“Miss Dodd—”
“Mattie.”
He sighed. “Miss Dodd, really—”
“Mattie the Madwoman.”
“No.” He smoothed his lapels.
“Mattie the Matwoman.”
He choked. “Good God, please stop. I’ll pay you any sum you ask.”
She grinned and popped a candied orange peel into her mouth, then held up her significantly depleted reticule. “Pay me in these.”
“They’ll rot your teeth.”
“Have you always been such a spoilsport?” she asked cheekily.
No. “Yes.”
“I wonder.” She gave him a considering look as she slid another square of diced lemon peel into her mouth.
He could not help but suspect the self-deprecating nicknames were as much a defensive measure as her candied peels. And he wondered if either tactic actually worked.
“Do you… want to talk about it?” he asked.
Her smile fell. “No.”
He was so surprised, he nearly tripped over his own feet. The ward who hadn’t ceased her endless chatter since the moment she was deposited into his hands did not wish to talk about something?
Perhaps there was such a thing as invisible wounds after all.
None of which was his problem, he reminded himself firmly. Miss Dodd would be gone in three weeks. Sooner, if he mustered up a suitor for her. It was best to think of her as a pretty painting on loan from a museum. Beautiful, with a possibly tragic history, and ultimately a possession belonging to someone else. Best kept tucked away in some other room, for safety.
But for now, there was no choice but to finish the maze side-by-side.
Chapter 11
“Here.” Titus sprinted a few feet ahead of Miss Dodd to scoop up a thin, arm’s-length dry branch from the earth. He held it out as if presenting her with a magic sword. “Swing this in front of you as you walk. If there are any other spiderwebs, you’ll knock them from the path long before they touch you.”
Her face paled further. She did not take the branch. “You think there will be more?”
“No,” he said quickly. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m honestly surprised there was one at all, what with the quantity of visitors who tramp through here. Except that we are out in the middle of nature, and spiders can weave a web with astonishing speed—”
She swayed. His speech was having the opposite effect than intended.
“There are no more spiders,” he told her firmly, imbuing his voice with absolute certainty. “Nonetheless, I will carry this branch as though it were a walking stick, swinging it to and fro as we stroll. It’s an unnecessary gesture, but cannot hurt. Is that acceptable?”
She nodded gratefully, and fell into step at his side.
Titus could not permit himself to soften toward her. Not now, not ever. He certainly could not allow her to realize the depth of his attraction to her. In part for her beauty, and in part because she was the one person in Christendom not afraid of him.
He wondered if that was because she was orphaned. Perhaps it was difficult to fear a mere human after having faced down death.
Then again, Titus had also been orphaned at a young age, and he feared pretty much everything. Perhaps the most vulnerable aspect of Miss Dodd was not her weakness, but her strength. Keeping the broken pieces together was so much harder than allowing the fractured shards to fall apart.
“When my family caught the fever,” she said quietly, “we had no servants. The church delivered meals, but we were too ill to eat, and it was too dangerous for anyone to stay and feed us. Mother and I normally kept the cottage spotless, but with all three members of the household confined to our sickbeds, our pristine home quickly attracted dust and insects.”
