Page 29 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

“Dunno, ma’am. But Cook says he had the eye of a fellow whose girl had run off and left ’im.”

Her gaze swung once more to what remained of the chair. Alistair could see no more than the tip of her nose past the edge of her hood. “If he was given to such displays of stubbornness and petulance, who could blame her?” she observed coolly.

The boy left, returning a few moments later with the pies. At first, Miss C. poked at hers with her fork, as if she had no appetite. But after a moment—hardly time for the pie to cool—she squared her shoulders and made efficient work of finishing her meal, which kept her mouth far too busy for further conversation. Given the direction of their previous exchange, he wasn’t sorry.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sounds of eating, she laid her fork aside, then drained her teacup. “Ready when you are, my lord,” she said, returning the empty cup to its saucer with a decisive clink. Her hood had remained in place throughout her hasty meal, but he could see now that she looked pale.

“Are you in any discomfort? Should I fetch the laudanum from my valise?”

“No.” The answer was too swift to be entirely believable. “If you’ll be a few moments longer, I’ll wait for you in the coach.” She snatched up her glove from the table and rose. “My lord.”

She had not been in the habit of my lord-ing him until now, but evidently she had taken her cue from the servants in this place. It established a certain distance between them, to be sure.

He didn’t like it.

With her injured hand clasping the mantle closed, she was gone before he could get to his feet. In a hurry for the necessary, he supposed—she had drunk a whole pot of tea. He quickly finished his food, paid the bill, and met her in the carriage before five minutes had passed.

“Is something amiss?”

Her hood was pushed down around her shoulders again, and she had already resumed sketching. “Not at all.” The taut set of her lips hinted that she was not being entirely honest. “You said it would be a quick stop. I did not wish to be the cause of any delay.”

He could not restrain a slight huff of something like amusement at her sudden consideration for his traveling plans. Swinging into the seat opposite her, he tapped on the ceiling. The coach rolled into motion. In short order and in spite of his earlier determination, the combination of an early morning, a full belly, and the soft sounds of her pencil lulled him into a gentle doze.

“Did she say what sort of danger?”

The question jerked him back to full alertness. “Did who—what?”

“The one you wrote to about me. The one who told you I was in danger?”

“Lady Stalbridge?”

“Did she say what sort of danger I’m meant to be in?” With each word, she tapped the end of her pencil against the paper, a sign more of nervousness than impatience, he thought. “Might I, for instance, have someone following me?”

He pushed himself more upright. “She didn’t specify, no.” But now he understood Miss C.’s sudden pallor in the inn. “He’s not searching for you, if that’s what you’re thinking—the man who broke the chair.”

“How do you know?” she demanded.

Fright masquerading as anger, he told himself. But nevertheless, it prodded uncomfortably at his certainty.

Perhaps she really didn’t remember anything about her life before two days ago. Or perhaps her memory was fragmented, and she was struggling and failing to place the jagged pieces back together.

Or perhaps she remembered everything perfectly, right down to a phantom pursuer, and that was why she had been so determined to get away.

He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t. But it strikes me as unlikely.”

“Unlikely that I’m being followed? That I was chased from an alleyway into the street and that’s how I hit my head and nearly lost my life?” Her voice was remarkably steady. But her eyes were wide and almost desperate. “Or unlikely that the man who’s following me planned to catch up with me at the place where I would have been if not for that mishap with the carriage wheel? Unlikely that he is the sort who breaks chairs—when he’d rather be breaking necks?”

Without conscious thought, he reached across the coach and took her uninjured hand between both of his, trapping the pencil in her grip. “Miss C.,” he began, in his steadiest tone. He had some experience consoling and reassuring agitated young women. “All of those things are unlikely. Highly unlikely.” He would not say impossible, though privately he thought the scenarios she had spun smacked of a mind that indulged too frequently in horrid novels. Thanks to five younger sisters, however, he had learned over the years that to deny another’s fears outright served only to cement them. “And you are safe. Have I not promised to protect you?”

Emotions warred in her face, relief battling with an almost innate distrust, a deep temptation to scoff.

“Until I remember,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Back in London, you told me . . .” The pencil trapped between their joined hands twitched. “You told me that I would have your protection until I remembered who I was.”

Good God. Had he?

No wonder she had been unwilling to tell him anything. No wonder she had reacted with alarm to his suggestion that drawing would restore her to herself.

“I haven’t any intention of abandoning you to the wolves, Miss C. If I had, I would’ve done so in London. I only meant that once your memory returned, you would no doubt wish to be returned to your family, or your friends, and would have no further need of my assistance.”

Her chin dipped jerkily in a nod of understanding, an acknowledgment of error worthy of the queen or someone similar—someone unaccustomed to admitting they were wrong. “And in the event that I have neither friends nor family?”

For a moment, he said nothing.

“I suppose, my lord, you are thinking of your gentlemanly obligation and weighing whether it can or even ought to be fulfilled for a woman like me. Consider what might become of your spotless reputation.” Her voice fairly dripped with disdain.

“I assure you, ma’am, that nothing could be further from my mind at present than my reputation.” He sounded insufferably toplofty, even to his own ears, but evidently she expected it of him; she seemed determined to view him in the worst possible light. “I was thinking of the risks—if what you say were somehow true, given that I’m taking you to my home, should I be concerned for my sisters’ safety?”

Her whole body recoiled from that question. Tugging her fingers free of his grasp, she turned her gaze toward the wide, empty landscape surrounding them as the carriage rolled on toward Rylemoor Abbey.