Predictably enough, she pulled a face.
“I daresay you don’t know what that even means.” There. What milkmaid knew how to read in Latin?
She snorted. “It means ‘Foundations of Natural Law’. You must be a lawyer, politician or magistrate, or some such boring thing.”
He was momentarily thrown. So the milkmaid could not only read, but she understood Latin? Earlier, she had also seemed to understand the termlusus naturae.He eyed her curiously. What sort of milkmaid was she?
Before he could ask what her name was, she cut in. “Now that we have established that, you need not worry that I shall shower you with unnecessary gratitude. For I suppose I owe you some sort of thanks,” she said grudgingly. “For having saved my life. But from the way you are looking at me like I’m an insect beneath your impeccably polished boots—bought at Hoby’s, correct? Not that I have ever been to London, but I have readthat is where the city swells buy their boots—Anyhow. What was I saying? Oh yes. I shan’t embarrass you and offer you my soiled hand to shake, for heaven forbid I besmirch you any further with my presence.” She dropped into a crooked curtsy.
He had indeed bought his boots at Hoby’s. “You certainly are an outspoken, saucy young thing, aren’t you?”
She opened her mouth as if wanting to come up with a heated retort, then pressed her lips to a thin line. With a huff, she turned and dropped on all fours to the ground.
What in all the name that was good and holy was the vexing creature doing now?
Flummoxed, he watched her crawl upon the dusty ground, her bottom turned towards him, wiggling about in a tantalising manner.
“Ah. Here it is.” She picked up something from the ground. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you, my dearest, my treasure,” she crooned, kissing the—pencil? Then she picked up a small leather journal that had fallen amongst some blackberry brambles and wiped it off.“Oh! Blackberries!” Her eyes lit up, and, setting aside her journal again, she proceeded to harvest the berries, collecting them in her skirt that she lifted, revealing a set of slim knees and finely shaped thighs.
He looked away hastily.
She stuffed some blackberries into her mouth as she picked them.
“Do you want some? They are wonderfully sweet.” She held out a handful to him.
He shook his head. Now she had blackberry juice running down her chin. He watched, appalled, how she wiped the back of her hand across her lips, smearing it even further.
Picking up her journal, she checked it for torn pages, no doubt smudging the paper with blackberry stains. Then she sat on a stone, licked the pencil, and began to write.
He shook his head, blinking.
She looked up and dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “You may go now. I think I have collected sufficient material. It has been a disappointingly unproductive afternoon, but at least I know now what it feels like to fall out of the window of a tower.” She scribbled down some more words. “I must record that feeling before I forget it.” Her pencil hovered in the air. “That moment shortly before one crashes to one’s death. That moment of inevitability. Of catastrophically impending doom.” She paused. “Of irreversible?—”
“You really are mad.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you are an insufferable, arrogant prig.”
They glared at each other.
She shrugged and turned to her notebook.
Several minutes passed.
“You are still here,” she said, without lifting her head, still scribbling. A pink tongue peeked out of the corner of her blackberry-smirched mouth.
He snorted.
She looked up, irritation flashing through her eyes.
Big and black, they were, and slightly unfocused, as though she was in a different world entirely.
“What?” She addressed him as though he were a stable boy.
“You are very young, are you not?” The moment he uttered those words, he felt as old as Methuselah.
She lifted her chin proudly, which made her appear even younger. “I am not. Let me inform you that I am seventeen. Almost eighteen. In fact, I am to marry soon. Not that it is any business of yours.” She softened that statement by adding, “How old are you, anyway?”
“I am twenty-three.” So the milkmaid was betrothed. Huh. He pitied the fellow who was to marry her.
