In Bed with the Duke(50)

He ran his eyes pointedly from the crown of her tousled head to the soles of her shoes, via the jacket she’d borrowed from him, which came almost to her knees, and the stockings she’d borrowed from the farmer’s wife, which were sagging round her ankles. Then he flicked his eyes back to her face. Which felt sticky with jam and was probably grimy.

‘That’s a fair point,’ she admitted. ‘To look at me nobody would ever suspect I was an heiress, would they? But just explain one thing, if you wouldn’t mind? If this is your property, then why are we about to climb over the wall when there must be a perfectly good front gate?’

‘Because it would take us the best part of an hour to walk all the way round to the main gate. And your feet have suffered enough abuse already.’

‘You want to spare my feet? Oh.’ She felt mean now, for suspecting his behaviour to be shifty. ‘Then, thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ he said, eyeing the tree, the height of the wall, and then her again. ‘I really should have taken into consideration how hard it will be for you to climb up that tree in skirts.’

The very last thing she would do was admit that she hadn’t climbed any trees for a considerable time.

‘I will go first,’ he said. ‘And help you up.’

He strode up to the tree. Put his fists on his hips and frowned. Which puzzled her, for a moment, since there was a gnarly knot at a perfect height from which to commence his climb. But then she worked out that he must be considering it from her perspective.

‘I am sure I will be able to manage,’ she assured him. ‘This tree has lots of handholds and footholds,’

‘Footholds?’ He looked from her to the tree, then back to her again, his expression rather blank.

‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to the stubby projection left behind from where a branch had snapped off years before.

‘Ah, yes. Indeed.’ He rubbed his hands together. Stayed exactly where he was.

‘What is the problem?’ What had he seen that she hadn’t considered?

‘The problem... Well,’ he said, ‘it is merely that I have never climbed this tree before.’

Oh, how sweet of him to warn her that he wasn’t going to be able to point out the best route up it.

‘There’s no need to worry. Although I haven’t climbed a tree since I was a girl, this one looks remarkably easy. Even hampered as I am by skirts.’

‘Well, that’s good. Yes. Very good.’

A determined look came over his face. He stepped up to the tree. Set one foot on the knot she’d just pointed out. Looked further up the trunk. As though he had no idea what to do next.

‘Do you know?’ she said with a touch of amusement. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve never climbed any tree before—never mind that one.’

His shoulders stiffened. Oh, dear, she shouldn’t have teased him. Some men could take it, and some men couldn’t. Funny, but she’d thought he was the type who could. He’d been remarkably forgiving so far, about all sorts of things she’d done to him.

Without a word he reached up for the most obvious handhold, then scrambled very clumsily up to the first branch thick enough to bear his weight. With only the minimum of cursing he pulled himself up and onto it, swinging one leg over so that he sat astride.

Then he turned and grinned down at her. ‘Nothing to it!’

She gasped. ‘I was only joking before, but it’s true, isn’t it? You never have climbed a tree, have you?’

He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘Well, no. But I always suspected that if other boys could do it I could.’

‘What kind of boy never climbed trees?’

‘One whose parents were terrified of some harm befalling him and had him watched over night and day,’ he replied.

‘Oh. That sounds—’ Very restricting. And a total contrast to her own childhood. Compared with her life in Stoketown, it had taken on a rosy hue in her memory. But, if she looked at it honestly, it must have been a very precarious sort of existence.

‘I suppose,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that is what parents do. Even mine—I mean, since they couldn’t protect me from actual danger, they did what they could to stop me from being afraid by making light of all the upheavals and privations of army life. Treating it all—in front of me, at least—as though it was all some grand adventure.’

‘Which is why nothing scares you now?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that,’ she countered. Right this minute she was, if not exactly scared, certainly very wary of climbing up to join him. Because she’d suddenly become very aware that learning to climb trees was not the kind of activity that should have formed part of her education, if there were even some boys, like Gregory, who hadn’t been allowed to do it. And also, more to the point, that when she’d been a girl she hadn’t cared about showing off her legs.