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“I’m afraid those are my terms,” she said, arms crossed. He’d lived his entire life outnumbered by women, and he could spot her determination from twenty paces out. But she wasn’t coming with him.
“This is not a negotiation,” he said.
“I don’t see why not. I have information you want, and you can offer me the protection I wouldn’t have if I were to travel alone.”
Nicholas pressed his thumb and index finger to his forehead, trying to fend off the headache that was building behind his eyes. “You’d be no safer with me than you would on your own. Surely you must see that.”
She shook her head.
This was exactly like trying to reason with one of his sisters. “Madam, you are a lady and I am a bachelor. It would be unthinkably improper for us to travel together unchaperoned.”
He knew he sounded like a disapproving matron, but that didn’t change the fact that he was right.
But if he expected her to wilt, he was sorely mistaken. The woman stared at him, blinking her long lashes a couple of times, and then promptly burst into laughter. “It’s very generous of you to think I’m a lady, sir, but you can rest assured there’s no danger here. You see, I’m a governess.”
Nicholas couldn’t school the surprise off his face quickly enough to hide it. A governess? Her? His sisters’ governesses had all been meek older women who seemed to fold in on themselves whenever he spoke to any of them. They had allowed his sisters to run roughshod over them before one after another had handed in their notice for no doubt easier assignments. He couldn’t accept that this woman who seemed to almost radiate with life could be cut from the same glum cloth.
“You’re not a governess,” he said.
“I swear as I live and breathe that I am,” she said, the corners of her eyes still crinkled in amusement.
He crossed his arms in a mirror of hers. “Then you certainly can’t travel with me. Your reputation is just as fragile as any young lady’s. You’ll be ruined if anyone finds out that you traveled alone with a man.”
She arched a brow. “And I won’t be ruined if it’s discovered I’ve lost my charge? If I don’t find Lady Margaret, I’ll be dismissed without a letter of reference. I can promise you that I’ll never find employment in England again, because who would want to hire the governess who can’t control the young lady she was supposed to be minding?”
She was right. Damn it, she was right. He might’ve lost Merlin when her Lady Margaret ran off in the night, but this woman had further to fall than he.
“I can see your point,” he conceded with a sigh. It appeared that he was losing this argument whether he liked it or not.
She had the good manners to look only slightly smug. “What if we strike a deal?”
“What sort of a deal?” he asked, still a little bowled over by this shrewdly dealing woman who happened to look like the perfect English rose. It was fortunate that ladies with her genteel manners weren’t allowed in London’s gaming halls because she would’ve been a menace at the table, widening those huge, innocent eyes while efficiently fleecing everyone out of their winnings by the end of the night.
“Agree to take me along to find Lady Margaret, and I’ll tell you where I think she’s heading. You’ll do better with me by your side anyway,” she said.
He already knew he was caving, but still he asked, “How’s that?”
The lady shrugged. “I know her. You can be certain she’s not traveling under her name, and since you don’t know what she looks like, she’ll be hard to spot.”
That was unfortunately an excellent point.
“We would be traveling swiftly,” he warned.
“I can ride quite well, considering.”
“Considering what?” he asked sharply.
A light dusting of the most appealing pink flushed over her cheeks. “It’s just an expression.”
He could tell she was lying and so he pushed again. “It will be hard on the road. If I’m to chase this Lady Margaret, we won’t be stopping at inns every time it begins to rain, and since it’s March it will rain. Cold, miserable rain that goes on for hours.”
The woman lifted her chin. “I will have you know that I’m not some delicate flower.”
Oh, but she looked like one. She was fine boned and straw blond—a ray of sunlight on the first day of spring. Her lips were as red as cherries in the snow, and her carriage betrayed her natural elegance. She made a man want to ride up on his steed like Saint George, brandishing a broadsword and proclaiming he was ready to fight for her. Except he suspected she didn’t need his help at all when it came to slaying dragons.
Knowing that he was probably making a huge mistake, Nicholas sent up a plea to whichever god looked after men who found themselves outsmarted by pretty women. “Fine. You can come with.”
“I’m so glad you’ve come ’round,” she said, losing the fight against the smile that threatened to spread over her lips. She looked positively delighted, as though he’d asked her to take a jaunt in a riverboat on a sunny day rather than ride like the devil through the Midlands.
