“Needs must,” she muttered, hefting it onto her shoulder.
She slipped between the trees, taking up position just within the wood line, where she could see the point where the side lane met the main road. The undergrowth scratched at her skirts.
Cold damp from the bark leeched through her sleeve where her arm pressed to the trunk. The hoofbeats drew nearer, clear now, the rhythm of an animal ridden by someone who knew what he was about. Not a drunken ploughboy. Isla breathed slowly, controlling the tremor in her fingers.
The rider came into view, a dark figure against the pale strip of road, cloak snapping a little with the movement. His hat was pulled low, his features hidden by distance and the angle of his head. He slowed as he approached the joining of the lanes.Morrow, restless, shifted her weight; the harness jingled softly. The rider’s head snapped toward the sound. He reined in.
Damn!
He turned his horse into the side lane at a walk, gaze on the trap. Isla pressed her shoulder harder to the tree, raising the bough. The rider drew nearer, hoofbeats muffled now by the softer earth. At this angle she still could not see his face clearly through the tangle of branches but she saw the way he sat his horse. Straight-backed, easy. As though the saddle were as familiar as his own skin.
Gentleman,she thought.Which does not make him safe.
He pulled up beside the trap, leaning a little to inspect the seat. No driver. No passenger. He glanced around.
“Isla?”
The name, in that voice, drove through her like a bell struck close to the ear. Her breath caught. The bough slipped slightly in her hands. The rider turned his horse a fraction, angling toward the sheltering hedge. As he did, light fell cleanly across his face. Edward. Relief and fury surged together so fast she hardly knew which reached her hands first.
She stepped out from behind the tree and swung. The bough made it halfway through its arc before the wood surrendered to its own decay. The end, which should have connected solidly with his shoulder, disintegrated in a shower of sodden bark and splinters, leaving only a pathetic, jagged length in her grip.
Edward flinched anyway, more in surprise than pain. Bits of decayed wood pattered against his coat. His horse shied, dancing sideways; he brought it under control with a sharp word and a steady hand.
“Good God, woman,” he exclaimed. “Are you in the habit of assaulting people with compost?”
Isla stood, breathing hard, the remains of the bough in her hand. Her heart pounded against her ribs, part from the fright, part from the sudden, absurd, infuriating relief at seeing him.
“You should have announced yourself,” she snapped.
“I did,” he said. “I used your name. Loudly. You chose to answer with a tree.”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, ignoring the truth of that. “Have you taken up following women on the road as a hobby?”
He pushed his hat back a little, exposing his face more fully. There was a smear of rotten wood near his shoulder, another fleck clung to his hair.
“I might ask what you are doing,” he returned. “Driving a trap alone on the Great North Road as though you were a post-boy in a hurry.”
“I am going home,” she said. “Or what is left of it.”
“Without escort,” he said. “Without adequate protection. Without …”
“I can protect myself,” she cut in, brandishing the pathetic remains of her weapon. “You have seen my prowess with … peat.”
“At least you are armed,” he murmured. “Though perhaps next time choose something that is not half-mushroom.”
She threw the bough aside. It fell apart on impact with the ground. He swung down from the saddle with controlled ease, landing lightly despite the long hours he must have ridden. Up close she could see the strain around his eyes, the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw. He had not slept since she left, she would have wagered a month’s allowance.
“You should not have come,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“I disagree,” he said.
“How did you even know?”
“You told my mother you were going to Strathmore,” he said. “Did you imagine a groom would not repeat that to the master?”
“I imagined,” she said tightly, “that you would be delighted to have me out from under your roof. Your mother certainly was.”
His jaw twitched. “My mother delights in many things I do not share.”
