all too intimate. But what could she say? He was playing the perfect gentleman, sitting opposite her on the seat, facing backwards.
She winced inwardly. She had intended to make a note of any landmarks she saw as a means of finding her way—she’d brought along a notebook and pencil for the purpose. She could hardly do so with him sitting there watching her. She would just have to try to hold them in her memory.
She stared out of the window, trying to look as if her interest was idle curiosity. Here there was a large barn. There an oddly twisted tree, but they were moving so quickly it was hard to keep track.
‘What do you think of Cornwall?’ he asked.
Be quiet, I’m trying to follow our route, she wanted to snap. Instead, she pursed her lips as if giving consideration to his question. ‘It’s very different from the countryside in Wiltshire.’
‘How?’
She turned to face him. ‘The sea. The moors. The mining. Even the way the people speak. I can barely understand some of their words.’
‘It is not so very different from Wales,’ he murmured, as if remembering. ‘They also have their own language.’
‘Did you live in Wales?’
He nodded. ‘For a while. When I was young.’
His willingness to talk about the past surprised her. ‘Did you like it there?’
His eyes turned the colour of a winter sky. Bleak. Cold. Clearly she’d touched a nerve and she expected him to withdraw into his usual chilly distance.
‘No.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Not true. There were good times as well as bad.’ He turned his face to look out of the window as if he preferred to hide his thoughts, but the way the light shone on the window, she could make out his reflection. Not the detail, but enough to see him close his eyes as if shutting a lid on memories their conversation had evoked. ‘It was a hard life,’ he murmured. ‘But I learned about mining and the men who risk their lives below ground.’
‘Tin mining?’ she asked in the awkward silence.
He turned back, his expression once more under control. ‘Coal.’
‘Did you work in the mine?’
‘As a hewer?’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t strong enough, then. I did later. Alongside the men in my uncle’s mine. My mother’s brother. He believed a man should learn every part of a business he intended to follow. The way he had.’
‘Even the heir to an earldom?’
He smiled a little, as if amused by a recollection. The atmosphere in the carriage lightened. His face looked younger, more boyish. ‘Especially the heir to an earldom. He is not a great respecter of nobility. He thinks they are all soft and idle.’
‘Is that what you think?’ she dared to ask.
He gave her question consideration. ‘I think there is good and bad in every class of society.’
As did she. Strange how they were in accord on some things and so at odds on others. Like the inheritance, for example, she thought grimly.
He leaned forwards, picked up her gloved hand from her lap and held it his. He massaged her palm with his thumb. The bleakness was entirely gone from his face, and now his expression was pure seduction. ‘Have you thought any more about our future?’
The stroke of his thumb was scrambling her thoughts. Her body was vibrating with longing, her pulse jumping. She swallowed. Forced her mind to focus. ‘Our future? I have certainly thought about my own.’
His eyes danced, as if she amused him. ‘You cannot think about one and not dwell on the other. Don’t take too long to come to a decision.’
‘Why?’
The caress ceased, though he did not release her hand. If anything, his fingers closed tighter around it. He fixed her with his inscrutable gaze. ‘It’s a matter of life and death, isn’t it?’
Dumbly she stared at him, taken aback by his frankness.
‘What is holding you back?’ He moved from his side of the carriage to hers and suddenly the seat felt a great deal smaller. The way his shoulders took up all the space and his thigh pressed against hers. He still had her hand, too. She gave it a gentle tug, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he eased down the leather at her wrist. ‘You can’t deny the spark of attraction between us.’ He raised her hand to his mouth and breathed on the sensitive skin where he had pulled the leather apart. She shivered.
He kissed the pulse that now raced beneath her skin. Traced the fine