‘Actually,’ she replied with a proud toss of her head, ‘I am very good at climbing trees.’ At least she had been as a girl. You couldn’t grow up on the fringes of the army without learning all sorts of things that decently brought up girls really shouldn’t. Or so Aunt Charity had frequently complained.
‘Is there anything you cannot do?’
He’d said it with a smile. A rather fond sort of smile, she thought. Or was she just looking for signs that he liked her well enough to think that marrying her wouldn’t be a total disaster? He might just as well be the kind of man to cover his doubts and fears by putting on a brave face.
‘I believe,’ she said, pushing back the waves of insecurity that had been surging over her ever since she’d kissed him, and he hadn’t been willing to kiss her again, ‘in rising to any challenge. Or at least that is what Mama used to say. Whenever things were hard, she’d say we mustn’t look upon them as stumbling blocks in our way, but as stepping stones across troubled waters.’
‘And what would she have said about walls that block our paths? That we should climb them?’
She was about to say yes, when something stopped her. ‘I don’t know about that. I mean, that wall was put there to keep people out, wasn’t it? And I’m starting to get a horrid feeling that we may be...um...breaking in.’
He’d already admitted he didn’t scruple to break into places when it suited him. He was one of those men who thought the end justified the means. Not that he was a bad man. Just a bit of a rogue, as Papa had been.
‘We’ve already had a farmer threatening us with his gun this morning. What if some gamekeeper mistakes us for poachers? It is just the sort of thing that would happen, the way my luck has been running recently.’
‘I can promise you faithfully that we won’t be mistaken for poachers once we get over that wall,’ he replied, drawing back his arm and tossing the valise over it. ‘And, what’s more, one cannot break into property that one owns oneself.’
‘You are trying to tell me that the estate that lies beyond that wall belongs to you?’ She eyed his clothing, then his black eye and his grazed knuckles dubiously. ‘I thought you said it was your aunt’s?’
‘I said my aunt lives there,’ he replied, planting his fists on his hips. ‘Prudence, never say you’ve been judging me by my appearance?’
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.’