His sister’s gown, while elegant, seemed out of place on the young woman. It hung too loose on her frame. Her dark hair, hastily pinned up, had already begun to escape in tendrils, catching the light and framing her face in a way that madehim want to study her more closely. She was like a caged falcon, barely restrained, her sharp green eyes always moving, calculating, waiting for the right moment to fly away.
He’d have done the same were he in her position.
He eased the carriage around a bend. Juliet Finch hadn’t said more than two words since they set off, her face fixed on the road ahead, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. The unease of her rigid posture was palpable—the same guarded stillness he’d noted when he and his sister had interviewed her that morning. The girl had spirit, that much was evident, but so much more was going on beneath the surface. Something he couldn’t quite identify.
Or could he? For surely she fretted about being caught and forced into tracking a man who might potentially threaten her own neck—and that thought chafed. He didn’t wish her to be in danger any more than he did his sister. Yet with her hunting skills, Miss Finch was a necessary asset. No scoundrel would expect a woman to be on the prowl for him. Henry would simply have to keep an eye out for her safety while also assuring she would not bolt at the first chance.
He flicked the reins with practiced ease, urging the horses forwards as the road narrowed, the trees closing in on either side. He hadn’t expected to be driving Juliet Finch anywhere today, let alone offering to escort her to her aunt’s cottage. Yet the look in her eyes earlier—the unwavering loyalty to someone who clearly depended on her—had caught him off guard, and he’d yielded. Not because she pleaded. She hadn’t. In fact, she’d seemed more resigned than hopeful, but her concern had been real—a concern that had driven her to breaking the law.
He glanced at her sideways. “So, how did you learn to set a snare so handily? My sister is proficient at many things, but not in bagging a quail. I daresay not many women are.”
She reached for the sidewall, gripping it as the wheels jolted over a rut in the road. “My elder brother never wanted a sister, so he made a tomboy of me.” A smile lit her face, softening her usually guarded expression. “Philip was an avid outdoorsman and a very good teacher.”
“Was?” He angled his head.
“Yes.” She turned away, her next words coming out strained. “He died of consumption.”
“I am sorry to hear it.” The words were entirely inadequate, but it was the best he could offer. He could only imagine what it would be like to lose a sibling—how it might break him were he to lose Charity. His heart squeezed, a small pain compared to the grief Miss Finch clearly shouldered.
He studied the road in front of them, but his mind was entirely on the woman beside him. She’d lost a brother—and apparently the rest of her family save for the aunt she lived with. Her manner of speech, the grace of her movements, how she’d properly greeted his sister, all led him to believe she was a lady of some social standing. Yet there she sat in one of his sister’s old gowns after having been caught red-handed with stolen game in her sack.
“Tell me, how is it”—he slipped her a glance—“that you have left behind a life of refinement for that of a thief?”
“Perhaps you can first tell me, Mr. Russell, how it is you mistake desperation for thievery?”
He faced her full on, admiring the lift of her jaw and appreciating even more that she would not be cowed by him. There was strength in this woman, and that he could respect. “Desperation, you say? I suppose that is one way to justify your actions. Yet that does not explain how a woman with your poise and breeding finds herself in such a predicament.”
“Sometimes life has a way of falling apart without a written invitation to do so.”
Defiance crackled in her tone, a layer above bitterness. He didn’t like the idea that misfortune had touched her in ways he couldn’t yet understand, and he gripped the reins all the tighter. “What happened? What was it that caused your life to come undone?”
She focused on the horizon as if the answer to his question might be found in dirt and gravel. “I mean no disrespect, Mr. Russell, but I do not wish to speak of it.”
Frustration twisted in his gut. He wasn’t accustomed to being shut out, especially not by someone under his care—or scrutiny. For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, it mattered to him, her story, her pain. Yet Juliet Finch seemed determined to keep him at arm’s length, and while that infuriated him, it also attracted him.
Bah. What was he thinking? He urged the horses onwards with another flick to the reins. She was here for one reason only—to help catch Charity’s tormentor.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of air hissing in through his teeth as he rounded a bend in the road and the cottage she shared with her aunt came into view. Sweet mercy! He pulled the horses to a stop in front of a broken gate hanging onto a rotted post like a crooked tooth.Thiswas where the woman and her elderly aunt lived? The place was naught but a collection of boards leaning against one another like drunkards, each seeming to hold up the other by sheer accident. The roof buckled in places, and the rest looked ready to give way to the next gust of wind. Patches of moss and rot covered the walls, creeping like a cancer, while the few windows were blocked by threadbare curtains.
His jaw tightened. The contrast between Juliet’s resilience and her circumstances was a testament to the steel in her spine. He had seen women of means wilt under far less. And yet here shewas—thin, hungry, a thief by circumstance—and still, she held her head high. It unnerved him how much he admired that.
Juliet climbed down before he could set the brake. “I will not be long.”
“I will go with you.” He pulled on the brake and jumped to the gravel.
“No.” She shook her head so sharply, a curl broke loose and dangled against her cheek. “My aunt is frail. It would not do to startle her.”
Cornering the carriage, he strode up to her. “And yet I will not have you slipping out a back door.”
“There is none. That”—she tipped her head towards the front door—“is the only entrance.”
“A window, then.”
“Neither are there any windows on the back side. I assure you, Mr. Russell, I am no liar.”
“But you are a poacher.”
A rugged sigh whooshed from her. “I am also a woman of my word. I will not run. I shall merely see that aunt has a pot of tea at the ready and the last slice of bread to go along with it. Then I shall pack up my belongings and return to you. It will not take long.”
