Lavender stole a quick look at his face and blushed.
‘I am sorry…It is not that I was watching, but the noise of the contest attracted my notice and I stopped to see what was happening—’
‘I see.’ She thought Barney sounded as though he saw rather too much. ‘No doubt you were surprised?’
‘Well, I…’ Lavender struggled to think of a way of expressing her feelings without sounding rude. ‘I suppose I was. It was not something that I expected you…’ She broke off. ‘That is, you seemed very proficient—’ She stopped again. Now she had given away that she had been watching long enough to make a judgement.
‘Thank you.’ Barney was smiling at her. ‘No doubt it must seem odd to you, but I have been fencing since I was a boy. James Oliver, my opponent a few moments back, was also my first adversary. I met him and a few of his aristocratic playmates when I was about eleven, and walking in the forest.’ He shot her a look. ‘They taunted me, the poor village boy, and I was so angry that I challenged James to a fight. Imagine my dismay when he suggested we should fight with swords, like gentlemen rather than peasants, as he put it!’
Lavender could not help smiling at his droll tone. ‘What happened?’
The laughter lines around Barney’s eyes deepened. ‘Well, no doubt I was a little unorthodox in my style, but I discovered that I had a natural bent for fencing! I beat James easily and then he and his friends did not crow so loud! And since then he has sworn he will beat me one day, but he has yet to do so!’
‘He seems a better friend to you now than he must have been then,’ Lavender ventured, for one of the things that had struck her about the two men was their easy camaraderie.
Barney laughed. ‘Oh, he learned respect! No, James is a good fellow at heart and I have counted him a friend for many years now.’ He hesitated. ‘All the same, Miss Brabant, I should be grateful if you told no one that you witnessed our match.’
Lavender stopped, taken aback. ‘Of course, if you wish it! But is this some strange kind of reverse snobbery that prompts you not to acknowledge your aristocratic friends, Mr Hammond?’
She could have bitten her tongue out as soon as she had spoken, for she knew she did not know him well enough to ask such a personal and challenging question. Whilst Lavender had little time for the commonplaces and evasions of polite society, she did at least feel that she always spoke with courtesy. This time, however, she had been lured by the unusual nature of their conversation into asking a rather direct question. She saw Barney raise his eyebrows at her plain speaking, but he did not seem in any way taken aback and he answered her without prevarication.
‘Not at all. The truth is that I prefer not to tell anyone. Were my father to know I fear he would take shameless advantage.’
Lavender turned aside and started walking again. She felt a little embarrassed. She knew exactly what he meant. Arthur Hammond was such a social climber that he would be beside himself with excitement to discover that Barney had such upper-class friends. No doubt he would use the fact to push himself on their notice and ruin the comfortable companionship that existed.
‘Have you kept it a secret for all these years, then?’ she asked, unable to prevent her curiosity surfacing again.
‘Oh, it is but one of many secrets!’ Barney said easily. Lavender saw a hint of amusement in his eyes as he watched her. ‘In general terms, Miss Brabant, I find it easier not to tell people things!’
Lavender struggled to equate this with what she thought she knew of him. It was true that most of it had been based on assumption and conjecture, about the shop, about his father, about his life…Just as he had apparently seen her as a spoilt society miss, she had imagined him to be the son of a solid merchant family, destined inevitably to take over the business one day. Now, suddenly, all her ideas were in a spin.
They had reached the stile at the edge of the wood and paused whilst still under the shadows of the trees. The sun was slanting through the leaves in blinding shafts. Lavender put up a hand to shade her eyes.
‘Thank you for carrying my portfolio. I am sure I can manage from here back to Hewly—’
‘At the least, let me help you over the stile,’ Barney murmured. Before Lavender could either accept or decline, he had swept her up in his arms and deposited her on the other side, ruffled and indignant. She grabbed hold of him to steady herself. The material of his shirt was soft beneath her fingers and once again, Lavender could feel the warmth and the hardness of the muscle beneath. She positively jumped away from him.
‘Really, sir—’
‘Miss Brabant? Surely you did not wish to risk further injury to your ankle?’
Barney handed her the portfolio. ‘Will you show me your drawings one day? I should be most interested…’
Lavender looked at him suspiciously but he seemed quite in earnest. ‘If you would truly care to see them—’
Barney flashed her a smile. ‘Thank you. I will leave you here, Miss Brabant, if you are sure that you can manage alone. And take care when you are walking in the forest. You can never be sure what you might find.’
Lavender felt the colour come into her cheeks again. His gaze was very steady and in a second, mortification overcame her. He had made no direct reference to her spying on the fencing match that afternoon, but suddenly her guilty conscience was too much and she was sure that he knew—knew that it was not the first time she had watched him. Some two months previously she had been wandering through the woods where the river ran, and had seen Barney in the pool beneath the trees. He had been swimming strongly and the water had streamed over his bare brown shoulders and down his back, and Lavender had wanted to strip down to her shift and join him in the water there and then…A huge wash of guilty colour swept into her face, and she turned and ran from him, regardless of her torn skirt, the pain in her leg, and the amazed expression she knew must be on his face as he watched her run away.
Chapter Three
‘Lavender, you have had a Friday face for at least the past week!’ Caroline observed to her sister-in-law, ten days later. ‘I declare, you are making me miserable, and I was in the greatest good spirits until this morning! Whatever can be the matter with you?’
Lavender refused to look up from her book. She did not want to face Caroline’s shrewd questioning at the moment. They were sitting in the drawing-room, Caroline embroidering and Lavender half-heartedly reading Sense and Sensibility. She was dismally aware that she was not enjoying herself—and had not done so ever since her disastrous encounter with Barney Hammond in the wood.
The scratch on her leg had healed quickly, but her feelings were still sore. She was uncomfortably aware that she had made a complete cake of herself. It had been undignified enough to have been caught in the man-trap but she had made matters infinitely worse for herself by running away in so melodramatic a fashion.
‘It is nothing of consequence,’ she muttered, knowing she sounded ungracious. ‘I am sorry if my poor spirits are lowering to yours. I shall go into the library.’
She made to get up, but Caroline put out a hand to stay her.
‘Do not sulk! I was only teasing.’ She patted the sofa beside her and Lavender sat down reluctantly. ‘In fact I have the best of news! You know that Lewis is to go to Northampton on business for a few days?’