“Yes, very clear, your Grace,” said McMahon, blushing beneath his freckles. “It made her all the more determined to keep walking.”

Steven’s right hand twitched by his side, as if he had felt the impulse to slap the back of McMahon’s red head.

“Did it now,” Sebastian drawled.

McMahon nodded rapidly. “She seemed to swell in size, growing taller by an inch or two and her eyes became all fierce. She was so terribly… womanish. There was no proper way of handling that, your Grace –” He bit his tongue when he noticed Steven’s heated glare drilling into his neck.

Sebastian released McMahon from the situation with a nod. The lad was no match for Miss Archer, but who was? She seemed to have a habit of defying dukes every time she encountered one. And this included encounters that took place by proxy.

“Stevens,” he said, grimly amused. “Ready my horse – the stallion. And another, a docile one, with a side-saddle.”

He would find her. Handle it. And return with her to Claremont. No matter how fierce the look in her green eyes.

The cold burn of the headwind made his eyes water, and the road was visible only because McMahon’s horse had cut a path through the snowdrifts. It still took more than four miles until a lone figure appeared against the white sheet that was Wiltshire – she had walked that far. She was currently advancing up the hill near the old crofter’s cottage. His heart began pounding in rhythm with the stallion’s hooves as he drew closer.

She had reached the hilltop by the time he could make out the mahogany coil of her hair peeking from beneath her hat. A hat! Why not a fur-lined bonnet?

She must have heard or even seen him coming, for she had come to a halt, but she was awaiting the inevitable with her back turned to him, as motionless as if frozen in place. The behaviour of toothless, clawless prey when discovered. He knew she was anything but. He thundered past in a cloud of snow dust, then came to a sharp stop in front of her, a deliberate move that blocked her path with a wall of stomping, steaming muscle. Just in case she tried to impulsively run from him, which would only embarrass them both.

When she rose from her curtsy, she shot him an assessing look from beneath her lashes and it went all the way to his core. Only now he noticed how hard his pulse drummed in his throat. He felt the warm

5

sheen of sweat on his back. The cool touch of winter air on his brow. He blatantly returned her scrutiny. Her nose and cheeks were ruddy, one icy breeze away from frost bite. Her stupid hat was askew. And her coat – well, hell, it could barely call itself that; even in its hay days the now faded, patchy thing would have offered lousy protection in current conditions. A flicker of dark frustration heated his chest. His stallion danced beneath him, riled by his black mood. He reined both of them in.

“Good afternoon, Miss Archer.” He kept his tone deceptively idle. “Now, what exactly were you hoping to achieve with this?”

He drew a circle around her and the snowy path with his index finger.

She glanced up at him with guarded eyes. “I’m following your orders, Your Grace,” she said coolly.

“The road permits travel, so I left your house.”

Right. The march, the snowdrifts, and two large horses barricading her way, had done nothing to curb her recalcitrance. In truth, she was crackling with barely checked determination, as if she had another five miles and at least one more take-down of an overbearing aristocrat in her. His unyielding streak tipped his hat to her persistence. The same part of him wanted to rise to the challenge and win.

“And as you could have safely assumed, I was referring to travel by coach, not on foot,” he suggested.

The corner of her soft mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t dare to make assumptions about your orders, Your Grace.”

“So had I made myself very, very clear, that it precluded travel on foot, you would have stayed put?”

he shot back, and he could see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she weighed her answers, weighed whether to lie or be bratty to his face, until she finally chose to press her lips into a line and say nothing at all.

He nodded. He had not expected it to be easy. He did not need it to be easy to succeed. He swung from the saddle and approached her.

Her chin tipped up, and her body stiffened as though she had literally dug in her heels to hold her ground. A display of bravado that gave away her apprehension, and the knot he had carried in his chest since reading her note loosened. Still, he planted himself a mere foot from her, his shoulders tight with lingering annoyance.

“I would never order a woman to walk anywhere,” he said, “so mount up, if you please.” He pointed the riding crop he still held in his hand at the spare horse.

She eyed the animal with a wariness as if it were a scaly dragon and not the sweetest gelding in his stable.

“I will reach Hawthorne in an hour, Your Grace.”

“You won’t,” he said, thinking of the miles still ahead of her, “but it will be dark, and you will be ill.

You might also lose a few toes,” he added, for her boots were undoubtedly as useless as her coat.

Miss Archer’s chin rose again. “I appreciate your concern— ”

“I will not have a woman come to harm on my land,” he cut her off, because the very thought of such a thing repulsed him. “Concern plays no part in it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have no desire to come to harm, merely to get to Hawthorne.”

Christ. “You are putting pride above your safety, ma’am.”

6

She visibly gritted her teeth. No doubt to stop some insult from flying out. Or to keep them from chattering.

Unaffected be damned. “Get onto the horse,” he ordered in a tone that would make people jump.

“I prefer not to, Your Grace,” came the prompt reply. “It’s huge.”

His fingers tightened around his riding crop and tapped it against his boot, because giving in to the mad impulse to grab and hoist her over his shoulder was not an option. Yet.

Miss Archer’s gaze flitted between the crop and his face. “There’s an inn in Hawthorne where I plan to stay,” she said quickly, “and— ”

“And then word gets around that I cast my guests out into the cold?” he said, disturbed by the realization that she might fear the crop in his hand. “Certainly not. You are not even wearing a proper coat.”

She looked down her front as though she was seeing herself for the first time. “It’s a most regular coat?”

“And utterly useless for an eight-mile march in these conditions.” His unease had sharpened his voice, when he knew that the most gentle tone was required to put her at ease. How little experience he had with this type of negotiation, where he wanted to right his mistake, but the opposing party had left the arena; where the opposing party was considered his inferior by every rule book in existence, but they didn’t seem to give a toss about the rules. Where the opponent’s gaze made him aware of his body beneath the protective layers of his coat; the sweat on his skin; his breath expanding his lungs, still a little too fast; and this tension in his chest and stomach that refused to lift even now when he had found her. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse.

She was assessing him again this moment, from his shoulders down to his boots. Realizing that of course she was no match for him physically. He pictured the scene if she were to try to dash past him, and him lunging for her almost on instinct like a hound after a fox, and them grappling in their snow-caked clothes like foes or lovers in some Shakespearean drama – or comedy, who could tell at this point – and it was becoming altogether ridiculous. And perhaps, just like sometimes one had to fight fire with fire, the only antidote to ridiculousness was something more ridiculous.