep you from plunging into further disaster.’
‘Oh, did you indeed?’
All of a sudden his manner altered.
‘No, actually, I didn’t,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. ‘You are quite correct. I was being dictatorial.’
‘What?’
‘Ah. That took the wind out of your sails,’ he said with a—yes—with a positive smile on his face. ‘But, you see, I am rather used to everyone doing as I say without question. You are the first person in a very long while to argue with me.’
‘Then I expect I will do you a great deal of good,’ she retorted.
‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ he replied amiably. ‘Just as being in my company will be an improving experience for you. Because you,’ he said, taking her chin between his long, supple fingers, ‘are clearly used to having your every whim indulged.’
‘I am not,’ she objected, flinching away from a touch that she found far too familiar. And far too pleasant.
‘You behave as though you have been indulged all your life,’ he countered. ‘Pampered. Spoiled.’
‘That is so very far from true that...’ She floundered to a halt. ‘Actually, when my parents were alive they did cosset me. And Papa’s men treated me like a little princess. Which was what made it such a dreadful shock when Aunt Charity started treating me as though I was an unwelcome and rather embarrassing affliction.’
Just as Gregory had done when she had rushed up to him and hugged him. That was one of the reasons it had hurt so much. He’d made her feel just as she had when she’d first gone to live with Aunt Charity, when everything she’d done had been wrong. She’d already been devastated by having lost her mother, being parted from her father, and then being spurned by both grandfathers. But instead of receiving any comfort from Aunt Charity she’d been informed that she had the manners of a hoyden, which she’d no doubt inherited from her morally bankrupt father.
‘I suppose it must have been.’
They stood in silence for a short while, as though equally surprised by her confession. And equally bewildered as to how to proceed now they’d stopped quarrelling.
‘Look,’ said Prudence, eventually, ‘I can see how difficult you are finding the prospect of parting with your watch.’
‘You have no idea,’ he said grimly.
‘Well, then, let us consider other options.’
‘You really believe we have any?’
‘There are always other options. For example, do we really need to redeem your horse? I mean, how far is it, exactly, to your aunt’s house?’
‘Exactly?’ He frowned. ‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Guess, then,’ she snapped, barely managing to stop herself from stamping her foot. ‘One day’s march? Two?’
‘What are you suggesting? Marching?’
‘I don’t see why not. We are both young—relatively young,’ she added, glancing at him in what she hoped was a scathing way. ‘And healthy.’ He most certainly was. She’d never seen so many muscles on a man. Well, she’d never seen so much of a man’s muscles, to be honest, but that wasn’t the point. ‘And the weather is fine.’
He placed his hands on his hips and gave her back a look which told her he could rise to any challenge she set. And trump it.
‘We could cut across country,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t believe it is all that far as the crow flies.’
‘Well, then.’
‘There is no need to look so smug,’ he growled.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, although she couldn’t help smiling as she said it. ‘It is just that, having grown up in an army that always seemed to be on the move, I am perhaps more used than you to the thought of walking anywhere I wish to go, as well as having more experience of adapting to adversity than you seem to.’
There—that had been said in a conciliating manner, hadn’t it?
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, you said yourself that your life has been rather dull and unpredictable up to now. Obviously I assume I am more used to thinking on my feet than you.’
‘Ah.’ He gave her a measured look. ‘Strange though it may seem, I do not regard my time with you as being one of unalloyed adversity, exactly. And thinking on my feet is...’ He paused. ‘Exactly the kind of challenge I was looking for when I set out. So, instead of regarding the loss of my horse as a problem, I agree—we could look upon it as the perfect excuse for taking a stroll through what looks to be a rather lovely part of the countryside.’
Now he was catching on.
‘And having a picnic?’ she suggested. ‘Instead of having to eat in yet another stuffy inn.’
‘A picnic...’ he said, his eyes sliding to her takings. ‘We would only need to purchase a bit of bread, some cheese, and an apple or two.’
‘And what with it being market day,’ she added, ‘there will be plenty of choice. Which generally means bargains.’
‘I shall take your word for it,’ he muttered.
‘You won’t have to. Until you have seen an army brat haggle over half a loaf and a rind of cheese you haven’t seen anything,’ she informed him cheerfully.
