Denzell eyed her for a moment, his gaze roving her features under the bronze bonnet. He had succeeded in rattling her, but that was not what he wanted. Yet if that was what it took to shake her out of that infuriating façade, then what choice had he? There was only frankness left.
“I don’t know what it takes,” he said. “I can only suggest that we pursue the matter until we find out.”
“We?”
A slow grin entered his face. “Why, I think so. Though I admit that for you, Miss Chaceley, it seems to be a case of willy-nilly.”
She almost laughed out again. Really, the man was too much. In spite of herself she warmed to him, saying in a friendly way that she had not meant at all, “In that case, I will be on my way, and you may do just as you please.”
“How magnanimous,” he murmured, turning to keep pace beside her as she began to plough across the uneven ground.
A hidden dent under a pocket of snow undid her, catching the heel of her boot. She gasped as her step faltered. But Denzell put out an instant hand, grasping her arm. “Steady!”
She straightened, glad of his support. The gratitude in her smile, as she turned to him, was genuine. “Thank you.”
His lips quivered at the edges. “That will teach you to try and run from me.”
Verena’s laughter bubbled up, but she nevertheless drew her arm from out of his grip, retorting, “It ought rather to teach you not to trouble me.”
Denzell’s features at once became serious, and his gaze held hers. “Do I trouble you?”
A flurry of confusion was set up in Verena’s chest. The automatic rebuttal came out before she could stop it.
“No!”
“I wish I might!”
Verena became aware of a tattoo battering in her bosom. She thrust down the burgeoning emotions, unaware for the moment that, though her features were composed, her eyes gave away more than she would have wished.
“Mr Hawkeridge, pray leave off this incessant badgering,” she said in the severest tone she could muster. “I am aware that you are passing the time in a fashion which you apparently find agreeable, but believe me, sir, it is not agreeable to me.”
“Because you will not allow it to be so,” he hit back, out of a sudden frustration that welled up inside him.
Verena’s instinct was to slam back at him, but she controlled it. She knew it for the truth, but that did not make his saying it any better. She could feel the tremor in her own voice, and only hoped that it did not reach his ears under the calm manner in which she answered him.
“That, sir, is no concern of yours.”
“I am all too well aware of it.”
“Then I think we understand each other. Good day, Mr Hawkeridge.”
Denzell watched her walk away, cursing himself for that instant’s foolish show of revolt. Chaste stars, but her control was ten times more effective than his own!
How little she gave away. And how swiftly she covered over every tiny lapse. It was maddening.
He sighed, turning a trifle disconsolately for home. He hardly knew now why he was persisting. She did not want anything to do with him. Why, then, should he force himself upon her notice in this ruthless fashion?
And yet … and yet shehadwarmed to him. Briefly, yes. But she had laughed at his sallies as she had the other night, never mind that she had damped down upon her mirth. Given time, he could succeed with her, he was sure of it.
Only, why bother? He must leave for Tuttingham soon, in any event. He had set out to beguile the time, just as Verena Chaceley had accused. But she had proved so intriguing that some other motive seemed to have set in, and Denzell was not at all sure he knew what it was. He was not at all sure, moreover, that he liked it.
What, was he so set up in his own conceit that he could not endure — just as Ossie had said — to be thwarted in his interest in a woman? It was a chastening thought.
However, it did not serve, he discovered later, to deter him from renewing his explorations into Miss Chaceley’s hidden interior. At the Lower Rooms on the following evening, whither Denzell repaired with his hosts, telling himself that he would ignore Verena if she turned up, he no sooner caught sight of her exquisite beauty — radiant, if statuesque, in a gold-spangled muslin gown that seemed to make her loose tresses glow in the candlelight — than he straight away abandoned his resolve.
Deuce take it, she was intolerably beautiful. How the devil could a man be expected to keep his distance, when everything she was beckoned to his deepest desires? Oh, but that was fustian. Everything she was? He did not know what she was. How could he, when she would open nothing of herself to his sight?
A thought struck him. The brother, now. Why not investigate there? Had not Unice spoken favourably of him, of his animation? Might he not then be more forthcoming than Verena herself? He could hardly be less so. But how to beard the boy?
