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‘And you do not look for love in marriage?’
‘No.’
‘Or out of it?’ she asked before her courage failed her.
‘No.’ They were into the Wilderness now and he stopped and met her questioning gaze, his own eyes blue and clear and sincere. And bleak. ‘I do not. And I swear I would be faithful to you, Laurel. Always.’
Chapter Eleven
It was not a game any more, not an almost-unreal situation. Giles was serious about this and she had to make a decision. ‘I do not know what to say.’ Laurel slid her hand free and walked on. ‘I had intended to say no. I had expected that you would either flirt with me and try to seduce me into agreeing or that you would have changed your mind and realised that you had just spoken on a whim last night. Or perhaps that you would produce the same sensible reasons as you did before. But you have promised me something very different—honesty and trust. We could be friends again, couldn’t we? We could make something of this on that basis.’ She gestured as she spoke, sending parasol and reticule tumbling to the grass.
Giles dropped to his knees, picking up her scattered belongings. He stayed where he was, looking up at her, and it was hard not to reach out and touch his face, tug at his shoulder, pull him up to kiss her. But they needed to talk this through, not be lost in some physical attraction.
‘Yes. We could. Laurel, earlier, before I proposed at all, you said you had decided not to marry—that was not because of any distaste for the intimate side of it, was it? Your kisses say not, but kisses are not all there is to it.’
‘I know that.’ She did reach out then and urge him to his feet. ‘When I had recovered from the shock of what I had overheard that day in the barn I did some investigating. It is remarkable what one can find on the bookshelves of even the most respectable houses when the libraries are old and large and things are forgotten and overlooked.’
‘You shock me now.’
‘You think women should be ignorant of the physical facts of marriage? My reading certainly made me aware of why girls are so strictly chaperoned.’
‘No. I do not think women should be ignorant, but I would like to think there are things that you and I could discover together. Will you say yes, Laurel? It would make me very happy if you did.’
‘What was that?’ A twig snapped, somewhere behind them.
Giles looked round. ‘A bird, perhaps. It cannot be people—they would not be so quiet.’
‘No, of course not. Oh, I do not know what to do for the best. Let us walk a little further, I really do not want to be interrupted.’ She should not even be considering marrying a man who did not love her, one with whom she had such a past history. She expected to feel a sharp reaction to her own foolhardiness, goosebumps or qualms or dizziness, but all she could feel was a warm glow of happiness. Perhaps... Giles did not love her, but together they could build a strong marriage, she was certain of it.
‘This is very confusing, you know. I have been an elder sister, almost a governess for so long. Then I decided that I would be an independent single lady and now you are trying to turn my life upside down.’
‘And back to where it was nine years ago.’ Giles bent down and took both her hands, raised them to his lips. ‘Shall I try seduction again? It seemed to make a very favourable impression last time.’
She tugged her hands free. ‘Giles, I cannot think when you do that.’ Half-a-dozen steps took her around another bend in the path and into a damp and overgrown glade. ‘Oh!’
The three men who had been crouched down around a sack on the ground stood up, slowly, moving apart as they did so. There were objects on the sack, she saw, purses and something like a cudgel, a knife—no, three knives. She glanced at the men as she backed away. They were dressed in coarse homespun, boots, slouch hats. There was no chance they were gardeners taking a break from their labours. Laurel had never knowingly encountered a footpad before, but she had a very good idea that she was seeing some now.
‘Come back to me, Laurel.’ Giles’s voice behind her was low, confident. He raised it, pitched to reach the three men who were closing in on them, walking slowly, spread out as if they were edging game towards catch-nets. ‘Sorry to disturb you, gentlemen. We are just leaving.’
‘Not so fast, cully.’ The voice came from behind them. ‘Not until you’ve turned out your pockets and we’ve had a look in the lady’s purse.’
Giles caught Laurel’s arm and spun her round behind him, her back to the wall of shrubs. Now they had one man barring the way out and the three in the glade who were stooping to pick up their weapons.
‘Laurel.’ Giles’s voice was a mere breath. ‘I’ll take the one on the path. Get by us when I do and run like the devil is after you.’
And leave you to face four armed men? I think not.
‘Yes,’ Laurel whispered back, edging round behind him as Giles took off his hat and flicked it at the man, the sharp brim hitting him in the mouth. He gave a roar of rage, batted away the hat and charged at Giles, past Laurel.
She ran to get behind him, then pulled the hatpin from her bonnet, took a firm hold on the strings of her reticule which held her guinea purse and slapped him in the back of the neck with it. He stumbled, swore, half-turned and she stabbed him in the shoulder with the hatpin, then hit him again as he tripped over a fallen branch and crashed to the ground.
‘Help!’ Laurel shrieked as she pulled the branch from under his legs and began to belabour him with it. ‘Help! Murder!’ It wasn’t a very heavy branch, but it still had a mass of tiny whippy twigs on it and she thrashed it, keeping him down as she kept shouting. The man wrapped his arms around his head and rolled away sharply. There was an unpleasant dull thud as his temple hit a stump half-buried in the leaves and he went still.
Laurel dropped to her knees, ripped off the narrow ribbon around the waist of her pelisse and tied his hands.
In the glade Giles was facing two of the footpads. The other one was down, clutching his shoulder and groaning, the hilt of a knife sticking out between his fingers. His companions were edging cautiously closer to Giles, one with a long-bladed knife held out in front of him, the other swinging a club. Giles bent and pulled a flat-bladed knife from his boot.
To call out would be to distract him and she could see nothing she could do to help. Distantly she could hear shouts. Assistance was coming, but here, now, Giles was facing two large armed men who had very little to lose by maiming him.
