“Nonsense. This is quite a respectable sort of kidnapping. We even have a chaperone.” He chuckled, not the least bit abashed. “Mind you, when I saw that other fellow whisking that girl off to elope with her or whatever, I thought you’d be on to me in a flash. Ironic, wasn’t it? Two of us planning the same wheeze from the same house on the same day? Luckily you didn’t catch on. It was he who gave me the idea of saying I’d provided a chaperone. What a slow top, eloping with a girl and bringing a chaperone along.”
She shook her head. “Honestly, will you never give a straight answer?”
“Seriously?” The mischief faded from his eyes. “It’s been impossible to speak to you in London, not properly in the way I need to. So I’m taking you to my sister’s place. Her presence will be sufficient to ensure it’s a perfectly respectable visit, but knowing she will be entirely taken up with her two little boys and the new baby, she won’t bother us at all. And Fred is too busy alarming the tenant farmers with his enthusiasm for experimental crops and agricultural innovations—in fact, he probably won’t even notice we’re there.”
She was silent for a long time.
Eventually he leaned forward and held out his hands. For some reason unknown to her, she put her hands in his. “Vita,” he said, his voice deep and serious, “if you want me to turn the carriage around and take you home, I will. We can be back in Bellaire Gardens in half an hour. Just say the word.”
She hesitated.
“Nothing will happen unless you want it, I promise you,” he said.
She bit her lip.
His long thumbs caressed her hands. “We need to talk freely and uninterrupted, and not in the small slivers of time your sisters are willing to allot us.”
“They mean well.”
“Of course they do, and I appreciate their good intentions, even though the actuality of it frustrates me.”
Zoë sighed. She’d been frustrated, too. “How long will it take to reach your sister’s place?”
“We’ll be there in the afternoon, well before dark.”
“Is she expecting us?”
“No, but she won’t mind. Very accommodating and hospitable is Dot. So, do we turn around or not?”
She sighed. “No. But I’m not happy about your methods.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that! You’re not at all sorry.”
He smiled. “You know me so well. But when a man is desperate…”
“Desperate? You?”
“Yes,” he said seriously. “When I saw you’d gone that morning, leaving the caravan empty, I was devastated.”
“Because of the painting I took.”
He made an impatient gesture. “The painting was nothing—a minor irritant. It was you I missed, Vita. I searched Paris for you for several weeks.”
“Really?”
“Of course I did. Don’t you understand? I love you.”
She said nothing.
“Dammit, Vita, you were a virgin! I thought when we made love that night that it meant something.”
“It did,” she said bleakly. “To me.”
“It did to me, too. I’ve never felt like that before, not with any woman.”
Could she believe him? She wasn’t sure. He was so facile with words.
