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“Name yourself!” Amelia demanded.
“What are you doing here?” he said gruffly in return.
“I could ask the same of you, sir.” Amelia pushed Mathilda behind her with the noble thought that if she was going to have to fight, she didn’t want Mathilda to be harmed. Alice had no fear, however, and trotted forward to have a sniff of him. “Alice! Come!”
Alice did not come. The man looked down at the dog.
“Come here at once, Alice,” Amelia demanded.
“You’re not to be on this path.Noone is to be on this path. This is the property of Hollyfield. Whistle.”
“Whistle? And who, pray tell, is that?”
“I mean, whistle for the dog.”
So many thoughts flew through Amelia’s head that she couldn’t quickly form an answer. How dare he presume to tell her to whistle? Who was he, why was he angry that they were here, and was itreallythe property of Hollyfield? She looked around them all, then at him. “Are you certain?”
“Dogs generally will respond to a high-pitched noise such as a whistle, so yes, I am certain.”
“Not that. Are you certain this is the property of Hollyfield?”
“Am I...” His voice trailed off. He seemed stunned. “Quite,” he said stiffly.
Alice trotted away from his inspection of the man and began to make his way back to Amelia.
“Then we beg your pardon,” Amelia said.
The man gave her a curt nod.
“But it appears to be a public path,” she protested.
He stilled. His gaze pierced hers, and she realized, now that she was looking at his beard and the way he simply stared, that this was the same man who had nearly run her over.The caretaker?
“In spite of what it may appear to you, madam, it is not public. It is most assuredly private property.”
“Really? But it’s outside Hollyfield walls. It would stand to reason that a path beside a river is open to anyone who might need it. Just as you’ve needed it to fish. I can’t imagine it belongs to anyone.”
He was staring at her as if he couldn’t understand her, and for a moment, she wondered if she might have spoken in Weslorian without realizing it. But no, she’d spoken perfect English.
“Are you an expert in the laws of property?”
Amelia actually chuckled. “It’s a theory, and I think a reasonable one. I do think perhaps you should make sure of it before you proclaim it’s so.”
His head tilted to one side. Then he shifted his weight to one hip. “I don’t have the time or inclination to explain why yourtheoryis wrong. Or the intricacies of ownership, about which I am quite well versed. Now, if you please, remove yourself from this property.” With his string of fish, he gestured at the path they’d just come down.
He wanted them to retrace their steps. That would put him behind them, where Amelia couldn’t see him. That didn’t seem prudent. She looked down at Mathilda, who had inched out from behind Amelia to stare at the man with a frown on her face. He would have the element of surprise. Would he attempt to kidnap them? She certainly wouldn’t be the first princess to be kidnapped. But then again, he didn’t seem to know who she was. And surely he’d not want the trouble of kidnapping a young girl. “What do you think?” she asked Mathilda.
“I want to go home.”
“Then by all means. Go home.Now,” the man growled, and gestured to the path again with all his fish.
This was precisely the sort of thing that Justine had warned her about. “You’re too impetuous, Amelia,” she’d said once. But it was a fact that Amelia did not like to be told what to do, which, she supposed, was born of a lifetime of being a royal princess where people were not allowed to tell her what to do. And yet somehow, there was always someone telling her what she could or could not do. Whatever, she had a regrettable tendency to be aggravated when someone ordered her about. And perhaps a bit impetuous.
“Yougo.”
“What?”
“Yougo up the path. We’ll go our own way.”
