‘You know, the more I look at you, the more I can see a family resemblance. I can recall your grandfather visiting my own grandparents. He was a bit of a tartar and I was somewhat overawed by him. But you have to admit, Miss Dane, that your appearance, and the circumstances in which we meet, were much against you.’ He straightened and went to tug the bell-pull beside the fireplace. ‘Let me order you some refreshment, and then you must tell me how I may help you.’
Antonia realised just how hungry she was. They had set out from the Golden Fleece in Holborn before dawn and a hastily snatched meal of bacon and bread at Abbots Langley was hours in the past.
The footman made a valiant effort at disguising his amazement at being sent to fetch sherry and biscuits for the female who had just been dragged through the servants’ quarters as a common criminal.
When he returned with the refreshments she almost snatched at a biscuit, then recollected herself and nibbled delicately at the almond wafer. ‘You are very kind, Your Grace, but I am in no need of assistance.’
Marcus Renshaw possessed the irritating ability to raise one eyebrow, it seemed. He said nothing, but the quirked brow and the ironic twist to his lips, spoke volumes.
The eyebrow often worked and it seemed it was effective now. Miss Dane clearly felt goaded into an explanation she did not want to make. ‘I can see you wonder at my gown, Your Grace, but if one travels on the public stage, naturally one does not wear one’s best attire for the journey.’ His let his gaze travel to the torn sleeve and she added, ‘Your men tore my garment when they apprehended me.’
‘No.’ Marcus was not letting her get away with that. ‘It was already torn after the accident to the stagecoach.’
‘When I was dragged into your presence, you made no sign you had seen me before.’ So, she had been piqued by his apparent dismissal of her at the scene of the accident, had she?
‘You must forgive me,’ he said, sipping his sherry. ‘I remembered the tear, but not, I regret, you.’ It was a blatant mistruth. He had noticed her. The other passengers had looked at him and had seen a duke, a rescuer, someone to be attended to and obeyed. She had looked and seen not a title or a rank but a man and one she was making a judgement on, it seemed. That was novel and more than a little stimulating. What had she thought of the man?
‘Although, now I come to think of it, you had a bonnet and pelisse.’
‘I had laid them aside in the woods, just before your men came upon me.’
‘All the better to catch my pheasants, no doubt,’ he said drily, with a gesture towards the heap of feathers on the side table.
‘I have already told you, I did not know they were yours. And of course I did not catch them. I found them on the footpath.’ She was too defensive for that to be all the truth. She was protecting someone, he assumed.
‘Tsk, tsk, Miss Dane,’ Marcus admonished. ‘You really are a very poor liar.’ He was enjoying this too much, he realised. It was not a game, however provoking that lovely hazel glare was. He made his voice hard. ‘Let us stop playing. I believe neither that you caught those birds nor that you found them. Describe the culprit you had them of, if you please. You do yourself no favours in my eyes in protecting him.’
‘Liar? How dare you.’
And the hazel turned to green when she was angry, did it? What colour would those eyes turn in the heat of passion, he wondered.
‘And threats of being in or out of your favour count as nothing to me.’ Now she was upright and quivering with righteous indignation in the chair. ‘If I prevaricate, it is simply because I have no intention of delivering up to your tender mercies one of your unfortunate tenants, forced into poaching merely to stay alive.’
Now you go too far. ‘It is not my tenants who are starving, Miss Dane.’ Marcus stood up, deliberately looming over her where she sat. When he leaned down and put one hand on each arm of her chair, he saw her brace herself not to shrink back. She had courage even if she was misguided. ‘When you reach your inheritance, look around you and see the state in which your dear departed father left his people, before you come preaching to me of my tenants.’
She stared back, not flinching, but he could see the doubt forming. Was that true, she was wondering? Surely everything she knew about her father and brother warned her that it probably was. But even with the doubt she was still judging him, still despising him for his rank and privilege, not seeing the man.
Well, he would show her that man, give her something to judge. Marcus bent his head and kissed her full on the lips with a hard, possessive, deliberate sensuality. For a second she was too stunned to resist, then she broke away from the heat of his mouth, and slapped his cheek. Hard.
He straightened, ruefully rubbing his face. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’ Yes, I did. Inexcusable. Apologise, you idiot. ‘But I must confess, Miss Dane, that your… eccentricity quite robbed me of my good sense. I must apologise.’ No, not like that…
Miss Dane got up from the chair in a swirl of skirts. ‘I think my eccentricity, as you call it, has nothing to do with the matter. I believe that your overweening arrogance leads you to believe you can take whatever you want. Do not trouble to ring for the butler, Your Grace, I can see myself out.’
Ouch. That stung, but he was not going to let her get away wi
th her own idiocy. Her hand was on the doorknob when he said softly, ‘Miss Dane.’
She turned to look at him, resistance clear in every line of her body. ‘What?’
‘Feed your tenants, Miss Dane, then at least they will not have to steal my property to survive.’
Antonia swept past a startled footman who leapt to open the front door for her, down the shallow flight of stone steps and halfway down the gravelled drive before her anger calmed enough for her to slow to a stop. She might be shaking with fury, but there was no point in storming off into the Hertfordshire countryside without getting her bearings first.
Now she could see the front of the house she realised that she could recall it from rare visits as a small child with her grandfather. But her memories were of a far less elegant effect and it was obvious that Marcus Renshaw had applied both an admirable taste and considerable amounts of money to Brightshill.
The pleasure grounds were beautifully kept, with close-scythed lawns sweeping to stands of specimen trees. Through the copses she could see the glimmer of water where she could have sworn none had been before and the drive was bordered by Classical statuary, each pedestal nestling in a group of flowering shrubs.
'Insufferable man,' Antonia fumed aloud. She felt even more down at heel and grimy in this setting, the only discordant note in a perfect landscape. 'Well, I am glad of it. Serves him right if I lower the tone.' She realised she was scuffing the perfectly-raked gravel with her boot, to the betterment of neither. She was in danger of forgetting who she was, although after being mauled like a loose woman by that… that man, it was little wonder.