“He struck my face several times. He was quite ready to rape me, Owen. Didn’t he deserve something for that?”
“You kicked him in the groin. You’re not a man, Caroline, so you wouldn’t know what that does. It’s really quite dreadful.”
“Has a young lady kicked you there, Owen?”
“Oh no, one of my friends hit me with a ball when we were boys. How did you know to do that?”
“Actually, my mother taught me when I was quite young. You see, one of our maids had been raped and it made my mother furious. She said no female was ever too young to know how to protect herself. I believe she got all the details of the kicking technique from my father. After she taught me, he smiled at me and patted my head. He said, ‘Now I’ve a little Amazon. It’s good.”’
“It does draw a man up short. When I was hit, I thought I was going to die.”
&n
bsp; She grinned, even knowing he couldn’t see it, for it was quite dark, save for the quarter moon that sliced through the trees onto the narrow lane. “I’m glad your father suffered. He isn’t a nice man.”
“What are you going to do? Where are you taking me?”
“You’ve been silent as a stick since we left Honeymead Manor, not deigning to say a word to me. Why the questions now?”
“It took me a while to think of what I wanted to say and in what order.”
She believed him. He was Owen and it was the way he was. She was beginning to believe herself quite mad to have brought him along. If he tried to bolt, she knew she wouldn’t shoot him. Good Lord, she hadn’t even bound his hands. If he wanted to, he could kick his horse in the ribs and ride away from her right this minute.
“You and I, Owen, are going to Cornwall.”
“Cornwall? I was there once, in St. Austell, and it was really quite backward. Why that godforsaken place?”
“My aunt lives there. I haven’t seen her for three years now. She’ll take me in. She was my mother’s sister. Your dear father didn’t allow me to leave Honeymead Manor, you know, so I was never able to visit her, nor, I add, was she supposed to visit me, but she just laughed at that and came to see me several times at Chudleigh’s Young Ladies’ Academy, that prison your father incarcerated me in for more years than I care to remember. Your father is really a toad, Owen.”
“Do you have any idea how many days it will take us to reach Cornwall? What part of Cornwall?”
“We’re already in New Forest, Owen. Only about three or maybe four days, I should say, maybe less. I won’t tell you exactly where we’re going. You might decide to escape me and tell your father. Now, we’ll ride at night and rest during the day. I stole money from your father so I know we have enough.”
“What will you do with me if we reach Cornwall unscathed?”
She appeared to ponder deeply. “I don’t know yet, Owen. Perhaps with you as my hostage, your father will be more reasonable. Perhaps he will agree to sign all the papers—or whatever it is he has to do—to put me in possession of my fortune.”
“He won’t do it, Caroline.”
“Then I’ll begin to send him your body parts, Owen.”
“You mean like a finger?”
“Yes, or a toe or an ear.”
He said nothing more. He fell into a profound silence, saying after they’d skirted the town of Steepleford, “I never did want to marry you, Caroline. You’re pretty and all that, but still, you’re not what you’re supposed to be.”
“And what is that?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? It’s obvious. You weren’t crying or begging or pleading or lying there like a dead martyr, like any modest young lady would do. I had come to save you and you didn’t need me. You actually had the gall to hurt my father and he was just trying to do his manly duty.”
“Manly duty? Is that what you call rape?”
“That’s what he called it.”
“Yes, I remember now. I overheard nearly all of your conversation in the estate room. If your father hadn’t been so wily, I would have escaped, and he wouldn’t be lying naked in the stable ready to terrify a stable hand.”
“It quite alarms me to think that you will be my stepmother.”