sublime in his amusement. If her situation weren’t so dire, she’d cheerfully tell him to go to the devil.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she replied sullenly. ‘My mother told me never to talk to strangers.’
‘Your mother was right, but you were happy to talk to me last night when you thought I could be of use.’
‘That was last night. Things look different in daylight. I don’t want any handouts.’
‘I wasn’t offering to pay for your breakfast. I merely thought you might like some company, but it seems I was mistaken. The least you could do is thank me for getting you out of a scrape.’
‘I didn’t ask you to,’ she retorted ungraciously. ‘I can take care of myself.’
‘Is that so?’ His eyes did a quick sweep of the small, slight form in ill-fitting garb before him, noting the pathetically shorn hair of an indeterminate colour and badly stained breeches. There was an air and manner about him that held his attention. ‘By the looks of you someone needs to take you in hand.’ His jaw set squarely, he turned away. The lad was proving to be a headache. And yet...those snapping green eyes...the soft mouth and curve to the cheek...
Simon! an inner voice commanded. Enough! It will be your downfall if you pursue this train of thought.
It was indeed enough—but even so he found himself turning back. He glanced at her horse. ‘Get your horse and come with me if you want some breakfast—before those young ruffians come back and finish what they started.’
Turning on his heel and leading his horse, he headed for the back of the nearest inn. Racked with indecision, Henrietta glared at his retreating broad back, the hollow ache in her middle reminding her how hungry she was. Seeing her three abusers loitering on the street corner still eyeing her with malicious intent, though it chafed her to do so she grabbed her horse’s bridle and hurried after him.
Leaving her mount to be fed and watered in the tavern’s stable, she was almost treading on his heels when he crossed the threshold into the large and welcoming common room. It was adorned with gleaming copper and brass with a number of tables disposed around the room. A good fire burned in the hearth and a number of serving girls tripped about bearing loaded trays.
There was a stir of interest among them when their eyes lighted on Simon’s handsome form and their eyes boldly appraised him. His expression softened as his gaze swept over one of them—a pretty young girl, her loosely laced bodice barely containing her ripe breasts—and he inclined his head in the briefest of bows. The way he regarded them told Henrietta that this was a man who enjoyed female company. From the flirtatious fluttering of the women’s eyelashes, it was obvious they had fallen prey to his charm.
‘What it is to be so popular,’ Henrietta commented without bothering to conceal her sarcasm as she followed him across the room.
‘Being reasonably handsome—or so I’ve been told—has its advantages, Henry.’ There was something about the amused tilt of his eyebrows, the way the serving girls melted a pathway before him and the sudden mischievous twinkle in his eyes that made her laugh.
‘And I have no doubt many of the ladies surround you like moths around a candle.’
The liquid blue of his eyes deepened. ‘Many moths, but no butterflies—and I have to say that I am not partial to moths.’
The landlady of the inn paused in her work to watch the two cross the room where they settled at a table in the shadow of the wide chimneypiece, where they ordered breakfast and cold beer.
‘You’ve ridden quite a distance,’ Simon said, removing his hat and cloak and dropping them on the seat beside him.
Reluctantly Henrietta did the same before sitting back and availing herself of the chance to take account of her companion. His vigour seemed to fill the room with such robust masculine virility that it took her breath, because she had grown accustomed to a life with her guardian, a diminutive older man. Her gaze leisurely observed his lean yet muscular thighs and she allowed it to wander upwards over his breeches to his narrow waist and powerful shoulders, her eyes settling on his dark features. He had nothing wanting in looks or bearing. He wore a blue jacket and black breeches above his riding boots and his tumble of raven-black glossy curls was secured at the nape.
Settling back in his seat, his long, lean body was stretched out at the table pushed slightly forward to accommodate his long legs. But there was nothing ungraceful about him. The muscles of his arms and legs were sinewy and strong, and finely honed. He regarded her with some amusement, smiling, his teeth very white against the tanned flesh of his face, but there was a disturbing glint in his blue eyes.
She noticed that he was studying her with intent and she was aware of the tension and nervousness in herself. Of course anyone else might have seen past her disguise and laid bare her secret, but with this man, she could only surmise that he was contemplating the disgusting state of her shaggy hair—the soot she had rubbed in to darken it having run and stained her face—and dirty breeches. She avoided his eye and vowed to remember her false identity at all costs. So far there had been no hostility in his voice when he addressed her and she must take care not to raise his suspicions. As a man of the world, he would be familiar with the subtle differences in bone structure between men and women, and he might have noticed that she was abnormal. If he did, fortunately he did not press the matter.
Simon idly watched the serving wenches go about their business, his eyes lighting on a particularly buxom redhead giving him the eye. His mind turned over possibilities and began sketching scenarios in which he would take her somewhere private where their coming together would end in some climatic terminal.
Thoughts of climaxes brought vivid, full-colour visions of Theresa to mind, the last woman he had made love to in the twilight of her father’s French garden—her heavy breasts perfectly round, her face beneath his washed by his kisses, eyes closing tight in pleasure, then opening again to look with delight into his, her mouth stretched wide in a permanent gasp of pleasure. The daughter of a French nobleman, she had meant nothing to him and had receded into the past like so many before her. Still, she had been a beauty all right and he would probably never see her again.
He did not normally permit himself the indulgence of sentiment. There was in his nature a very cold streak and he cultivated it because it protected him. And now, with a rising and rebellion imminent, it was imperative that he did not relax his vigilance. But he was restless, cursing the imagination which sent him thoughts the like of which he had not suffered since he had left Theresa. But he often thought the imaginings were so much better than the disappointing real thing.
His relationships with the fair sex often left him puzzled—where was the blinding ecstasy that came with the mystical fusion of two bodies into one? He was a good lover, he had been told. He found sex interesting, as well as physically pleasant. He rarely had to seduce a woman—for some women he was a highly desirable man—and the thrill of conquest was not what he wanted. He was also an expert at giving and receiving sexual gratification. But over time he had formed the view that ecstasy came not from a man’s pleasure in a woman, but from their pleasure in each other, which was something that seemed to elude him.
Shifting his gaze from the serving wench, he studied his young companion more closely. With short hair and small heart-shaped face accentuating the large green eyes and slim, fragile features and high delicate cheekbones, the youth looked much younger than he had originally thought.
‘We shall have refreshments and discuss what I see lurking in the depths of those eyes of yours.’
Simon waited for Henry to make the opening gambit. But it seemed his expectations would come to naught for Henry volunteered nothing of himself. ‘Since we are to eat together, we might as well get better acquainted,’ he said in an attempt to draw the lad out of himself. ‘My name’s Simon Tremain. I already know you are called Henry. Your family name eludes me?’
Henrietta met his gaze and immediately the shutters came down over her eyes and her expression became guarded. She had the uneasy thought that her companion was like a tall, predatory