raised a shoulder in a careless shrug, then let it drop. “Sorry, didn’t think you’d notice a little more water.”
“Can’t you make this thing go faster?” she asked impatiently.
“Not without a pilot’s license. Besides, if I go any faster,” he said from between gritted teeth, “I could lose control of the car.”
She had one better for him. “If you don’t go any faster, you might lose control over us.”
“I wasn’t aware that anyone actually had control over you.” The retort came without thought. And from the look on her face when he glanced toward her, it had struck a nerve. “Sorry, didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Why stop now?”
“Look, I’m the guy who just risked his neck to rescue you.” He felt the vehicle begin to fishtail and he gripped the wheel, driving into the curve. A minute later, he straightened the wheel. “Shouldn’t you be nicer to me than this?”
He had a feeling she hated being wrong. Was she woman enough to admit it?
“You’re right. I should. Kidnappings make me nervous.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Since she’d mellowed for a moment, so could he. “This your first?” He was making conversation. There was very little about Prudence Hill that he didn’t know. It had all been succinctly captured for him between the pages of the dossier he’d been given. He’d managed to read all of it before they’d landed, having trained himself in speed reading just before joining the Lazlo Group.
She began to answer in the negative. He knew that there had been one previous incident, when she was a little girl and not yet the prime minister’s daughter. The plot had been quickly foiled.
He expected her to explain, but Pru turned her face toward the window on her side. “Yes.”
Since she didn’t bring it up, neither did he. “Well, it’s not mine. As far as kidnappings go, this is coming along quite nicely for our side.”
“‘Our’ side? Last time I looked, I was the one who’d been kidnapped, not you.”
“For the time being,” he informed her, ignoring her tone, “we’re a team. Only difference between us being that, should those be your former kidnappers behind us and they manage to catch up, you’ll be taken prisoner again. I’ll be killed,” he added with no emotion.
She actually looked at him with concern. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the darkened road. “Didn’t think so.”
A wall rose up between them like a tower of cotton swabs suddenly filled with water. “Are you saying that I’m insensitive?”
Oh no, he wasn’t about to get sucked into this verbal waltz. “I’m saying that most kidnap victims don’t think beyond their own immediate situation.”
“I am not a victim.”
He hadn’t said it to take a dig at her. It was just the way things were. “Didn’t look to me as if you had the upper hand back there.”
Pru drew back her shoulders. “For your information, I had just cut through my ropes.”
He laughed shortly, then found himself narrowly avoiding battling a tree for the same physical space. Turning at the last minute, he let out a sigh of relief. That had been close. “With what, your X-ray vision?”
“With a piece of glass that I got by making one of those oafs drop a tray when he came into the room to feed me,” she informed him tersely.
He looked at her for a split second before returning his attention to the road. The headlights, he noted, were still behind them. No closer, no farther.
“Go on,” he encouraged. “I’m curious how it got from the floor to your hand.”
“I tilted the chair until it fell and then picked the shard up.”
He nodded, taking it all in. “And what was the guy with the tray doing all this time?”
“He’d already left.” She sounded close to being on the verge of eruption. “What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”
He had an answer for that. “One who refuses a bodyguard when her father has the key deciding vote on a hotly contested bill that’s currently on the floor in Parliament.”
She blew out a breath. “So you’ve been briefed.”
His mouth curved. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Just who the hell are you? And don’t give me that tripe about being my savior. Saviors wear more clothes,” she informed him tersely before he could say anything.
His smile deepened. “My name’s Joshua Lazlo.”
“Lazlo,” she repeated. “That’s—”
“Hungarian,” he supplied.
“You’re Hungarian?” She looked at him, marginal confusion echoing in her gaze.
“I’m a British citizen, born and bred,” he told her. “Of British parents,” he added lest there was any question of his allegiance.
“Why don’t I find that comforting?”
“You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”
She sighed again and lowered her eyes. Suddenly they widened. “You’re bleeding.”
He glanced down to where she was looking. And shrugged. That would explain the sharp pain in his thigh and why it continued to feel as if it were on fire, he thought.
“Looks that way.”
“Were you shot?” she asked incredulously.
He kept his voice devoid of emotion, as if they were talking about scones. “That would be my guess.”
She lost her patience. “My God, what are you, the British Clint Eastwood? Do you have a handkerchief?” she demanded. “What am I saying, you don’t even have a shirt.”
She looked around the interior of the vehicle, opening the glove compartment and rummaging through it. Then, muttering under her breath, she raised the hem of her T-shirt and bit into it where the seams came together, tugging on either side as she did so.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, amused. “There’s a simpler way, you know.” She stopped and looked at him. “Just raise it over your head and toss it off. You don’t have to rip it off with your teeth.”
Pru glared at him, saying nothing. The next second, the material began to tear. To his astonishment, she forced it along horizontally, swiftly reducing her T-shirt to a belly shirt.
“There,” she declared in triumph. She held the strip between her hands. “All right, raise your leg,” she ordered.
He kept his attention on the road, realizing she meant to use her shirt as a bandage. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”
“Obviously everything is a big joke to you. Well, you aren’t about to bleed to death on my account. Do as you’re told.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied meekly, raising his thigh as far as he could off the seat while still keeping his foot on the pedal.
Pru snorted at the polite term. “That’ll get you a kick where you really don’t want one,” she warned him as she secured the bandage around his thigh.
She pulled too tight and he jerked before he could stop himself. The car went out of control, its wheels all but flying off the road.
The front of the vehicle took a nosedive down the embankment and kept on going despite Joshua’s best efforts to stop it.