“Yes.”
The answer was immediate, but Christine wished she had it back.
“Why?”
“Because…I do not know.”
He has enough power with the offer of a fake betrothal that he makes. I will not give him more. If only he were ugly instead of so damnably handsome.
“I don’t think it is important. It is irrelevant, in fact.”
“I will have my week. We agreed to that.”
She forced herself to turn, to walk on, each step brittle with defiance.
“That is not the way,” Tristan said.
“We agreed I could have a week.”
“I mean, you are following the wrong path,” Tristan said, a trace of wry humor in his voice.
“Nonsense. I know the way we came. This way.”
She pointed just as Tristan said. “That way,” and pointed in the opposite direction.
Christine stood for a moment, held by the force of his gaze. The shadows and the moonlight hid his features, but she felt sure that he was laughing at her.
“Shall we see who finds their way back first?” she challenged.
There was definitely laughter coming from him now.
“Go,” he said.
Christine went, turning and striding into the black that was a combination of night and night-painted garden. She heard Tristan’s footsteps retreat in the opposite direction, and immediately regretted her stridency and pride. The path continued to narrow, and she was certain it had not been so…so clinging before. Or winding. She could barely see her own hand in front of her face.
“Marry me, Constance,” came a voice from the darkness.
Christine stopped dead. It was a man’s voice, and it was coming from close by. Then she saw the glint of candlelight between the thick, interlaced branches of a rhododendron.
“You know we cannot, James,” came a female voice, “the mistress doesn’t approve of marriages between staff. She would send one of us away, I’m sure of it.”
“I’d speak to her. Plead your case.”
“Oh, yes, a coachman going to speak to a Duchess. I’ve heard it all now.”
“What choice do we have?”
A branch snapped beneath Christine’s foot, and the voices were abruptly silenced. Before she could get a look at who was speaking, the light was snuffed out, and there came the sound of hurried movements through the undergrowth. Hurrying away.
Bother! I have frightened them, and they seemed to have quite enough to deal with as it is. The woman sounded familiar. The man was a coachman called James. I wonder what their predicament is?
She cautiously stepped towards where the light had been, a branch scraping her forehead, seeming to appear out of nowhere. She ducked and felt another tug at the sleeve of her dress.
Stepping back caused a crackle of disturbed undergrowth, brittle and sharp, making her jump. All happened in near absolute darkness, rendered more so by the recent light, whose sudden absence had blinded her.
Christine lost her balance, and suddenly the ground was gone. She cried out as her right foot swung in the air and her left began to slide. The rhododendron bush seemed to have concealed a steep slope. Christine grabbed for the thin, woody branches as she overbalanced, and an unknown distance yawned beneath her.
A hand caught her wrist. With one sudden, decisive movement, she was swung back from the edge. Her swing ended with a solid thump. Her chest was pressed against an unyielding slab of muscle. Her foot stepped on his, but this time she was not wearing boots. Tristan’s other hand caught her about the waist and pulled her back from the brink.
