Daniel faltered, noting that she wore no cloak or pelisse despite the drop in temperature. “You will catch your death out here,” he urged. “Allow me to escort you back to the manor.”
“No,” she replied simply.
“Miss Wilson, I must insist.”
She refused to look down at him again. “As must I. I am staying here. I am comfortable here, and it will take more than a chilly night to make me catch my death of cold.”
“I cannot allow it,” he said firmly. “This is my estate, these are my gardens, and—”
“As an exemplary host, you will permit your guests to do as they please, within reason,” she interrupted, closing her eyes. “I am perfectly content—or rather I was until you came along. So, if you do not mind, I will ask again that you leave me be.”
There was a strange note in her voice as she muttered that penultimate sentence, a sort of nervous sadness.
She was perfectly content until I came along…
Daniel could not fathom why that would cause her voice to tremble so. Or perhaps he did not dare to make any guesses.
“Is it the beds again? Is that why you are having difficulty sleeping?”
He knew it was a somewhat risky subject to bring up, but he would not be dismissed so swiftly. Despite everything, he wanted to remain in her company a while longer.
She snorted. “Never mind why I cannot sleep. Worry about your own lack of slumber, for, clearly, you were not able to sleep, or you would not be wandering in the gardens at such an hour.” She hesitated. “Unless this is your habit? I might be convinced, but I have not seen you here the past few nights while I have been sitting happily in my tree.”
“Yourtree?”
“I have claimed it for the duration of my stay,” she replied.
He almost laughed. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
Sighing wearily, he stretched his hand up to her. “Nevertheless, you must come down, and I must return you to the manor. My mother would not like to hear of you being out here by yourself in the dead of night.”
“How would she know, unless you plan to inform her?” Phoebe countered, swinging out her foot as if she meant to kick his hand out of the way, but his hand was too far, and her leg was not long enough.
“If you will not obey, I might have to inform her, if only to get you down from there,” he replied.
Phoebe chuckled darkly. “Dear Lord Westyork, I am not the sort of lady who follows orders or likes being told what to do. Expect my disobedience.”
The words sounded oddly familiar to him, creasing a frown into his brow as his mind flashed back through his memories of their encounters… and settled on his own statement to her, what felt like a lifetime ago. It was almost verbatim.
Embarrassment stung the center of his chest as he wondered why on earth he had said such a thing to her. It was the sort of thing a rogue said when he was trying to impress a woman.
“Is this how we are going to proceed?” he asked, irritation in his voice. But it was irritation toward himself, not her. “Are we to be bitterly uncivil toward one another from now on?”
She finally glanced down at him, her beautiful eyes glinting. “Youhave been uncivil, not me. While I admit that some of my remarks were ungenerous, they were in the spirit of our previous rapport, and I expected to receive similar replies. It was you who decided to be rude and, at times, quite mean.” She averted her gaze once more, staring off into the distance. “If you still want my approval, you are not behaving in a manner that will grant such a thing.”
Tired of quarreling and embarrassed by his behavior, yet unwilling to back down, he did the only thing hecoulddo. With an agility he had not used since boyhood, he jumped and caught hold of a lower branch. Feeling the rough graze of the bark against his palm, he swung himself into the central dip of the trunk, where the boughs and branches forked upward and outward. From there, he climbed onto the bough above Phoebe, walking out a short way before swinging down onto the bough where she sat. With a small yet polite distance between them, he sat astride the bough, facing her.
“You will never approve of me, Miss Wilson, so why should I make any effort to try and win your favor?” he asked, his palms stinging from the friction of the bark. “I have been kind, I have been generous, I have been compelling, I have been complimentary, I have been friendly, I have been apologetic, but it made no difference. Now, you say you are upset because I decided on a less friendly approach?”
“I am annoyed because you spoke unkindly to me,” she replied, tilting her chin up. “I am not upset. Your words could not upset me.”
“You were unkind to me first!”
She turned her face away. “No,youwere.”
“If this is because of those blasted gowns,” he muttered, sweeping an irritated hand through his hair. He had not swung up to the bough to fight with her, yet there they were, quarreling again.
