He scrubbed a hand down his face.
Archie clawed at her bodice, climbing up so that he could rest his chin on her shoulder. He meowed by her ear, reminding her that his rightful owner would be wanting him back soon.
It wasn’t as though she’d asked the cat to come along on her escape. “Up the road a ways—making arrangements with the anvil priest. He thinks I’m in the privy.”
Mr. Spencer cocked a disbelieving brow. “And you thought to what, walk to London on your own? In those?” His blue gaze flicked to just below her hem, where her slippers peeked out, soaked with mud, one toe protruding through a broken seam.
“I panicked.”
“I didn’t take you for a person who’d crumble under a little pressure.”
Tabetha smoothed the material of one of her sleeves, refusing to be goaded.
“So, the Duke of Culpepper is… waiting for you to emerge from the privy… at the blacksmith’s?”
Tabetha nodded. With each passing moment, she felt more and more like a disobedient child. Her escape plan had not only been hopeless, but it had also been nonexistent
“Did you expect him to come after you? To beg and grovel at your feet?”
“I didn’t think that far.” She ignored the mocking groveling comment. But Culpepper would have to come after her, wouldn’t he? Having taken her away from her mother’s home, he was responsible for her safety. And it was his duty to ensure that she made it back to London.
The sudden arrival at the blacksmith’s had spooked her. She hadn’t cared where she was going or how she intended to get there. But she’d needed to get away from him.
She couldn’t marry Culpepper. She would find someone else—some other duke.
“You didn’t think that far?” The scoundrel standing before her scrubbed a hand down his face again, groaning this time. She watched him warily as he paced to the side of the road and back again and then tipped his head back and stared up at the sky. “Although I’m pleased you’ve come to your senses, you’re lucky I’m not throttling you right now.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” But the look he was giving her indicated that he very well could. And that he was more than tempted.
Tabetha stepped back, not realizing how tightly she was holding Archie until the cat squirmed as though preparing to escape.
“Don’t push me,” Mr. Spencer growled. And then, still glowering, he glanced in the direction she’d just come from and then back at her and exhaled loudly. “I suppose we ought to inform His Grace of your change of heart. I don’t imagine he’ll be happy about it.”
She winced. But of course, she couldn’t just leave the duke in Gretna Green without telling him where she was going—without providing him with some sort of explanation. Although it would be much easier if she could do just that.
Pursing her lips into a petulant pout, she dipped her chin and looked up at her rescuer from beneath her lashes. “Will you tell him for me?”
He was laughing almost before she finished asking the question. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’ll tell him yourself. Besides, he’ll be wanting Archimedes back.”
“How do you know his name?”
“That hairless abomination is all the man spoke of last week at White’s. Last I heard, the damn thing was raised from the dead after being unearthed from a secret tomb in Egypt, and the new owner would experience immortality.”
“Archie is nothing more than a harmless cat.” She tipped her head down and rubbed her chin along his surprisingly soft, wrinkled skin. “And he likes me. Even though I told him not to follow me.”
“He minds about as well as you do.” But he held out a hand. “Come on then.” He jerked his head toward the horse.
“I can walk.” She’d come this far on her own. “Besides, I can’t sit astride wearing a gown.”
By the look on his face, she ought to have been prepared for his next move.
He bent forward, wedged his shoulder against her abdomen, and rose, one arm around her thighs, so she was dangling inverted, clutching Archie precariously, as he carried her to his horse. Before she could think of any insults to heap in protest, he managed to have both of them seated atop the ungainly but rather large mare.
“Why are you such a brute?” But her question was a rhetorical one. In order to keep herself and Archie from tipping backward and falling off the opposite side, Tabetha was forced to slide one arm up and around his