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Not that he could blame her. Given what Michael had seen of the local men, who knew what the presence of a man who actually knew his way around a cake of soap might do to inspire her? A little light flirtation could only help matters. He would charm her—not enough for her to form any illusions of attachment to him, but enough to kindle her interest in the possibility of someone.
Despite her insistence that marriage did not appeal, it couldn't hurt to remind her that she was capable of turning a gentleman’s head rather than merely the pages of a ledger.
He set enough coin on the table to cover their meals with a generous gratuity, but not so much as to invite suspicion over his wealth, then stood.
“May I escort you home?”
She shook her head. “I’m returning to the yard for a while yet.” Her shoulders slumped just a little before rebounding every bit as quickly. “As for you… I suggest you make your way to the boarding house.”
“While I still have faculties enough to walk home.” He finished for her, grimacing at the undeniable truth.
She took in his disgusted expression and huffed out a laugh. “I had no idea Englishmen were so easily overset by a few pints.”
“I’ve never been overset in my life.”
Ignoring both her indulgent sound of agreement and the smirk that followed, he offered his arm.
Gwen stared at his proffered arm as if it might sting—or ooze something sticky. “Feeling unsteady on your feet?”
He frowned. “Take my arm, Mrs Bevans. Escorting beautiful ladies is one of the few accomplishments at which Englishmen can be relied upon to excel.”
With a put-upon sigh, she clamped her fingers around his arm, nearly punishing in their firmness, and marched them outside as if he were a lad caught pocketing a penny sweet. Is this what it was like to be a woman? God, he hoped not.
He had to concentrate to avoid tripping over his own feet. Michael could not contain his mirth when he was forced to catch himself on a hitching post.
The cool autumn air expanded in his lungs, bringing instant and wholly welcome clarity to his foggy brain. “Not precisely what I had in mind, madam.”
“No?” she asked, with the sort of sugary sweetness debutantes donned like feathers in their upswept hair.
“Decidedly not.”
Her hand slipped from his arm, and for long seconds after, he felt deeply aware of the spot where those tenacious little fingers had been.
“You’ll have to forgive my ineptitude. I am perhaps slightly out of practice,” she said, amusement threaded through her apology. “It’s been some time since a man thought I required his assistance in finding my way to the only available exit.”
Side by side, they began to stroll in the direction of both their respective destinations.
“Did your husband not extend those basic courtesies to you?” he asked, trying and possibly failing to hide his growing distaste for the man. Manipulation in pursuit of acquisition was one thing—he made no pretence of innocence on that account—but a gentleman still observed a certain standard of conduct regardless of his aim. Flagrant disrespect of a woman was decidedly beneath him, and he found himself disproportionately vexed that she would tolerate it in a husband.
“I believe Walter might have forgotten my existence altogether, were there not a near constant need to rebuff my unseemly meddling in his business affairs.”
She lowered the timbre of her voice on the last part, as though delivering a lecture, something Michael suspected happened rather frequently.
He supposed he should be grateful Walter had ignored her meddling. After all, were it not for the man’s abject failure to heed what surely would have been sound advice, Michael very likely wouldn’t be here now. Three cheers, then, for the idiot dead husband.
“What exactly did Walter intend for Llanelli?” he heard himself ask.
A gust of wind sent the loose tendrils of Gwen’s hair dancing about the vulnerable column of her throat. Michael unwound his scarf and held it out between them. For a moment he thought she might refuse it, that this small courtesy would suffer the same fate as his proffered arm, but a heartbeat later the soft knit slipped from between his fingers, then she wrapped it snugly around her neck.
“Do you know much about pigs?”
Michael frowned. “Pigs? Only that they taste good in a pie.”
Her expression dimmed a little at his flippant response, and she lapsed into silence again.
Michael stopped and turned to her. “All right. Tell me about pigs.”
When she finally looked at him again, he nodded with more gravity than a conversation about pigs probably warranted. For whatever reason, this mattered to her. He must have been convincing enough because a moment later she resumed walking.
