‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. Even when I admit to a fault,’ he said, as though it was an immense concession to admit any such thing, ‘you have to insist your fault is greater.’
‘But I feel at fault,’ she confessed.
It was easy to maintain her pride when he was being grumpy and aloof, but so much harder when he was trying to be kind.
‘It was my fault you lost all your money.’ She’d known it from the start, but had been so angry when he hadn’t scrupled to accuse her of carelessness that she’d refused to admit it. ‘It was my fault you got into this...this escapade at all. If my aunt and her new husband, whom I refuse to call my uncle, hadn’t decided to steal my inheritance...or if you hadn’t had a room up on our landing...’
‘Then we would never have met,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’m glad we have met, Miss Prudence Carstairs.’
Her heart performed a somersault inside her ribcage. She became very aware of his arms enfolding her with such strength, and yet such gentleness. Remembered that he’d put them round her of his own volition.
And then he looked at her lips. In a way that put thoughts of kissing in her head.
‘Because before I met you,’ he said, with a sort of intensity that convinced her he meant every word, ‘I have never admired or respected any female—not really.’
What would she do if he tried to kiss her? She had to think of something to say—quickly! Before one of them gave in to the temptation to close the gap that separated their faces and taste the other.
What had he just said? Something about never admiring a female before? Well, that was just plain absurd.
‘But...you were married.’
He let go of her. Pulled away. All expression wiped from his face. Heavens, but the mention of his late wife had acted upon him like a dousing from a bucket of ice water. Which was a good thing. If she’d let him kiss her or, even worse, started kissing him, who knew how it would have ended? A girl couldn’t go kissing a man in a secluded barn, on a bed of sweet-smelling hay, without it ending badly.
‘Instead of sitting here debating irrelevancies, I would be better employed going to that stream and soaking my neckcloth in it,’ he said in a clipped voice. Then got to his feet and strode from the barn without looking back.
A little shiver ran down her spine as she watched him go. It was just as well she’d mentioned his wife. It had been as effective at cooling his ardour as slapping his face.
It was something to remember. If he ever did look as though he was going to cross the line again she need only mention his late wife and he’d pull away from her with a look on his face as though he’d been sucking a lemon.
Had he been very much in love? And was he still mourning her? No, that surely didn’t tie in with what he’d just said about not respecting or admiring any female before. It sounded more as though the marriage had been an unhappy one.
Gingerly, she wiggled her toes. Welcomed the pain of real, physical injury. Because thinking about him being unhappily married made her very sad. It was a shame if he hadn’t got on with his wife. He deserved a wife who made him happy. A wife who appreciated all his finer points. Because, villainous though he looked, he was the most decent man she’d ever met. He hadn’t once tried to take advantage of her. And he had been full of remorse when he’d seen what her pride had cost her toes. And when she thought of how swiftly he’d made those bucks who’d been about to torment her disperse...
She heaved a great sigh and sank back into the hay, her eyes closing. He might have admitted to breaking into a building, but that didn’t make him a burglar. On the contrary, he’d only broken the law in an attempt to redress a greater wrong. He might not have the strict moral code of the men of the congregation of Stoketown, and her aunt would most definitely stigmatise him as a villain because of it, but his kind of villainy suited her notion of how a real man should behave.
She must have dozed off, in spite of the pain in her feet, because the next thing she knew he was kneeling over her, shaking her shoulder gently.
‘You’re exhausted, I know,’ he said, with such gentle concern that she heaved another sigh while her insides went all gooey. ‘But I must tend to your feet before we turn in for the night. We should eat some supper, too.’
She struggled to sit up, pushing her hair from her face as it flopped into her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. He knelt at her feet, holding a wet handkerchief just above the surface of her skin, as though loath to cause her pain.
And though he looked nothing like a hero out of a fairytale, though he had no armour and had put his horse up for security, at that moment she had the strange fancy that he was very like a knight in shining armour, kneeling at the feet of his lady.
Which just went to show how tired and out of sorts she was.
‘Don’t worry about hurting me,’ she said. ‘I shall grit my teeth and think of— Oh! Ow!’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, over and over again as he dabbed at her blisters.
‘I wish I had a comb,’ she said, through teeth suitably gritted. ‘Then I could tidy my hair.’
‘You are bothered about your hair? When your feet are in this state?’
‘I was trying to distract myself from my feet by thinking about something that would normally bother me. Trying to think of what my usual routine would be as I prepare for bed of a night. My maid would brush my hair out for me, then plait it out of the way...’
But not last night. No, last night she’d had to rely on Aunt Charity’s rather rough ministrations. Because she’d said there was no need to make her maid undergo the rigours of a journey as far as Bath. Even though Bessy had said to Aunt Charity that she wouldn’t mind at all, and had later admitted to Prudence that she thought it would be rather exciting to travel all that way and see a place that had once been so fashionable.
Why hadn’t she seen how suspicious it was for her aunt to appear suddenly so concerned over the welfare of a servant? Why hadn’t she smelled a rat when Aunt Charity had said it would be better to hire a new maid in Bath—one who’d know all about the local shops and so forth?
Because she couldn’t possibly have guessed that Aunt Charity had been determined to isolate her—that was why. So that there wouldn’t be any witnesses to the crime she was planning.
Prudence sucked in a sharp breath. It was worse than simply taking advantage of the opportunity that being housed in that funny little attic in The Bull last night had provided. Aunt Charity and that awful man she’d married had made sure there wouldn’t be any witnesses to what she now saw was a premeditated crime.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘What? No. I was...’ She shivered. ‘I was thinking about my maid, Bessy.’ She paused. Up to now she’d been too busy just surviving to face what her aunt had tried to do. But her mind had been steadily clearing all day. Or perhaps the pain of Gregory tending to her feet was waking her up to the unpleasant truth.
‘I’m afraid you will have to make do with my clumsy efforts tonight,’ he said. Then reached up and twined a curl round one finger. ‘Though it seems a kind of sacrilege to confine all this russet glory in braids.’
‘Russet glory!’ She snorted derisively. ‘I never took you for a weaver of fustian.’
‘I am not. Not a weaver of anything.’ He leaned back on his heels. His eyes seemed to be glazed. ‘But surely you know that your hair is glorious?’
The look in his eyes made her breath hitch in her throat. Made her heart skip and dance and her tummy clench as though she was flying high on a garden swing.
Oh, Lord, but she wanted him to kiss her.