Page 77 of Appointment in Bath

None of them had said anything. Not outright. They wouldn’t have dared. But the Beresford frostiness had been on full display. Meg had undoubtedly felt it. It was why she’d been so dreadfully withdrawn since they’d departed the house.

He cast her a speculative glance as he trudged alongside her through the starlit, snow-covered pasture that led toward Letchford Hall. He wished he could make out her face in the moonlight. “You’re angry with me.”

She forged on without a word. She’d been silent since he’d gone with her to fetch her cloak and boots from the kitchen. Silent and resolute.

There had been no dissuading her from returning home by foot, the vexing creature. Who would have guessed that gentle Meg could be so stubborn as to shun the offer of a warm carriage with a hot brick in favor of freezing to death in the snow?

His own extremities were fast becoming numb. It was approaching eleven, and his boots, gloves, and greatcoat provided only moderate protection against the encroaching chill.

Ivo hardly felt it.

The only cold he experienced was the one at his heart. The persistent, niggling fear that he’d done something inexcusable. Something so thoughtless—so unfeeling—that Meg would never be able to forgive him.

“Are you?” he pressed.

Meg bent her head, the folds of her hooded cloak falling forward to further shield her expression from view. “Not angry, no.”

“What, then?”

“I’m d-disappointed.”

“In me,” he concluded. It wasn’t a question.

Meg answered it nonetheless. “In m-myself. I should have known b-better than to come here.” Her teeth chattered.

Ivo stifled an oath. By God, she was freezing! “I knew I should have insisted you return in a carriage.”

Meg’s affronted gaze at last met his. Twin spots of color burned in her pale cheeks. “You’ve done quite enough insisting for the evening. You already brought me here based on a lie. You will let me leave how I choose.”

Ivo’s brows shot up. “A lie? What lie? We did the exact thing I promised you we’d do. We danced together at Beasley Park. It wasn’t the waltz, I grant you, but—”

“You didn’t even inform the servants I was c-coming.”

He was insulted by the suggestion. “Of course, I did. I spoke with Selby particularly.”

“What about the maids? The housekeeper? They n-none of them understood what I was doing there.”

“How was I to know you’d call at the kitchen? I thought you were arriving in a carriage, at the front door, for God’s sake. Selby was waiting there to receive you.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“Of course not. I only meant that he was looking out for you. And he found you, didn’t he?”

“In other words, the end justifies the m-means?”

“That’s not what I—”

“No. I daresay you didn’t. No doubt you were too c-caught up thinking about progress. Human b-beings aren’t railway cars, you know. You can’t force them in a direction against their will.”

He gave her a look of pure bewilderment. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“And they’re not railway tracks,” she went on in the same heated rush. “That you c-can piece together in whatever form you want and then run straight over.”

“I never—”

“You told me what I was from the moment you met me. You said I wasn’t shy, I was inexperienced. That I wasn’t happy being alone, I merely had no choice in the matter. You think you know best about everyone and everything. But you don’t know me at all. If you did, you’d never have subjected me to such m-mortification.”

“Meg—”