She had earlier brought him a towel to get dry as well as the clothes he was now wearing. She would have liked to have sat him down in front of a fire with Cook’s hot broth, but she couldn’t light a fire or risk the kitchens. The enclosing walls of the stables would have to be their sanctuary, with its nose-tickling hay smell and the occasional soft sound of the horses. He lifted the edge of the neckcloth.
‘Whose clothes are these?’
‘My fiancé’s,’ she said.
She saw him go still in a way that she liked. He didn’t look like Lord Crenshaw in those clothes. He looked younger, her own age. Her heart was beating fast. It wasn’t that he might be dangerous – he was dangerous. If she was found with him here, it would ruin her. It would ruin not only her but her entire family. She could hear the distant sounds from the house, see the lights from the windows. Each sound was a threat.
Does your fiancé know that you spend time alone with other men? He didn’t say that, though she could feel it between them. Instead, he said carefully, ‘He’s taller than I am.’
‘And older,’ she said.
What was she doing? She had brought him here to replace the clothes he had wrecked on her behalf. But now that they were alone together, it felt like having the dashing son of a lord ask her for a dance at one of the outings her aunt insisted she was too young to attend.
Despite what he’d said, Lord Crenshaw’s clothes fit him perfectly, and he looked good in them. Better than Lord Crenshaw, whispered a treacherous voice. She’d imagined a suitor just like this. The draped neckcloth gave him an unconcerned, slightly rakish look. Her eyes were drawn to it.
She said, ‘I’ll tie that for you. I used to do it all the time for my uncle. Come here.’
He came forward in the same slow, careful way that he had spoken. She reached up to his neck and he pulled back instinctively. ‘Are you shy? I’ve seen a man before.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I grew up in a family with boys.’ She was lying.
‘Cousins?’ he said.
She took up the ends of the neckcloth. She knew that her looks were considered her greatest asset – her looks, after all, had procured the engagement with Lord Crenshaw. But youth and a sheltered upbringing had meant that she had never been feted as a beauty, nor yet even had the kind of social engagements that would put her in the company of suitors – at least not until Lord Crenshaw had made himself known to her family. And Lord Crenshaw’s admiration had come at a businesslike distance. Now she got to see, gratifyingly, at close quarters, the effect she had on a young man of her own age, as Will’s dark eyes went even darker.
She was less prepared for his effect on her, how hard it was to concentrate on tying the neckcloth over the consciousness she had of him, his breath moving the thin, fine fabric of the shirt, the one lock of hair that fell down over his forehead.
‘If he knew about this, I suppose my fiancé would kill you.’
Another conversational remark. She didn’t look up. But she was attuned to his reaction, imagining – or was she? – that he was controlling his breathing too.
‘Then I hope you won’t tell him.’
She straightened the last of the neckcloth now in its simple tie and made certain to adopt a casual calm as she stepped back. ‘There.’
As he settled the jacket on his shoulders, she realised in a rush that it was a mistake – a mistake to have dressed him in Lord Crenshaw’s clothes. That vital quality he had that drew the eye was transformed into a blaze, the clothing remaking him into a powerful young lord, and Lord Crenshaw had never looked like this, for all Annabel’s assurances that he was just what a fine suitor should be.
‘I’m in your debt,’ Will said.
Instead of demurring that it was he who had helped her first, she said: ‘Then answer a question.’
His hands went still over the last of the jacket buttons.
‘All right.’
‘Tell me who you are really. Where are you from? Who is your family? I thought you might be incognito.’
‘If I were hiding who I was, I’d hardly admit it.’
It was all he said. The faint sounds of the horses were loud in the silence, the dust particles from the hay drifting slowly through the air. She realised that he’d said everything he was going to say, though she’d brought him back here and given him clothes. She spoke in a rush, frowning and sounding – she didn’t care – a little like Elizabeth. ‘You’re not going to tell me any of it!’