gaze lingered on hers. He held up his hand, fingers splayed, but curved inwards. ‘Hit me. Hard.’ His voice softened. ‘Just don’t hurt your hand.’
‘No.’
He brought his hand closer. ‘Hit me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I hardly know you. And though I don’t like you at all, I don’t have any wish to hurt—much wish to hurt you.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve hit men I didn’t know at all. And men I knew quite well.’
‘I will not hit you. It’ll only hurt my hand.’
The tension in his face relaxed. ‘You’re right.’ He moved to the sofa and pulled a pillow into his hands and raised it. ‘Hit gently, then. Just to feel the movement. Not the windmill, but the direct hit.’
‘I said no.’ She looked at him. ‘It’s as if you like to fight.’
‘I do.’
He shook his hand sideways, emphasising the location for her punch. ‘I’ve never not hit anyone who asked me to.’ His lips curved. ‘Chaperoned Miss who cannot even scream.’ His face moved closer. His breath burned at her cheek. ‘You may hit me any time you wish, buttercup.’
His face not moving away, chin so close she could almost feel the bristles.
‘A woman designed to do nothing but wed well.’
The words jabbed her skin.
‘You’re a sweet confection only to look at, a well-designed form to display jewellery. If you’ve a thought in your head, you bat it away with your eyelashes so it will not confuse you.’
He moved around her, circling. ‘You’re dandelion fluff. The feathers in this pillow have more of a brain than you.’
She swung, straight to the chin.
His left hand moved up, his fingers trapping her wrist before it touched him. With a soft clasp, he moved her hand away from his face.
Then his eyes flinched and he tensed. He snapped his fingers back from her.
She touched her skin, to cover the heat his grasp had left behind. ‘If you only did that to show you’re stronger than I, you proved it. To yourself, I suppose. But I already knew it.’
He threw down the pillow. Again he raised his hand, palm to her and fingers open to clasp her punch. ‘Hit it.’ His voice now had the raggedness of anger. He shook the right hand again. ‘Don’t be scared, Miss Fluff. Don’t be afraid.’
Again she refused.
He leaned in. His eyelids dropped, humour and venom mixed, even as his voice softened. ‘Pretend I took your favourite doll.’
She punched out, force behind her arm. He didn’t clasp his fingers around hers, but moved back with the hit. ‘Better.’
All movement of the room stilled while their eyes locked.
‘Again,’ he commanded. ‘And don’t look at where your fist is going. Your eyes tell me your plans. Before you tried to hit my face, you looked at my chin. I saw your movements before they were made. Watch my face. Read my actions. Lie to me with your eyes.’
‘Why?’ She let the word flow with her breathing. ‘Why are you doing this?’
After gazing at her for a second, he dropped his arm. ‘Because everyone should know how to protect themselves. I was taught it by my father.’
Thoughts raced. Yes. A father might teach his son to box. But why was he doing this to her?
‘Apparently you did not hear that my mother died from falling down the stairs. Breaking her neck.’
She nodded. ‘Well, yes—I think.’ Perhaps she’d heard it. But it was a very long time ago. ‘My condolences on her passing, but what has that to do with—?’
The glare from his face would have stopped a horse from rushing ahead.
She said nothing, stepping back.
‘I was in the house that night.’
His sigh was silent. He waited long enough to blink. He frowned, shrugging away the words. ‘Servants carried her upstairs and put her on her bed. My grandmother instructed everyone exactly how Mother’s hair should be prepared and what clothes she should wear and told them to be quick about it. For the first time, she seemed to want my mother to be beautiful.’
Annie tightened her arms around her midsection, imagining Barrett watching his mother’s death. His eyes showed no reflection of the memories. In fact, he seemed more interested in how she would respond.
Annie remained stationary, hiding in herself as best she could.
Annie’s father had told her when her grandmother had passed on. That afternoon, her parents had asked her sisters if they wished to say goodbye. She and her sisters had held hands and walked into her grandmother’s room. Her grandmother had seemed to be sleeping with her prayer book in her hands and her favourite miniature of her husband placed against the book.
‘My mother was gone,’ he continued. ‘Grandmother was dancing around her and saying what a shame one so beautiful died so young. I didn’t realise Grandmother considered my mother beautiful.’ He touched his upper lip. ‘Mother had a broken tooth and all my grandmother had ever called her was Snaggletooth.’
‘That is a cruel name.’
‘She had her own version of endearments.’ He moved his fingers from his lip, twitched a shoulder and held out his palm for a half-second before his hand fell to his side.
‘At least she realised at the end that your mother was beautiful.’
‘I suspect she realised it all along.’ He stepped away, touching the lamp, and turned the wick higher, as if trying to get more light on Annie. ‘I often had a lot of time in my childhood to do nothing but think and listen. I don’t think the servants realised how their voices could carry or that I might be nearby.’
His head tilted a bit and he gauged Annie’s reaction, and she didn’t know exactly how she was supposed to react. Or what he watched for. She didn’t know what he expected from her. She didn’t think he wanted sympathy, or platitudes. But she had nothing else to offer and she didn’t know what he was looking for.
She couldn’t really take in what Barrett had said to her. He was talking about seeing his mother’s death. Every word had the resonance of truth in it, but it sounded cold. Unfeeling. As if he talked about a Drury Lane performance that bored him.
She truly didn’t know how to respond. She grasped for words that seemed right to say in a situation where someone talked about death. Nothing seemed to fit, but she had to say something.
‘I am so sorry. To lose a loved one in such a way... But you couldn’t have saved her from an accident.’
