In Bed with the Duke(36)

He looked at her sharply. ‘If not that, then why were you smiling in that particular way?’

‘I didn’t know I was smiling in any particular way. And for your information I was thinking of something else entirely.’

‘Oh?’ His face sort of closed up. He let her hair fall from his fingers and bent to dab at her feet again.

Good heavens, she’d offended him. Who’d have thought that a man who looked so tough could have such delicate sensibilities? But then she hadn’t been very tactful, had she? To tell him she’d been thinking of something else when he’d been trying to pay her compliments.

‘I was thinking,’ she said hastily, in an effort to make amends, ‘of how funny you were, searching about for rocks for me to throw.’

He shrugged one shoulder, but didn’t raise his head.

‘How very forbearing you have been, considering the abuse you’ve suffered on my account.’

He laid her feet down gently in the hay. ‘That is all I can do for them for now,’ he said, and scooted back. Looked at his hands. Cleared his throat. Scooted another foot away.

Which was both a good thing and a bad. Good in that he was determined to prevent another scene from developing in which their mouths ended up scant inches apart. Bad in that... Well, in that he was determined to prevent another scene from developing in which they would be tempted to kiss.

No, no, it was a good thing he wasn’t the kind of man to attempt to take advantage of the situation. They were going to have to spend the night together in this barn, after all. And if they started kissing, who knew how it would end?

Yes, it was a jolly good job he was maintaining some distance between them.

It would have been even better if she’d been the one to do so.

‘We had better eat our supper before the light grows too dim to see what we’re putting in our mouths,’ he said, opening his valise and taking out what was left of the provisions they’d bought in Tadburne Market.

‘We know exactly what we have for supper,’ she said wearily. ‘About two ounces of cheese and the heel of a loaf. Between the two of us.’

‘If it were only a few months later,’ he said, spreading the brown paper in which their meagre rations had been wrapped on the hay at her side, ‘I might have found strawberries growing by the stream.’

‘Strawberries don’t grow by streams,’ she retorted as he flicked open a penknife and cut both the cheese and the crust precisely in half. ‘They only grow in carefully tended beds. Where they have to be protected from frosts over winter with heaps of straw. Which is why they’re called strawberries.’

He raised his head and gave her a level look. ‘Blackberries, then. You cannot deny that blackberries thrive in the wild.’ He picked up the sheet of brown paper and its neatly divided contents and placed them on her lap.

From which he’d have to pluck his own meal. One morsel at a time.

She felt her cheeks heating at the prospect of his hand straying over her lap. Felt very conscious that her legs were totally bare beneath her skirts.

She picked up her slice of cheese and nibbled at it. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes...blackberries.

‘Some form of fruit would certainly be welcome with this cheese.’

‘And with the bread,’ he added. ‘It’s very dry.’

‘Stale, I think is the word for which you are searching,’ she said, having tried it. ‘But then, what can you expect for what we paid?’

No wonder the baker had let them have so much for so little. She’d been so proud of her skills at haggling. But they weren’t so great, were they? This bread was clearly left over from the day before.

‘I had a drink at the stream,’ he said, after swallowing the last of his share of their supper. ‘So I am not too thirsty. But what about you?’

‘I think I can just about manage to get the bread down. Though what we really need is a pat of butter to put on it. And then about a gallon of tea to wash it down.’

‘This will not do,’ he growled. And then, before she had any inkling of what he meant to do, he’d swept the brown paper to one side, hauled her up into his arms and was carrying her across the barn.

‘What are you doing?’

And what was she doing? She should by rights be struggling. Or at least demanding that he put her down. Not sort of sagging into him and marvelling at the strength of his muscular arms.

‘I’m taking you down to the stream so that you can have a drink. And dip your feet into the water. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,’ he said crossly. ‘I must be all about in my head. Dipping a handkerchief in the stream and then dabbing at your blisters...’ he sneered.