He said nothing, just raised one eyebrow. Judging by her expression, that still annoyed her as much as ever.
‘You’re going to insist, aren’t you?’ she said, sounding as though her back teeth were clenched together.
He nodded. ‘I am.’
Silence sizzled between them for a moment. There was something about her. About the tilt of her chin and the narrowing of her green eyes that told him she was as stubborn a woman as she had been a child. He’d never realised how attractive stubborn could be.
With a snort, she accepted his hand and stepped into the gig. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Even though it isn’t necessary!’
‘Thank you,’ he said, fighting a wholly unexpected urge to grin. Stubborn, but definitely not stupid.
‘For what?’ she asked in a suspicious voice.
‘For not wasting time and breath with an argument you weren’t going to win,’ he said, watching as she tucked a fur rug about her legs. He’d be damned if he’d let her drive home alone. He swung into the saddle and followed her out of the yard.
There was too much traffic in the town to ride beside the gig, let alone converse, but once they were clear and out on the Corbridge road he brought his mare up alongside. By then he’d noted that she was an excellent whip. Sure and steady, keeping her little mare well up to her bit. He wouldn’t have minded being driven by her. He also knew that his decision to escort Maddy home had been well founded.
‘Look, for what it’s worth, Maddy—Miss Kirkby, I mean—I have no doubt that you are perfectly capable of looking after yourself.’
She let out a breath. ‘You always used to call me Maddy. When you weren’t calling me a nuisancy brat.’
‘You aren’t a brat anymore,’ he pointed out. God help him, she was a woman. He knew that happened—of course he did—but... He swallowed, trying not to think about the stray tawny curl that flirted beside her temple. ‘Are you saying I may still call you Maddy?’
Something in him tensed. Maddy. It sounded so damn intimate. Last time he’d seen her she’d been about fifteen with a mass of springy, curly hair tied back in a ponytail he’d occasionally pulled. Now he ached to twist that stray curl around his finger, brush it back.
‘Yes. If you wish.’
She was an old friend, he reminded himself. That was all.
‘Then you had better drop the Lord Ashton rubbish,’ he said. ‘It’s still Ash.’ That was how it should be between friends.
‘You thought Edward might waylay me, didn’t you?’ she said.
And she was still as quick of thought as she had ever been.
For a moment Ash hesitated. ‘He thought about it,’ he said. ‘He changed his mind when he saw I was with you.’
‘What?’
He’d thought she hadn’t noticed Montfort lurking near the edge of the town as they drove out. She’d needed all her concentration on her driving to clear a dray.
She muttered something under her breath, and paled.
She feared Montfort?
‘Who is Cally?’ he asked.
Her mouth tightened. ‘A dairymaid. Who didn’t have anyone around to defend her when she said no.’
‘I see.’ And he did. The world was full of Callys. And unfortunately full of Montforts. Sadly, not so full of women like Maddy who would stand by the poor girl. ‘You’ve taken her in?’
A short nod.
‘What did your brother say to that?’
Her shocked expression as she turned to him gave the clue.
‘You didn’t know? But that’s why Edward—’ she broke off. ‘I’m sorry. Stephen died six months ago.’
That’s why Edward... What? He didn’t like to ask since she hadn’t volunteered the information. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said instead. ‘My condolences.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Er...am I still escorting you to Haydon?’
A queer expression flashed across her face, gone in an instant. ‘Yes. I still live there. Mr Blakiston said that you are still interested in Roman antiquities.’
A change of subject if ever he’d heard one, but he accepted it. He felt relaxed in a way he hadn’t for a long time. Somehow, talking to Maddy about the Wall, his summer plans for excavating one of the forts he knew of, took him back to summer days before he’d gone to war. When Maddy had still worn her hair down, albeit tied back against the eternal wind that swept the fells. And those bright green eyes had been nearly as quick to spot a half-buried potsherd as his own. He still had the little horse he’d found one day when she was there. A collector in Rome had wanted to buy it, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to part with it.
They were still talking when they reached the turn-off up to the village of Haydon.
Maddy halted the gig there, sheltered from the wind’s bite in the lee of the hedge. ‘I would invite you up, but it’s getting late. If you don’t turn back now—’ She glanced up at the sky.
She was right, but the regret that shot through him was a complete surprise. He wanted to spend more time with her. Find out why she’d used that odd phrase—I still live there. His jaw tensed—and find out why she feared Montfort. Did he own Haydon now? Somehow Ash didn’t much like the thought of that.
‘Thank you for accompanying me home,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Not just because of Edward, but—’ She stopped, her face flooding scarlet.
Because she had enjoyed his company? As much as he had enjoyed hers?
‘I’ll see you in the summer, if not before,’ he said. And realised that he definitely didn’t want to wait that long. ‘You won’t mind my digging on Haydon land again?’
A queer expression crossed her face. It almost, he thought, looked like guilt. ‘N-No. But we’ll need to discuss it.’ She held out her hand.
‘Of course,’ he said.
He leaned over to take her gloved hand, meaning only to say goodbye. For an instant her fingers clung and their eyes met. Slowly, giving her every chance to pull back, he turned her hand over, palm up. There, between glove and sleeve, was the merest strip of pale, tempting skin. Heat a swift rhythm in his blood, he raised her wrist to his mouth and brushed his lips over the place. Lord, she was soft. Tissue soft, silk soft. His lips lingered, and he breathed in a new world. Breathed in leather, wool, lavender and, beneath all that, the underlying fragrance of warm, sweet woman.
For a fleeting instant there was madness, his fingers tightening involuntarily. And then his brain re-engaged, banishing insanity. Reluctantly, rebellion pounding in every pulse of his blood, he obeyed its dictates and straightened, releasing her.
In the real world the earth and sky were, to his surprise, still in their proper relation, the one to the other. Somewhere a rook cawed lazily, a dog barked and the wind whipped at them. Nothing had changed. Except Maddy Kirkby was staring at him, green eyes wide, and her lips, which had at some time in the past several years become shockingly lush, slightly parted.
‘You had better go,’ he said, rather more roughly than he liked. But God help him if she continued to look at him like that. Her parted lips were giving him ideas. Ideas a gentleman who had taken self-righteous exception to another man’s behaviour was a complete hypocrite to be entertaining.
Her mouth closed and colour flared in her cheeks, her chin lifting as she gathered up the ribbons and set her mare in motion. Her eyes flashed a challenge. ‘I am not a toy for your amusement, Ash Ravensfell,’ she