The moment they entered the inn, she’d asked to use the facilities of the house. He’d immediately suspected her of trying to give him the slip and had frustrated any such design by ordering a maid to go with her and remain to escort her back to him. The dagger look Miss Greenaway had cast at him was enough to convince him he’d gauged her state of mind with accuracy.
He had taken the chance to relieve himself and was back in time to receive her from the cheerful maid and escort her into the parlour.
That he had not won her trust was no surprise. From what she had let fall, Alex gathered she’d been deceived enough to be wary. How he was to convince her to put herself under his protection, he had no notion. But his determination was fixed. As a man of honour, he could not permit a genteel girl to blunder about on her own. Especially one as buffleheaded as Appoline Greenaway. She might be only a few weeks short of her majority, but she was naïve to the point of lunacy. Else she would not have undertaken such a ridiculous and dangerous adventure.
She appeared to have gone into a fit of the sulks, for she did not speak until the waiter came in with a laden tray. Her eyes, which — conveniently, from Alex’s point of view — gave away what she was thinking, brightened at the sight. He grinned. “Hungry?”
A tiny smile flitted across her mouth. Alex was conscious of a riffle of warmth in his chest.
“Yes, I am. I hardly ate any breakfast, I was too wound up. What did you order?”
“Some patties, rolls and tarts.”
The smile reappeared, wider and accompanied by a sparkle at those big eyes. “Excellent.”
Such a mercurial little chit! She swept up and down like a vivacious monkey, chattering in heat at one moment, in cold the next. He was amused and exasperated by her at one and the same time.
She watched as the waiter laid dishes on the table, and Alex saw her eyes brighten again at sight of the coffee pot. As the waiter finished and moved to the door, Alex took up the pot and poured out a cupful. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
He added a quantity of both and passed the cup and saucer across to her. Miss Greenaway took the cup in both hands and lifted it to her lips, sipped a couple of times and let out a sigh of satisfaction.
He had to laugh. “Good, is it?”
She twinkled. “I need reviving.”
“You mean you aren’t at your brightest? God help me then!”
A giggle escaped her. “Oh, I have plenty of surprises up my sleeve.”
“That’s what worries me.”
Her eyes acknowledged a hit, but she made no reply, addressing herself to the food. Having made a substantial meal at the inn where she’d hidden in his coach, Alex ate sparingly himself and took time to observe the girl in the better light of the inn parlour, where a couple of candelabra helped against the dimness of a gloomy day.
She’d doffed her cloak, revealing a dull, dark gown made for warmth rather than fashion, with long sleeves and unadorned except for a splatter of embroidery around the neck, which was made high to the throat. She was slight, with few curves and even less bosom. A mop of curls, dusky and dishevelled, fell about her face, the rest caught up at the back. Not a remarkable countenance in Alex’s judgement, though her mouth was pretty and she had that determined little chin. But those large eyes, grey he now saw, lifted her out of the ordinary. And her face was mobile, reflecting her thoughts. How had she managed to fool her relatives?
“Didn’t these guardians of yours suspect you might try something like this?”
She looked up from her plate, which was nearly empty. “No, for they have not the least understanding of my character.”
“Why not, if this Marjorie has been taking care of you?”
Her eyes lit with wrath and she set down the end of the roll she’d been eating. “Taking care of me? When all she can do is try to force me to marry a man I can’t abide? For all she is sharp, she doesn’t notice what is under her nose.”
Alex had no difficulty in interpreting this. “What you mean is, you put on a show of submissiveness for her benefit.”
“I did not!” Then the mischief appeared. “Well, I said I would consider the matter. But only after I was set upon what I meant to do. Only it did not serve, because she told Walter and he immediately went to ask the pastor to read the banns.”
Startled, Alex set down his tankard. “A trifle premature.”
“That is Cousin Walter all over. When I learned what he’d done, I had to bring my scheme forward. I wouldn’t have set out in such weather otherwise.”
He raised his brows. “You mean you actually took that into account?”
That resolute little chin thrust up again. “Of course I did! I am not a complete idiot!”
“Notcomplete, perhaps.”
