PIPPA NEVER THOUGHT she could so intensely dislike someone as much as she did the arrogant young officer tasked with marching her to Lisbon.
He was a bully, like so many of them. Men, especially young ones, were hard-hearted and selfish. They didn’t understand her. No one did.
She had no trouble keeping up the bruising pace the officer had set. Her maid Lilly was not as fortunate. Lilly didn’t like to ride, another crime Pippa placed at the officer’s feet.
Oh, he was handsome with his dark hair and blue eyes that seemed to go right to the heart of a person. But Pippa’s experience was that the more handsome the man, the more conceited he was. And this Captain Duroy was probably the worst of the lot. Her father had warned her about those sorts of men. He’d told her they could be beasts.
She was so busy engaging her mind in a litany of dislikes about him, she was surprised when he broke out of the riding formation to bring his horse in step with hers.
She kept her gaze on the road ahead.
“How are you faring, Miss Nelson?” he asked. “Are you still put out with me?”
She bit her tongue to keep from answering him. She’d learned early on that men thrived on attention. If she kept silent, he would leave her alone. That’s what her father had advised her to do.
It was also easier to hide her own tongue-tiedness.
“I’m sorry about your books,” he continued as if she had spoken. “However, the French are breathing down our necks, and we must move you to Lisbon with all due haste.”
That was enough. Pippa had never been good at biting her tongue. It was her besetting sin. She had to speak her mind.
“We are traveling southward, Captain,” she informed him coolly. She knew what was going on. She’d grown up in diplomatic and military circles and she listened well. “The French are nowhere close to here.”
To her pleasure, his smile tightened.
“I have been around this war for a long time, sir,” she said. “Do not patronize me. We were perfectly safe to bring my books with me. What I sense is that you wish to be done with the care of me and hurry back to your command so that you don’t miss the fight. Am I wrong?”
“That is my purpose,” he conceded.
“Yes, well, your purpose was against mine.”
“And perhaps I understand you more than you believe.”
That provocative statement caught her attention. “I doubt that. If you did, you would not be taking me to a ship that will deliver me to England.”
“It’s your homeland, Miss Nelson. You will be safe there. We want to see you protected.”
“Save me from being protected,” she declared. “You are a man. You don’t know what it is like for a woman. My aunts and cousins have all these rules and are always lecturing me. I was born in Calcutta, raised in the Orient. When I return to England, I can’t go anywhere without permission and I must always watch my tongue. I say the wrong things. Even here, amongst the soldiers, I know they believe I’m odd.”
“They find you original,” he corrected. “And you shouldn’t let that bother you. My own mother is eccentric, independent and fiercely proud of it. There are women such as yourself in England. You just haven’t met them yet.”
“I doubt if I’ll ever meet one. England can never provide the freedom my father gives me,” she announced with a touch of defiance.
He appeared as if ready to challenge her statement, but then decided against it. Instead, he said, “I like your mare. She’s an Arabian breed.”
Pippa willingly changed the subject with him. “Tatiana is from Russia. A gift from one of my father’s friends.”
“Tatiana? What sort of a name is that for a horse?”
She was caught off guard by his criticism, but then thought she saw laughter in his eyes. He was teasing her . . . she thought. People rarely teased her.
“It’s the name of the fairy princess in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she said, and immediately regretted her words, realizing she sounded haughty. He was English. He would know the name. However, she had come off sounding superior and stiff.
Usually, at this moment, people would start to withdraw from her. Young men would frown, pout even. Young women would giggle at her. She never knew how to hit the right tone.
“I know who she is,” he said, without taking offense, “but a mare like that should have an English name.”
“Like what?” Pippa asked, still uncertain.
“Buttercup.”
“Like the flower?” Pippa frowned.
“And very English,” he answered.
“Oh, and what English name do you have for your horse?” she questioned, something that was always tight and distrustful inside of her unwinding a bit.
“Valiant. Very English.”
“Very heavy,” she answered.
“So is Tatiana.”
“But poetic,” she demurred.
“Valiant is poetic.”
“And a mouthful.”
“Says the woman who named her horse Tatiana.”
Pippa laughed, realizing the conversation had come full-circle back to her. Captain Duroy was very clever and entertaining—and she must beware. Her father had warned her of just his sort. Keep them at a distance.
He noticed her change of mood. “What is it?”
She looked at him, at his easy good looks and the effortless way he rode. He was a horseman through and through. A dashing man. A dangerous one. A man much like the one who had run off with her mother.
“I don’t like you,” she said, speaking the words aloud to give them force.
He was taken aback. “Have I offended you?”
Pippa felt a bit ill to her stomach. Why had her father left her? Why was she dealing with this alone?
“Miss Nelson, is something the matter?”
She heard the concern in his voice and didn’t want to trust him. She grabbed hold of the first halfway reasonable excuse to push him away. “You are making me do what I do not wish to do. And you took my books.” She could hear herself, knew she sounded inane—and yet she must not let him close.
He didn’t speak right away, and that made her cross. “Have you nothing to say?” She dared him to fight back. Then she could blame him for something.
“I say that Medford knew what he was doing when he chose you to be my punishment.” With those cryptic words, he rose up the line to take his place . . . leaving her alone.
WILLIAM HAD A desire to needle Pippa Nelson, and he didn’t understand why.
Perhaps it was because she gave off the air that she didn’t need a man.
Perhaps it was because she was an attractive woman who didn’t seem to notice him.
Or perhaps it was because she reminded him of his mother, a woman he greatly admired. She truly had an independent spirit.
So he kept his distance.
And it didn’t seem to bother her.
One of his men, Sergeant Larson, found a small inn for them for the night. As William was organizing the sleeping arrangements, Lilly, Miss Nelson’s maid, came to him with a question of when they would be expected to rise in the morning.
“Miss Pippa wishes to know,” Lilly said. She was a middle-aged woman with apple cheeks and a friendly spirit.
“Tell her an hour before dawn,” William answered.
“Very good, Captain.” She started to leave but then stopped. “I saw you talking to her earlier today. You made her laugh.”
“Is that so unusual?” William said.
Lilly took a step toward him, lowering her voice. “Her mother ran away with a Russian officer when Miss Pippa was ten. It’s a tender age for a girl. They all need their mothers. I wasn’t in Sir Hew’s employ then. He thought to keep Pippa for himself. He cares for his daughter, but he can be a selfish man, and he shut out many after his wife left. I think if he had his way, he’d insist that Miss Pippa be at his beck and call for the rest of his life.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You made her laugh,” Lilly repeated. “I was hired by Miss Pippa’s aunt, Lady Romley, because she fears for her niece’s happiness. I’d begun to believe I’d arrived too late to save Miss Pippa, until I heard her laugh today. Please, don’t be offended when she wards you off. In his anger at his wife’s unfaithfulness, Sir Hew has put many strange notions in his daughter’s head. She feels she must always prove her faithfulness to him.”
“A father should want his daughter to go forward with her life,” William said.
“And I believe Miss Pippa’s is a loving nature. Sir Hew is not a loving man. But I’ve said too much. If I have trespassed on your good nature, forgive me.”
“No, Lilly, I appreciate this information.”
“I thought you would, Captain.”
William set sentries. He would check on them through the night. He turned in. He was usually a good sleeper, but he found that this night, thoughts of a brown-eyed, opinionated redhead kept him awake. So he was a bit groggy the next morning, and yet anxious to see Pippa Nelson.
However, when he strode into the inn’s dining room, Miss Nelson was not there. Instead, a tearful Lilly came running down the hall for him.
“What has she done now?” William asked. “Don’t tell me she refuses to come with us. I will go up and fetch her.”
“It’s worse than that, Captain,” Lilly said. “She’s not in her bed, and her horse is gone. The innkeeper tells me his son is missing his clothes. Miss Pippa has stolen them, and she’s left.”