Runaway Miss by Mary Nichols Page B

Malvers joined them and they were away again.
    ‘You have no objection to my travelling inside with you?’ he asked.
    ‘My lord, you must think me very particular and singularly lacking in conduct to object to anyone who has paid for his seat.’ She gave a little laugh and added, ‘Twice over.’
    ‘Then I shall take it you are content with my company.’ He smiled to put her at her ease, but she was wary of him, he could see it in her eyes, such big, expressive eyes. He turned to her companion. ‘What about you, Miss…I am sorry, you have the advantage of me.’
    ‘Turner,’ she said.
    ‘Well, Miss Turner, do you think you can suffer me to share your carriage?’
    ‘My carriage! Goodness, sir, what would I be doin’ with a carriage?’
    ‘Quite right. Prodigious expensive things they are to keep.’
    ‘Is that why you travel by public coach, my lord?’ Emma asked him, knowing he was throwing darts at her by teasing Rose. It behoved her to come to the maid’s rescue.
    ‘You think it miserly of me?’
    ‘I would never accuse you of miserliness, my lord. I was simply curious.’
    ‘Again?’
    ‘Touché .’ She laughed. ‘You do not have to answer me.’
    ‘No, but there is not much else to do is there? The countryside is too wet and bedraggled to be worth our attention, so we must fall back on conversation. Unless, of course, you prefer silence.’
    ‘No, my lord. By all means let us converse.’
    ‘Then I will tell you I did not bother to keep a carriage and horses in town and as my journey was urgent I had no time to go home for it.’
    ‘Home being in Norfolk?’
    ‘Yes. Buregreen. It is on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, quite near the sea. There are three farms, mainly arable, but with a fair acreage of grazing. Before the war they were productive, but last year the harvest was not good owing to bad weather and this year the climate has been the worst anyone can remember. I doubt there will be a yield at all.’
    ‘And yet you left it to go to London? Are you not happy at home, my lord?’
    ‘It is the place I most wish to be, but my mother, bless her dear heart, thought I should find me a wife.’
    ‘You are not married, then?’
    ‘No, Miss Draper, I am not. I never had the time or inclination for it.’ It was spoken so emphatically she wondered why he was so adamant.
    ‘And the London Season bores you.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘You said so yourself, earlier today. Not to your taste, you said. Do you think you will find a bride in the Lakes?’
    ‘A mermaid, you mean, half-fish, half-woman.’
    It was a moment before his meaning registered and then she laughed. ‘Do you always tease, my lord?’
    ‘Only if I think it will make you smile. It is better than being sombre, don’t you think? Life is too short to take seriously.’
    ‘We cannot always be laughing. There are times…’ She stopped, afraid to go on. He was looking at her with his head on one side, his blue eyes watching her, waiting for her to give herself away. Well, she would not give him the satisfaction.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘Times of war, times of bereavement and loss, times when the situation of the poor breaks one’s heart and one is left fuming at the callousness of a society that lets them suffer. It is thinking of such things that demand solemnity.’
    ‘You evidently think very strongly on that subject.’
    ‘Yes. Don’t you? Or perhaps you have never had to think about it.’
    He was fishing, she decided. ‘Of course I think about it and I wish I could help them, but it is not in my power.’
    ‘No, you are only Miss Fanny Draper, isn’t that what you told me?’
    ‘Yes, because that is my name.’
    ‘My dear girl, I am not disputing it.’ He waited for her reaction, an angry accusation of impertinence, not only for the way he had addressed her, but for doubting her honesty. For a fleeting second he saw it in her eyes and then it was gone.
    She wanted to riposte, but