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“I won’t,” he assured her.
“If you botch this,” she repeated, louder this time, “I shall never forgive you.”
He let his head and shoulders dip slightly forward in a small bow. “Lead the way, Miss Hotchkiss.”
She took a few steps, then stopped and turned around, her blue eyes turning just a little bit hesitant. “Earlier, you called me Elizabeth.”
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I overstepped.”
James watched the play of emotion across her face. She wasn’t certain whether to allow him the liberty of her given name. He could see her naturally friendly nature battling with her need to keep him at arm’s length. Finally she tightened the corners of her mouth and said, “It is of no great import. We servants are not terribly formal here at Danbury House. If the cook and butler call me Elizabeth, you may as well, too.”
James felt his heart fill with a rather absurd satisfaction. “Then you must call me James,” he replied.
“James.” She tested it out on her tongue, then added, “I should never refer to you as such, of course, if someone asked after you.”
“Of course not. But if we are alone, there is no need to stand on occasion.”
She nodded. “Very well, Mr.—” She smiled sheepishly. “James. We should be on our way.”
He followed her through a maze of hallways; she insisted on taking a circuitous route so as not to rouse Lady Danbury’s suspicions. James didn’t see how their presence in the ballroom, breakfast room, and hothouse all in one morning could cause anything but suspicion, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Elizabeth was clearly taking a quiet satisfaction in her position as leader, and besides, he was rather enjoying the view from the rear.
When they finally emerged in the open air, they were on the east side of the house, close to the front, about as far away from the garden as possible. “We could have exited through the French doors in the music room,” Elizabeth explained, “but this way we can make our way behind those hedges and follow them all the way around.”
“An excellent idea,” he murmured, following her around the back of the hedges. The shrubbery stood twelve feet tall, completely shielding them from view of the house. To his great surprise, as soon as Elizabeth turned that corner around the back of the hedges, she started running. Well, perhaps not running, but she was certainly moving somewhere between a brisk walk and a trot.
His legs were much longer than hers, though, and all he needed to do to keep up was lengthen his stride. “Are we truly in such a rush?” he inquired.
She turned around but did not stop walking. “I’m very worried about Lady Danbury,” she said, then resumed her hurried pace.
James viewed this time alone with Elizabeth as an excellent opportunity to study her, but his pragmatic sensibilities still forced him to comment, “Surely life at Danbury House is not so mundane that the oddest occurrence of the summer is a woman of six and sixty taking a nap.”
She whirled around again. “I’m sorry if you find my company dull, but if you recall, you were not forced to accompany me.”
“Oh, your company is anything but dull,” he said, flashing her his smoothest smile. “I simply do not understand the gravity of the situation.”
She skidded to a halt, planted her hands on her hips, and leveled at him her sternest stare.
“You’d make a rather good governess with a stance like that,” he quipped.
“Lady Danbury never takes naps,” she ground out, positively glaring at him after that comment. “She lives and breathes routine. Two eggs and three pieces of toast for breakfast. Every day. Thirty minutes of embroidery. Every day. Correspondence is sorted and answered at three in the afternoon. Every day. And—”
James held up a hand. “You’ve made your point.”
“She never takes naps.”
He nodded slowly, wondering what on earth he could possibly add to the conversation at that point.
She let out one final hmmphing sound, then turned back around, charging ahead at full speed. James followed, his legs moving in a long easy stride. The distance between them widened slightly, and he had just resigned himself to having to increase his speed to an easy trot when he noticed a protruding tree root up ahead.
“Mind that—”
She landed on the ground, one arm stretched out like an elegant winged bird, the other thrust forward to break her fall.
“—root,” he finished. He rushed forward. “Are you injured?”
She was shaking her head and muttering, “Of course not,” but she was wincing while she said it, so he wasn’t inclined to believe her.
He crouched beside her and moved toward the hand she’d used to break her fall. “How is this hand?”
