“We’re much obliged,” Daniel said, handing the coins to Seth, who took them, then stood staring down at the
silver as if waiting for it to evaporate in his hand. Poor lad had probably never seen that much money in his whole life, judging from the appearance of his family’s farm. Indeed, Daniel wondered what the boy had thought he was protecting.
At last Seth shoved the coins into his trouser pocket. “Be right back,” he mumbled, then strode toward the farmhouse.
As the lad set his pitchfork by the door, then disappeared inside, Daniel strode back to Wallace’s horse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Helena limp toward the pump and felt his gut twist into a knot. He hated this, forcing her to wash in the icy water of a pump and bed down in hay when she deserved hot baths and fine linen on feather beds. He hated dragging her from pillar to post, not knowing what trouble they might find in the next town.
But most of all, he hated the look of hurt betrayal in her eyes. He wished he’d shot that scoundrel Wallace before the man had told her about him and Crouch.
Daniel drew himself up with a scowl. She had him acting as if he ought to be ashamed of it. It wasn’t
his
fault that she’d leapt to certain conclusions about his past. Nor did it change anything between them, not as far as he was concerned.
Yet the memory of how disappointed she’d looked when Wallace was gleefully exposing Daniel’s old connection…
Damn the man! Now she knew for certain what a scoundrel Daniel had been. She’d already thought him a whoremonger, but now she thought him a villain, too. He could tell from her frosty manner, her angry glances. His only consolation was that she still seemed willing to let him guide their actions—though she probably felt she had little choice.
He led Wallace’s horse into the barn and set about unsaddling it. When Helena entered a while later, she had her bonnet in one hand and a now-dirty handkerchief in the other. She hung both on nails in a nearby post. She’d scrubbed her face clean and had rinsed out her hair, for the chestnut weight of it clung damply to her shoulders, crisscrossing the back of her bodice with dark, wet swaths as translucent as paper.
His blood quickened at the sight. Jerking his gaze away, he concentrated on rubbing down the horse. He was nearly finished when Helena spoke.
“Daniel?”
“What?” he growled.
“When you said this morning that you could rescue Juliet from Crouch unless something went wrong, were you talking about Crouch’s men finding out that you were coming? And them knowing who you are?”
He flinched. “Yes.”
“And I suppose with Wallace around that’s still a possibility.”
“Damn it, yes.” He couldn’t stand the way she danced around the issue. “But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”
“What do you mean?” Her voice held a hauteur he hadn’t heard in it since London.
“I mean the reason you stiffen when I touch you, the reason you can hardly bear to look at me. You’ve gone back to thinking you can’t trust me.”
“Now why should I do that, I wonder?” she said sarcastically.
He turned from the horse to throw down the curry brush. “Goddamn it, Helena, I couldn’t tell you about me and Crouch.”
Her gaze burned steadily into his. “Oh? Why not? Because it was ‘nothing to worry’ me?”
Her blatant echo of his lie sliced right through him. “That’s it exactly. I didn’t figure your knowing would make any difference, seeing as how I’d already promised to help your sister escape her captors.”
“If it made no difference, then why not tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d react like you are now—assuming the worst, deciding I’m as bad as the ones that took her.”
She gaped at him. “I’m not doing that!”
“I saw how you looked at me after Wallace spewed out his poison: like I was a bloody insect you wanted to squash. Like I’d betrayed you. Here you’d been thinking I was some poor lad forced to live among smugglers and do a bit of their dirty work, and apparently that was all right by you. You didn’t mind so much having me touch you, then.”
“You don’t understa—”
“But it’s not quite the same to learn I was Crouch’s right-hand man in my youth, is it? That I was as much a criminal back then as Wallace and his gang, if not more. Well, you listen to me, lass. I’m the same man who kissed you last night, the same man you claimed to trust while you sat before all those free traders. And if you think I—”
He broke off as he heard the door to the farmhouse slam. The boy was coming.
Daniel dropped his voice. “We’ll finish this later, d’you hear? In the meantime, you’d best decide what you want from me. Because like it or not, we’ll be enduring each other’s company for the next few days, and I don’t plan to spend it as your whipping boy.”
He regretted his harsh words the instant she recoiled
from him, shock and pain in her features. Filled with self-loathing, he wheeled away to lead the horse into a stall. He shouldn’t have said that last bit, but Christ, she made him insane when she looked at him like he was the worst devil hell had ever spawned. It made him want to roar and stamp about the barn.
She hadn’t looked at him like that last night, oh, no. Last night, she’d been all soft and eager to have him in her bed. And it hadn’t just been the liquor talking, either. After this afternoon in the gig, he was sure of it. But now she thought to blot all that out of her head, just because of a few matters in his past. How dare she?
He wanted to go back and drag her into his arms, remind her of what had passed between them, the heat and the need and the sweetness. He wanted to make her see it made no difference what he’d been in his youth.
But their young host’s footsteps could be heard rounding the barn. The stripling had chosen a devil of a time to bring them supper. Schooling his features into some semblance of calm, Daniel left the horse, closed and latched the stall door, and returned to where Helena was still standing, mute and stricken. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bear to see the sure contempt in her eyes.
“There was more food than I thought,” Seth announced cheerily as he walked into the barn carrying a tray heaped high. Dressed in the simple garb of a farmer, he seemed oblivious to the tension that clouded the air in the barn.
Helena seemed to shake herself. “Oh…thank you. We much appreciate it.”
“Mum even left a cake,” he went on. “I’ll get it after you’re done with all this.”
“We wouldn’t want to take your cake,” she said softly. “You keep that for yourself.”
Though the smile she then offered looked wooden, it further enraged Daniel. How easily she could turn pleasant when some unlicked cub cozied up to her. “
I
wouldn’t mind a bit of cake,” Daniel grumbled. “God knows I paid for it.” He strode up to the boy and surveyed the tray, then grudgingly conceded, “Although it does look as if you gave us our money’s worth, lad.”
“Mum makes right fine bread and butter,” Seth boasted. “And there’s pickles and ham and even some cold boiled potatoes if you like.”
“It sounds delicious,” Helena whispered, “though I confess I’m…not as hungry as I thought.”
When Daniel’s gaze shot to her, he saw naught but bleak pain, so palpable it was like a blow to his groin. He knew why she’d lost her appetite—who’d made her lose it. And with a savage twist of guilt, he remembered that she’d barely eaten any breakfast.
“Why don’t the two of you set up a place for us to eat while I go wash up?” he muttered. Maybe if he left her alone for a bit, she could find her appetite. Besides, it was too bloody hard to be near her at the moment.
He strode outside to the pump. He shed his clothes to the waist, being careful to remove his pistol and hide
it
beneath the pile. Then he gave himself as good a scrubbing as he could manage in the rapidly fading light. He didn’t mind the icy water or the chill autumn air; at least it helped to cool his anger. After he’d finished and put his shirt and waistcoat on, he gathered up his muddy coat and the pistol and returned to the barn.
Seth and Helena awaited him, seated on milking stools at a jury-rigged table of planks set across a cart. They’d lit a couple of lamps, sending cheery light around the dusty barn and over the plentiful meal. As Daniel tossed his clothes in a corner and hid the pistol in them once more,
he realized he’d lost his appetite, too. Though the food looked mighty enticing and Seth had brought them fresh milk to wash it all down with, what he desperately wanted was some ale. For himself
and
Helena, since that seemed to be the only thing that took the starch out of her spine.
Why could she only be easy with him when she was half-drunk? Why must her expectations for him be so bloody rigid?
Then again, it served him right for hiding his true self from her. He’d learned long ago not to do that, because it always ended with people discovering he was something other than what they thought. He’d known she’d get her back up if she found out that she’d allowed one of those “nasty, evil men” to kiss her and touch her intimately. Yet the reality of it was twice as agonizing as he’d expected.
Because a tiny part of him had hoped she might be different.
She wasn’t. That was clear enough throughout their meal, which she only picked at. She ignored him pointedly, bestowing all her queenly kindness on Seth. Never had Daniel felt so much like wringing a boy’s neck just for being young and friendly. Why couldn’t the stripling have slunk off into the house without bothering them?
Instead, Seth had eagerly accepted Helena’s invitation to join them for their meal. At first, he stuck to questions about where they were headed. But when he heard they’d come from the city, it sent him into a fever of excitement.
He exclaimed that he’d dearly love to see London. Question tumbled after question, and Daniel soon realized that the lad wanted to hear about every bloody piece of the entire wretched town. Even worse, Helena seemed more than eager to oblige, though she probably knew as little about London as Seth. No doubt she wanted to post
pone the moment when she and Daniel were alone. God knew he dreaded it himself.
Not to mention that he wasn’t sure how to handle the sleeping arrangements. Letting Seth prattle on to Helena, he left the table to survey the barn. Helena couldn’t climb a ladder, so the loft wouldn’t do. They’d have to use a stall. Thankfully, there was one that looked as if it had been empty for years. No doubt the family had been forced to sell some of their horseflesh when the farm fell on hard times.
Lending only half an ear to the boy’s chatter, Daniel climbed into the loft and tossed down some hay. Then he brought a lamp into the unoccupied stall and swept the dust and cobwebs out. Laying down plenty of fresh hay made him all too aware of how small the stall was. Christ, for all intents they’d be sharing a bed if they both stayed here, yet he didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the loft and leaving her down here alone. What if by some chance Wallace’s men showed up?
No, he and Helena would have to share the space. It wasn’t much, but it would do once he threw a horse blanket and his greatcoat over it. And surely he could keep his hands off her for one night—especially since she’d probably shoot him before she’d let him touch her again.
She and the lad were still jawing when he finished, but Daniel had had as much as he could stand. Though it took repeated hints about their tiredness before he could get rid of the boy, he did at last succeed. Even then the lad insisted on coming back to bring them linens to throw over the horse blanket that Daniel had tossed down.
“Won’t your mother be angry to find her linens filthy?” Helena asked as Seth held out a pile of sheets and a blanket.
He shrugged. “I’ll wash ’em out in the morning. Be
sides, a fine lady like yourself shouldn’t have to bed down on a horse blanket.”
“I agree,” Daniel snapped, whisking the linens from the boy’s hands. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Seth, we need our privacy. My wife and I would sorely like to shed these mud-caked clothes and go to bed.”
Seth colored, then mumbled about how he understood and scurried out the barn door. Daniel shut it with a rush of relief.
“You didn’t have to be so rude to the poor boy.” Helena stalked to where their saddlebags were hung over a stall door and began to rummage about in them. “He was only trying to help.”
Snorting, Daniel added his coat and pistol to the pile of linens and strode past her into the stall. “Trying to get into your good graces, is what he was doing. I should’ve warned the boy it was pointless.” Daniel spread the sheet and blanket over the horse blanket, then placed the pistol in the corner of the stall.
“And what is that supposed to mean, pray tell?”
He strode back to where she was tossing out the contents of the saddlebag with jerky movements. “What that means,” he snapped as he halted a few feet from her, “is that you are bloody unforgiving. Let a man make one mistake and—”
“One mistake? Is that what it was? A mere
mistake?
”
Noting her haughty posture, he gritted his teeth. “All right, so it was more than that. Yes, I was Crouch’s lieutenant.” The carefully banked anger that had smoldered in his breast all evening flared to blazing heights. “But it was a long time ago, damn it! I haven’t dabbled in free trading in years, yet you act as if I’m still doing it!”
She dropped the flap of the saddlebag and whirled on him. “I don’t care about the free trading! You were young
and you did what you had to. I can’t pretend to understand what it’s like to have to scrabble for every penny, so I couldn’t possibly judge you for doing whatever you did.”
“Now who’s the one telling lies?” he growled.
“You arrogant wretch! I’d already begun to figure out you were not some child apprentice to smugglers. Last night you were quite expert on the subject of free trading. I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t tell you knew a great deal more than I’d expected.”
That took him off guard. Then his eyes narrowed. “But you didn’t know I was
Crouch’s
smuggler, did you? You didn’t know of my connection to the man who had your sister abducted. And now that you do, you think me even more of a scoundrel than before!”