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Picking up on his reluctance to further discuss his family, Lizzie let the matter drop. The trouble was, if they did not discuss his family, she was a little apprehensive about what topics that did leave on the table.

Recalling some of the things she had come out with the previous evening left her feeling rather foolish. Her ears felt hot when she thought about her tipsy ramblings about what men liked. She was fairly certain she had mentioned Ada Wurtzel’s bottom at one point. As she drank her tea, Sebastian leaned heavily against her side, and Lizzie wound an absent arm around his furry neck.

“I hope Sebastian will come into the wagon on the journey tomorrow for he certainly cannot run alongside us the whole way,” she commented aloud.

“He seems intelligent enough and won’t want to be left behind,” Benedict said, casting the dregs from his cup aside.

Lizzie nodded. “Perhaps if he won’t go inside, he will sit up on the step beside us.”

Benedict nodded. “We’ve an early start in the morning so …” his words trailed off.

Lizzie nodded and helped clear away before adding another blanket to Sebastian’s nest beneath the wagon. The dog accompanied her to the field opposite and then settled in his blankets with another bone.

Lizzie washed, donned her nightgown, and brushed her hair before Benedict joined her. Her thoughts kept returning again and again to his astonishing words in the beer tent. There’s nothing you could say could turn me against her, so don’t even try. Could he truly have meant that? She bit her lip as she climbed between the cold covers and curled herself into a ball. After all, he had not been in bed when he said it. He said you could not set store by any words a man said when he was in your bed, but out of it, presumably you could.

Behind her she could hear Benedict washing in the basin. His words had left her almost breathless especially after the way her own family had turned on her so swiftly, but perhaps again, she was seeing too much in what he’d said.

After all, it was plain to see his relationship with his grandmother was a poor one. Maybe he had simply meant there was nothing Ma Toomes could say that would set him against her because he disliked the old woman so much and did not trust her?

She hugged her knees and thought that this was distinctly probable. Benedict blew out the lamp and climbed into the bed beside her, and Lizzie breathed out as he crowded around her shivering body.

“You’ve given too many blankets to the dog,” he murmured, pulling her firmly into her arms.

“No, I haven’t,” Lizzie disagreed at once. “For he does not have anyone to curl up with as we do.”

He grunted, resting his chin against the top of her head. “Did you really think I’d left you behind earlier?” he asked after a moment of silence.

Lizzie paused, then realized what he was alluding to. “Just for a moment,” she admitted.

“I wouldn’t do that.” When she did not reply, he jolted her in his arms. “Lizzie?”

“What?”

“Tell me you believe me.”

“You told me not to, though,” she reminded him.

“What?”

“You told me I could not believe a word a man said to me when he was in bed with me.”

A stunned silence greeted these words, then to her surprise, he released her and sat up in the bed.

“Benedict?” Moments later, she heard a match strike and the lamp was relit. Lizzie rolled onto her back and blinked up at him. “What are you doing?” she asked in bewilderment.

He turned back to her; his expression frustrated. “Lizzie, we need to talk.”

Lizzie drew the blankets up to her chin and regarded him doubtfully. “Are you going to get out of bed, then?” she asked. There wasn’t much room for him to sit anywhere else except on one of the two fixed trunks.

He scrubbed his face with his hand. “When I said that, I did not mean that precisely,” he started. “I meant simply that when a man is trying to get you into his bed, his words can’t be trusted.

Lizzie regarded him blankly. “No one ever tried that with me,” she pointed out flatly. “And besides,” she added, giving him a frank look. “I don’t think that was what you meant.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why?” he asked in steely tones.

“Because, you weren’t trying to get me into bed at that point. It was very first thing in the morning.” When he continued to glare at her confrontationally, Lizzie added. “I said I had been thinking over what you said to me and you – ”

He flung his hand up for silence and looked away. If she did not know any better, Lizzie would think he was blushing. He breathed out noisily. “Very well,” he bit out. “You have me there. I was embarrassed, so I said the first thing that sprang to mind, to discredit what I’d previously said.”