by the time I was twenty-five, then I could have it without strings, to use however I wish, but only if I am found to be “of spotless reputation”.’
‘In other words,’ he said slowly, ‘all your aunt had to do was blacken your name and...’
‘Yes. Mama’s portion—or rather mine, since Mama didn’t feature in the will at all, and I never had any brothers or sisters who lived more than a few days—would go directly to Aunt Charity.’
‘Villainous,’ he hissed.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, drawing her feet out of the water and pulling her knees up to her chin.
Wrapping her arms round her lower legs, she gazed across the stream to the ploughed fields on the opposite bank, blinking determinedly whenever the chill breeze stung her raw flesh.
‘And it isn’t just what happened this morning. Or last night. Aunt Charity and I have been at war, subtly, for years. I can see it all now...’
She shook her head, the furrows blurring as tears misted her vision.
‘I thought she was just a cold, strict sort of woman, and I made allowances for the way she was because I could sort of understand how she might resent me for being thrust upon her when she obviously hadn’t a maternal bone in her body. But I think it was worse than that. Of late I’ve felt as though she has been doubling her efforts to make me feel bad about myself. Always harping on about my “falling short”, as she termed it. And punishing me for the slightest fault.’
She turned to him and searched his face for his reaction.
‘But what if it wasn’t that at all? What if she was trying to make everyone think I was a terrible sinner? So that she’d have the excuse to say I didn’t fulfil the terms of the will?’
He opened his mouth to say something, but thoughts were tumbling into her head so fast she simply had to let them out.
‘It’s true that at one time—about the time Papa died and I knew I was never going to get away from her—I was...well, a bit of a handful. No, I must be honest. I was downright rebellious for a while. I told her I hated her and everything she stood for. But as it drew nearer to my birthday nothing seemed to bother me so much. Only a few more months, I thought, and then I will be free. Only a few more weeks, now...’
She shook her head.
‘But she still looked at me as though I was a problem she had to work out rather than a real person... Oh, I’m not explaining it terribly well, am I?’
‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I think I see only too well.’ He sighed. ‘For I have been guilty of seeing my young cousin Hugo in that light,’ he said.
He plucked at some strands of grass. Tossed them into the stream and watched them float downstream.
‘I have shown him scant sympathy whenever he comes to me with his troubles. The last time I refused to bail him out of his difficulties he accused me of having a mind like a ledger. Of not understanding what ordinary people have to go through. And he was right. I did regard him as nothing more than a financial drain. And an intolerable nuisance.’
‘Yes, but you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to destroy him, would you? You’re not that kind of man.’
He reached out and touched her arm, just briefly, as though her declaration of faith in him had meant something to him.
‘I didn’t think my aunt was that kind of person, either. But her husband...’ She shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past him. As soon as they married there stopped being any money for the things I’d taken for granted before. It started with fewer trips to the dressmaker. When I questioned him he accused me of vanity. And since I already thought he was a terribly pious and unpleasant sort of man I just thought he was trying to improve me. But then there were things like... Oh, he wouldn’t let me have a fire in my room unless it was actually snowing outside. That sort of thing. And I’m sure there isn’t anywhere in the Bible that says you have to go cold to prove how virtuous you are.’
He drew in a sharp breath. ‘It is possible that he has squandered your inheritance—have you thought of that? And this is his attempt to cover it up?’
She thought for a bit. Then shook her head. ‘If it is, he’s gone a very strange way about covering anything up. Surely my disappearance will eventually cause no end of talk? Especially since it looks as though they mean to explain it away by accusing me of improper conduct,’ she finished bitterly.
‘And me,’ he growled. ‘If anyone asks where you have gone, they will drag my name into it.’
‘I don’t see how they can. They don’t know it,’ she pointed out.
‘I will know it,’ he growled. ‘I will know that somewhere people are accusing me of...debauching an innocent. Well, your aunt and uncle picked the wrong man to play the villain of the piece. I won’t let them get away with it.’
‘Good,’ she said, turning to gaze up at him. ‘Because you are not a villain. Not at all.’
He might look like one, with his bruised face, his harsh expression, and his dishevelled and muddied clothing. But she knew how he’d come by the mud, and the bruises. At the time he’d told her about his adventure in the mill she’d half suspected he might have made some of it up, to try and impress her. But that was before he’d rescued her from those drunken bucks simply by looking at them with that murderous gleam in his eyes. Before he’d carried her to this stream just so she could soothe her feet in its ice-cold water. And had listened to her as though her opinions had merit.
‘So far as I’m concerned,’ she said, reaching up to touch the deep groove between his brows, ‘they picked the right man.’
‘What?’ His eyes, which had been glaring off into the distance as though he was plotting a fitting revenge on her guardians, focussed on her in bewilderment.
‘I know that you will put all to rights, somehow—won’t you?’ For that was what he did. ‘Or at least you will do your very best.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’ He fidgeted and turned his head away.
‘Because that is the kind of man you are. Completely upright.’ And not in the way the male members of Stoketown Chapel were upright. Not one of them would break into a warehouse at dead of night to steal a set of false ledgers in order to uncover a fraud. They’d be too scared of what other people would think of their actions.
She might have been mistaken, because it was growing too dark now to see clearly, but she rather thought her last comment might have caused him to blush.
‘Time to turn in for the night,’ he said gruffly. Then bent to put his arms around her and got to his feet.
Just as before, the ease with which he carried her filled her with admiration. Admiration spiced with a series of totally feminine responses. Because this time he was carrying her to a bed they were going to be sharing.
As though he shared the tenor of her thoughts, he came to a complete halt just before entering the barn and stared into the gloom at the far end. Where they were about to make a bed in the pile of hay.
‘This is going to be damned awkward,’
