The Perfect Stranger by Anne Gracíe Page B

bright, though luckily it went behind the clouds for all the time I was hiding in the vineyards. And as soon as they stopped searching for me and went away, it came back out, and I could see to walk.”
    Nick closed his eyes. Dear God, she’d jumped from a moving carriage in unknown territory in the dark. He heard himself say, “You little fool! You could have been seriously injured!”
    She retorted with an edge in her voice, “I might have been hurt, but I wasn’t. If I’d stayed, however, I would definitely have been hurt, for I would have fought them.”
    He had an instant image of the way she’d stood beside him last night, waving that burning stick, attempting to look fierce. He sank his head in his hands and groaned.
    Faith didn’t notice. She shivered as she recalled that terrifying time after she’d jumped from the moving carriage, crouching between rows of vines in the dark, praying for the moon to stay behind the clouds. It was hours before the driver and guard gave up. And then she was alone in the dark, somewhere in northern France, with no money, dressed only in a thin silk gown, a Kashmir shawl, dainty kid slippers, and a tiny, elegant bonnet. She shivered. It wasn’t until they’d left that she started to feel the cold.
    “Whereabouts was that, miss?” Stevens interrupted her thoughts.
    “Somewhere past Montreuil.”
    “Montreuil!” Mr. Blacklock’s head snapped up. “How the devil did you get from Montreuil to here?”
    She gritted her teeth. She was not some—some skivvy to be snapped at. She answered pleasantly, a counterpoint to his rudeness. “I walked.”
    Stevens whistled, impressed.
    Mr. Blacklock muttered savagely, “Hence the atrocious state of your feet!”
    Embarrassed, Faith tucked the atrocious feet under her skirts so he wouldn’t have to be offended by them any further. How on earth had she imagined him as kind? He was rude and bossy, and she just itched to get up and walk away. But after all he’d done, she did feel she owed him an explanation—even if he spoke to her as if she were a criminal in the dock.
    She said with dignity, “I traded my kid slippers and my Kashmir shawl to a farmer’s wife for these boots and the cloak.” And some soup and bread and cheese, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d probably snap her nose off again for the crime of needing to eat.
    “It was a good trade. My slippers would never have lasted the distance; I could feel every stone through their thin soles. She offered me her sabots—wooden clogs—but I could never have walked in them, so I held out for her son’s Sunday boots. And my Kashmir shawl was very fine, but not warm enough for the nights.”
    “Did no one offer you shelter? Assistance?” Mr. Blacklock said.
    “No.” She hung her head. “People…when they see a young woman on foot in a dirty silk dress and peasant boots…they…misunderstand. They took me for…for—”
    “We know what they took you for.”
    She felt her face reddening. “Yes, so I learned not to ask. But I did ask some English ladies in Calais—I mean, I was speaking English —but they, too, seemed to think…” She swallowed and looked down at her boots. She would have to—somehow—accustom herself to being despised by respectable ladies.
    “Forget the stiff-rumped English ladies.” Nicholas Blacklock sounded almost bored. “The solution to your difficulties is clear.”
    “Oh, is it?” Faith was nettled by his calm announcement. Her future seemed clear to her, too, only she didn’t feel half as sanguine about it. “What is so clear? Would you care to share this solution?”
    “It’s obvious. You will marry me.”
    “Marry you?” Faith choked. She jumped to her feet. “Marry you ?” With great dignity, she stalked off.
    The trouble with stalking off, Faith reflected some time later, was that while it was very satisfying in some respects, it would have been a lot more effective if she’d had somewhere impressive to