“Would you like me to help you down?” Robert kicked open the door and jumped out. He held out his hand for her. “I live to be of service to you.”
“Robert, I don't think—”
“You haven't been thinking all week,” he snapped.
If she could have reached him, she would have slapped him.
MacDougal's face appeared next to Robert's. “Is aught amiss, my lord? Miss?”
“Miss Lyndon has expressed an interest in departing our company,” Robert said.
“Here?”
“Not here, you idiot,” Victoria hissed. And then, because MacDougal looked so affronted, she was compelled to say, “I meant Robert, not you.”
“Are you getting down or not?” Robert demanded.
“You know I'm not. What I would like is for you to return me to my home in London, not abandon me here in—” Victoria turned to MacDougal. “Where the devil are we, anyway?”
“Near to Faversham, I would think.”
“Good,” Robert said. “We'll stop there for the night. We have made excellent time, but there is no sense exhausting ourselves by pushing on to Ramsgate.”
“Right.” MacDougal paused, then said to Victoria, “Wouldn't you be more comfortable on the bench, Miss Lyndon?”
Victoria smiled acidly. “Oh, no, I'm quite comfortable here on the floor, Mr. MacDougal. I prefer to feel every rut and bump in the road intimately.”
“What she prefers is to be a martyr,” Robert muttered under his breath.
“I heard that!”
Robert ignored her and gave some instructions to MacDougal, who disappeared from view. He then climbed back into the carriage, shut the door, and ignored Victoria, who was still fuming on the floor. Finally she said, “What is in Ramsgate?”
“I own a cottage on the shore. I thought we might enjoy a bit of privacy there.”
She snorted. “Privacy? Now there is a frightening thought.”
“Victoria, you are beginning to try my patience.”
“You are not the one who has been abducted, my lord.”
He cocked a brow. “Do you know, Victoria, but I am beginning to think that you are enjoying yourself.”
“You suffer from too much imagination,” she shot back.
“I do not jest,” he said, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “I think there must be something appealing in being able to vent one's offended sensibilities.”
“I have every right to be outraged,” she growled.
“I'm sure you think you do.”
She leaned forward in what she hoped was a menacing manner. “I truly believe if I had a gun right now I would shoot you.”
“I thought you were partial to pitchforks.”
“I am partial to anything that would do you bodily harm.”
“I do not doubt it,” Robert said, chuckling.
“Don't you care that I hate you?”
He let out a long breath. “Let me make one thing clear. Your safety and well-being are my highest priorities. If removing you from that slum you insisted on calling home means that I must live with your hatred for a few days, then so be it.”
“It won't be only a few days.”
Robert didn't say anything.
Victoria sat there on the floor of the carriage, trying to collect her thoughts. Tears of frustration pricked at her eyes, and she started to take frequent and shallow breaths—anything to prevent her tears' mortifying spill down her cheeks. “You did the one thing…” she said, her words tinged with the nervous laughter of one who knows she has been beaten. “The one thing…”
He turned his head to face her. “Would you like to get up?”
She shook her head. “All I wanted was a bit of control over my own life. Was that so much to ask?”
“Victoria—”
“And then you did the one thing that would take that away from me,” she interrupted, her voice growing louder. “The one thing!”
“I acted in your best int—”
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to have someone take your decisions away from you?”
“I know what it feels like to be manipulated,” he said in a very low voice.
“It's not the same thing,” she said, turning her head so he wouldn't see her cry.
There was a moment of silence as Robert tried to compose his words. “Seven years ago I had my life planned out to the very last detail. I was young, and I was in love. Madly, desperately in love. All I wanted was to marry you and spend the rest of my life making you happy. We'd have children,” he said wistfully. “I always imagined them looking like you.”