In a sort of wild desperation she flung the rock at him as hard as she could.
To her surprise—and his—it caught him on the forehead.
He went down like a... Well, like a stone. Prudence stood rooted to the spot. Stared in horror at the blood which was trickling down his face.
The ungainly sprawl of his limbs.
His total stillness.
What had she done? She’d only meant to show him she meant business. To stop him pursuing her.
Instead she’d...she’d killed him!
She ran to where he lay, sprawled on his back in the dirt, blood streaming across his forehead and into his hair. She dropped to her knees beside him. She couldn’t believe she’d felled him like that. With one little stone. Oh, very well then, with a large chunk of rock. She pressed her hands to her mouth. He was such a big man. So full of life and strength. It was unnatural to see him lying so still.
And then he groaned. She’d never heard such a welcome sound in her life.
‘Oh, thank God! You aren’t dead.’ She was almost sobbing.
He opened his eyes and shot her a cold, disbelieving look.
‘No thanks to you,’ he growled, then raised one hand to the cut and winced. He drew his hand away and held his fingers before his eyes, as though he couldn’t believe he really was bleeding without seeing the evidence as well as feeling it.
She reached into the pocket of her skirt for something to dab at the wound. But there was nothing. She had no handkerchief. Her chemise was of fine lawn, though. Its material would be as good. She hitched up her skirt and started tugging at her chemise.
‘What,’ asked the man warily—which wasn’t surprising since she’d well-nigh killed him, ‘are you doing?’
‘I’m trying to tear a piece from my chemise,’ she said, still desperately trying to rip the fabric that was proving more resilient than she’d expected.
‘Why?’ He looked baffled now, as well as wary.
‘To do something about that cut on your head,’ she said.
‘The cut you caused by throwing a rock at me?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather get another rock and finish what you started?’ he enquired mildly.
‘No! Oh, no—I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t think my aim was that good. Actually...’ She sat back on her heels. ‘My aim wasn’t that good. Because I wasn’t aiming at your head. I was just throwing the rock in your general direction, so you’d understand I wished you to leave me alone.’
‘Why?’
While she’d been attempting to explain he’d been fishing in his own pockets and found a large, pristine white silk square which he handed to her with a sort of flourish.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it from him and applying it to the cut. ‘Why what?’
‘Why were you running away? Why didn’t you just steal the gig? Or can you not drive?’
‘Yes, I can drive. Of course I can drive. It just never occurred to me to steal your gig. I’m not a thief!’
He quirked one eyebrow—the one that wasn’t bleeding—as though in disbelief. ‘Not a thief?’ he repeated dryly. ‘How fortunate I feel on receipt of that information.’
She put her hand around the back of his head to hold it still, so that she could press down hard on the cut. ‘Yes, you are fortunate,’ she said tartly. ‘I could have left you lying in the road for the...the next gang of thieves to come along and finish you off!’
‘Well, that would have made more sense than this,’ he said, making a vague gesture to his forehead.
She couldn’t be sure if he meant her trying to stanch the flow of blood, or the fact she’d caused his injury in the first place.
‘You had no reason to run off,’ he said, a touch petulantly for a man who looked so tough. ‘I told you I wouldn’t harm you. But,’ he said, drawing his brows down and narrowing his eyes with what looked like suspicion. ‘I suppose you were desperate to get back to Much Wapping to collect your fee.’
‘Fee?’ She withdrew the handkerchief, noting with some relief that the bleeding was slowing already. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s no use playing the innocent with me. Hugo put you up to this, didn’t he?’
‘Hugo? I don’t know anyone by that name.’
‘A likely story. If you were not attempting to get back to Much Wapping and claiming your reward, why were you running away?’
‘You scared me,’ she admitted. ‘When you started undressing.’
‘Undressing? I was not undressing.’ He frowned. ‘Not precisely. That is, I was removing my coat, but only so that I could lend you my jacket. You looked cold.’
‘Your...your jacket?’ She sat back on her heels. The handkerchief slid from the man’s brow to the ground on which he was still lying, glaring up at her. ‘Because I looked cold? But... But...’
She pressed her hands to her mouth again for a moment. Looking back on his actions in the light of that explanation, it all looked very, very different.
‘I’m so sorry. I thought... I thought...’
‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘I can see what you thought.’
‘Well,’ she retorted, suddenly angered by the way he was managing to look down his nose at her even though he was flat on his back and she was kneeling over him. ‘What would you have thought? I woke up in bed naked, in a strange room, with no idea how I came to be there. Aunt Charity was screaming at me, you were wandering about the place naked, shouting at me, too, and then I went to my room and it was empty, and Aunt Charity had gone with all my things, and the landlady called me names and pushed me out into the yard, and that man...that man...’ She shuddered.
‘I told you,’ he said, reaching for the abandoned handkerchief and pressing it to his brow himself, ‘that I would keep you safe. Didn’t you believe me?’
‘Of course I didn’t believe you. I’m not an idiot. I only went with you because I was so desperate to get away from that dirty, greasy stable hand. And because at least you didn’t seem...amorous. Even this morning, when we woke up together, you didn’t seem amorous. Only angry. So I thought at least you’d spare me that. Except then you took me out into the middle of nowhere and started undressing. And I... I didn’t know what to think. It’s all like some kind of nightmare.’ She felt her lower lip tremble. ‘None of this seems real.’ Her eyes burned with tears that still wouldn’t quite form.
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘None of this seems real.’
And then he sat up.
Her instinct was to flinch away. Only that would look terribly cowardly, wouldn’t it? So she made herself sit completely still and look him right in the eyes as he gazed into hers, searchingly.
‘Your eyes look strange,’ he said, reaching out to take hold of her chin. ‘I have never seen anyone with such tiny pupils.’
For such a large man his touch was remarkably gentle. Particularly since he had every right to be angry with her for throwing that rock. And actually hitting him with it.
‘My eyes feel strange,’ she admitted in a shaky voice. The touch of his fingers on her chin felt strange, too. Strange