‘Leaving aside the fact that I do not want to marry anyone, why is your word as a gentleman a cast-iron guarantee of the truth under any other circumstance but this?’ she demanded. ‘We both declare that you have not compromised me—but no one will accept your word, you say. Yet if they called you a liar over any other matter you would demand a duel, declare that your honour had been insulted.’
Will looked down into the indignant face raised to his. Verity was flushed, either with indignation or exercise, probably both, and her hair was coming down. If anyone had come across them in that moment they would leap to the conclusion that he had just tumbled her. He wished he had. He might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb... His brain felt like scrambled eggs as he sought for an explanation and for control.
‘Chivalry insists that it is inconceivable that a gentleman would put a lady in such a position—I should have attempted the swim, even at the risk of drowning.’ He wished he had, the cold water was very tempting just at that moment. ‘And to attempt to evade marriage is an insult to the lady.’
‘Even if she does not wish to marry you?’
‘Opinion would be that my behaviour must have been outrageous indeed for you to refuse a duke,’ he said drily. ‘Which makes it even more imperative that I marry you.’
‘Oh, poppycock.’ Verity turned on her heel and went through the door with a swish of skirts in what was perilously close to a flounce.
Will felt a grim satisfaction. It was curiously refreshing to leave Verity Wingate without an uncomfortably intelligent riposte. He was wise enough to wipe the smirk off his lips before he ducked through the opening after her.
‘What is the time?’ she asked without looking up from the fire she was tending.
Will consulted his pocket watch. ‘Just past six.’ He glanced out of the door. ‘And it is beginning to spot with rain. I must start work on a shelter.’
A low rumbling, felt through the feet rather than the ears, made both of them look out of the open door. ‘Thunder,’ Verity said. ‘You are not going to spend the night in woods in a thunderstorm. It is downright dangerous.’
‘I am a grown man—’
‘And there is all the more of you to be struck by lightning. And you propose to leave me alone here, in a storm, while you gallantly catch your death of cold? What if the cottage is struck by lightning? Really, I had thought better of your intelligence, but it appears you are nothing more than another of these convention-bound men who cannot think for themselves. Or would you rather die than be thought less than perfect?’
Will took several long, deep breaths. Convention-bound? It was enough to make him want to behave like a savage. But under the insults was common sense. It was foolhardy to spend the night in the open in woodlands during an electrical storm and Basil would feel just as guilty if he expired of pneumonia, or a lightning strike, as by drowning.
But he did not want to find himself leg-shackled to this woman. In bed with her? Yes. Buried in her warm, soft body? Definitely. Married? Absolutely not. And he had a nasty niggle of conscience that was telling him he was doing all the right things just in case, by some miracle, they gave him a loophole to get out of this.
‘I wonder whether I can arrange for Basil to be press-ganged,’ he murmured and received a flash of white teeth as Verity grinned at him. She was too easy to like when his guard was down and he forgot for a second just who he was, what was expected of him. It was worrying that the Duke seemed to be melting away to reveal the fallible man beneath what he had believed, and hoped, to be an impenetrable skin.
Was everything he had learned dependent on being in the right setting and in the right clothes? How else could he account for the way he felt, standing here in his shirtsleeves, dirty and bedraggled, in front of a woman who saw only the man, not the Duke? He seemed to be like an actor who could not perform without his props and costumes and that was shameful. His grandfather had been a duke to his core.
‘What is wrong?’ Verity was staring at him as though he had spoken out loud. ‘It will be all right, we must just be strong and not let anyone pressure us.’
She should not be reassuring him. Verity was the one who should need support and he should pull himself together and provide it. Support and leadership—and she should recognise the fact and stop this outrageous show of independence.
‘Nothing is wrong. There is nothing for you to worry about. I will go and gather more wood before the rain starts.’ And while he was at it, gather his wits to try to decide whether it was less honourable to refuse to marry a lady he had compromised, but who clearly did not wish to marry him, than to do what every instinct told him he must do and wed her, however much they both disliked the prospect.
Chapter Ten
So, I am not to worry my pretty little head about anything, am I? I suppose I could pretend that my head truly is empty of anything approaching independent thought or intelligence and then Will might be easier to deal with—provided he stops having suicidal but gallant and brave ideas about how to rescue us.
Verity shook out what bedding there was—two pillows and two blankets—and looked out of the door, hoping to find some dead bracken, but the plant did not seem to grow on the island. Will would just have to make do with the stone floor, she thought, her lips twitching at the realisation that she was not particularly sorry about that.
‘What are you doing?’ Will came in and dumped an armload of wood by the fire.
‘Making you up a bed. You didn’t think I intended to share that with you, surely? It is far too narrow. Neither of us would get a wink of sleep.’
That could have been better expressed, Verity.
Will clearly thought so, too, by the way one eyebrow lifted. She pushed away the speculation about how it would feel to be curled up against that long, hard body, what his kisses would lead to. Would he be a g
enerous lover or a demanding, peremptory one, convinced he knew what she would want, would need? Probably dukes thought that passion in a woman was unseemly. She wondered if he had a mistress.
‘I do not require a blanket.’ He dealt with her blunder by simply ignoring it.
‘As you say.’ And we will discuss that later. ‘Should we see what our kidnappers have packed for our supper?’
* * *