“No. Yes. I have no idea,” she decided.
A line formed in his brow. “Is it your leg?”
“No, I…” She shifted her weight. “Are we lost?”
“No.”
She blew out a short breath of annoyance. Wasn’t that just like a man? He wouldn’t even consider the possibility he might be in the wrong, even when a great shiny orb in the sky indicated otherwise.
“You know where we are, then?” she asked.
“Not far from the village of Randswith.”
Being completely lost herself, she had absolutely no idea if that was true. “The thing is, McAlistair…we’re going east.”
“Yes.”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Oh, hell, what had she been thinking, following a man who likely hadn’t left the Haldon grounds in nearly a decade?
“I…” She took a deep breath and tried for a gentle tone. “McAlistair, Norfolk is to the north, not the east. I mean, it is a hair to the east, certainly, but not a full day’s worth of riding. We must be near Suffolk by now.”
His eyes moved over the land as he spoke. “We’ll be in Suffolk tomorrow.”
“But the cottage is in Norfolk.”
“Change of plans.” He turned to study the subtle trail they had left through the tall grass.
“Change of plans?” She started a little. “What change of plans?”
“We’re going to Suffolk.”
A small bubble of laughter escaped her throat. “But why?”
He was quiet a moment, but rather than take immediate offense, as she might have two days ago, Evie waited patiently—relatively speaking—for him to speak. Silence following a question, she was beginning to realize, didn’t necessarily indicate a refusal to answer. It didn’t necessarily indicate he would answer either, but it seemed only fair to give the man a chance.
“We decided Suffolk would be best,” he finally admitted.
Evie decided so little enlightenment had not been worth the wait. “We?”
“Whit, William, Mr. Hunter—”
“Before we left Haldon? You altered our destination before?”
“Yes. For the best.”
“And no one thought to tell me?” If he answered with any variation of “for the best,” she was going to kill him. Reach right over, grab his reins, and wrap them around his neck.
“We couldn’t risk it.”
She narrowed her eyes. That was dangerously close. “Risk what?
“You telling the staff where we were headed.”
She jolted a little in the saddle, stung by the insult. “I can keep a secret.”
His mouth hooked up at the corner. She wished she didn’t find that quite so attractive.
“Did you?” he asked.
No, she’d told Lizzy, but she’d be damned if she’d admit to it. “No one asked me to.”
He transferred his reins to one hand. “And if we had?”
“I am a Cole.” She straightened her shoulders. “I always keep my word.”
“I’ll remember that.”
She twisted her lips. “And I suppose I should remember you’ve no qualms about lying to me.”
“Probably,” he replied easily, which earned a small smile from her. “But in this case, I just didn’t tell you.”
“Lying by omission is still a lie.”
“It was more a failure to correct a misunderstanding.”
She laughed softly. “You’ve a clever tongue when you’re of a mind to use it.”
“It’s been a great while since…” He trailed off and cocked his head just a little. “You’re not angry.”
“Of course not. Mine is vastly cleverer.”
“For the uncorrected misunderstanding.”
“Not particularly, no,” she admitted. “At least, I’m not any angrier over this bit of misinformation than I am over the towering mountain of misinformation preceding it. I’d say my feelings on this fall somewhere between astonished and irritated.” She sent him a hard look. “In the future, however, I would very much appreciate being informed of any changes in our itinerary.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment, which was as close to an apology as she expected to gain from the likes of McAlistair.
“Well then,” she said, “if we’re not headed to Mr. Hunter’s cottage—”
“We are, just a different one.”
She blinked at that. “How many does the man own?”
“A number.”
“You don’t say,” she drawled. “Shall I take that to mean you don’t know?”
“If you like.”
She laughed again and urged her horse forward. It mattered very little to her where, exactly, they were going, as long as they arrived in a timely fashion. She desperately wanted a hot bath.
They rode for the next hour in much the same manner as they had earlier, with McAlistair prowling about and Evie left to her thoughts.
When a thick wall of gray clouds appeared on the horizon, those thoughts turned to rain. When the wall had moved to cover half the sky and block out the sun a mere twenty minutes later, she wondered if they were in for a storm.
“Ominous clouds,” she murmured to herself before turning and repeating the same words to McAlistair as he rode up next to her.