‘It’s me,’ Gabriel said, sharply.
‘You frightened the life out of me. What happened to your beard?’
‘Shaved it off. The relief is immense.’ He boosted himself into the tiny room and pulled a candle and flint from his pocket. When he struck a light she could see that he was in breeches and shirtsleeves, his hair tied back.
‘Oh.’ Caroline grounded the jug and sat down again in her nest of blankets. ‘But if anyone sees you they will guess something is wrong.’
‘Petrus the Hermit has evaporated. We are about to leave.’
‘Already?’
‘It is almost dawn. The letter will have reached London by the evening post and one of my friends will be on his way with some sort of vehicle by now. I wrote to the two of them who are in London at the moment.’
‘You are sure someone will come? What if they were engaged yesterday evening?’
‘The letter had my seal with a certain mark we all use beside it. Our servants know to deliver messages immediately if they see that. Cris de Feaux once left a royal levée to bail Alex out of gaol when his footman smuggled that in to him.’
‘The Marquess of Avenmore? But no one leaves a levée before the king. What did he do?’
‘Fainted dramatically. Full length—which you have to agree is considerable—in front of the princesses. They had a lovely time fussing over him.’
‘I have never spoken to him, but the Marquess of Avenmore looks so chilly and correct. I can’t believe he would do such a thing.’
‘Neither did anyone else. Therefore it could only have been genuine, so he got away with it. Cris has got away with a lot behind that façade of perfection.’
‘And he would drive through the night for me?’
‘No, for me. Although that’s not to say he wouldn’t rescue you if he knew you needed it. It might be Cris who comes or it might be Alex Tempest, who is Viscount Weybourn. The third of my closest friends, Grant Rivers, the Earl of Allundale, is at home in Northumberland. Come to think of it, Cris is probably still engrossed with the smuggler’s widow, his new wife, so my money would be on Alex.’
Smuggler’s widow? No, do not ask, just be thankful for rescue, although it was a shock to discover that three noblemen whom she had always assumed were upstanding members of society were, apparently, as ramshackle as Gabriel.
‘There’s hot water below and tea. You come down and get ready, I’ll keep watch.’ Gabriel vanished down the chimney, then called up, ‘Hand down the valises first.’
An all-over wash in a bucket in front of the embers of the fire was bliss. Caroline had not realised how sticky and sooty she had become until she was clean again. She put on the fresh underwear she had packed, braided her hair tightly out of the way and found Gabriel outside checking over the clearing in the gathering light.
‘Just making certain it all looks normal out here. I’ll build the fire up, so there will be smoke from the chimney for a time, and we’ll leave the interior as though I was coming back. It might just win us an advantage if they come by and assume I’m down at the lake or communing with nature in the woods.’
‘Do you often commune with nature?’ Caroline found she was feeling a trifle tipsy. The sense of unreality had returned.
Gabriel gave a snort of amusement. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’
No, she supposed he spent far too much time in smoky gaming hells. When he isn’t entertaining ladies in their luxurious silk-hung bedchambers. ‘This Spartan life must have been uncomfortable for you, in that case.’ It came out more tartly than she had intended and she saw the sidelong look he sent her.
‘I am capable of roughing it,’ Gabriel said mildly. ‘I do occasionally set foot outside, you know, but I am not used to spending so much time simply existing in one spot in the countryside.’ He slung a leather satchel over his shoulder and picked up the valises. ‘It is curiously restful. At least, it might be if I wasn’t trying to remember my Welsh accent and using far too much energy keeping my temper with your father. Ready?’
‘Ready.’ She managed a smile as she fell into step beside him. What on earth was she doing? She was running away from home with a man she barely knew other than as a hardened gambler and a skilful deceiver. Just by leaving Knighton Park she had compromised herself and, after just one night alone with a man, had almost ruined herself. Not that Gabriel appeared to have been very affected by those hectic moments on his bed, Caroline thought ruefully, all too aware of the rangy body moving easily beside her, the wicked gypsy-dark looks of the man she was trusting with her life.
I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. If I am ruined it is a pity not to do it properly, not that he shows any interest in actually making love to me. He must be right and it was simply reaction, heat of the moment.
She stumbled over a tree root and Gabriel caught her arm, steadied her and then walked on, apparently as untroubled by the contact as he had been untouched by nearly making love to her last night.
Caroline resisted the urge to rub her arm where those long fingers had curled and held her, tried to ignore the shiver of heat that ran to her fingertips. He doesn’t want me. He touched her with a careless efficiency that somehow underlined how unimportant those moments of contact were to him and was now acting like a totally i
mpersonal escort through the woods.
She would do better to stop entertaining immodest thoughts about the Earl of Edenbridge and think instead about what she was going to do when she reached London. She had no money, no references and no skills to market. She doubted whether she’d even make a halfway competent housemaid. It was one thing knowing how a household should be run, another to have the knack of polishing metalwork, getting stains out of carpets or black-leading grates. She could speak French competently, Italian a little, play the piano and add up accounts, so she supposed she might be employable as a governess in a not-very-demanding household. But who would entrust their children to an unknown young woman with no recommendations?
Perhaps Gabriel was a forger as well as a lock-picking, play-acting, potential blackmailer... Her thoughts came to a crashing stop as she walked into his exceedingly solid back. ‘Ough!’