He glanced at her. “Why?”
“Well, there’s a freedom to it, isn’t there? I imagine you experienced it as a hermit. Your existence relied only upon yourself.”
“It also relied on your family allowing me to stay.”
“You managed to go years without being seen by almost anyone. You could have kept hidden from Whit and Lady Thurston.”
“Perhaps.” He reached the dock first and put a hand out to hold her back while he tested its safety with his own weight. “Sturdy,” he declared after walking to the end and back.
Though she didn’t need it for the six-inch step up, she accepted the assistance he offered and followed him onto the dock. “Is that why you came, why you’re helping me?”
“Because Mr. Hunter has a sturdy dock?”
She made a face at him. “Because you feel indebted to my family.”
He stopped to look at her. “I am indebted to your family,” he said quietly.
Well, it wasn’t the answer she’d most like to have heard, but she couldn’t fault him for his honesty, or sincerity.
“But I would have come,” he added. “With or without the debt.”
That was much better. “Oh?”
She rolled her eyes when he did nothing more than give that lopsided smile. “There you go again, rattling on and on. You’re quite determined to talk my ear off, aren’t you?”
“Does it matter why I came? You don’t believe in the purpose.”
It did matter, more than she cared to think about, and because of that, she steered the conversation into more comfortable territory. “Would you rather I believed wholeheartedly and spent the trip being hysterical?”
“No.” He gave her a curious look. “Would you be?”
“No.” At least, she hoped not, but having never been in such a situation, it was impossible to say for certain.
He turned to the water, looking from one side of the dock to the other as if searching for the perfect spot. “What would you do differently?” he asked casually.
“If there really was a madman determined to do me in?” She shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it, really. I’d certainly have argued against Mrs. Summers coming along.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be ridiculous—endangering herself to guard my virtue.” She blew a loose lock of hair from her face. “Given our current situation, it was ridiculous, ruse or not.”
“But you’d have left Haldon willingly?”
“Of course. Why would I stay and risk the people I love?”
“If there is a madman, Christian, Mr. Hunter, and I are also at risk,” he pointed out.
When he turned to look at her, she gifted him with a sweet smile. “Yes, but I barely know the three of you.”
“Point taken.”
She laughed and turned to look out thoughtfully across at the water as he crouched down to peer over the edge of the dock. “I don’t know what I’d have done, to be honest. Probably, I’d have kept the letter to myself and found a way to leave Haldon.”
“Handle things on your own?”
“Why should anyone else suffer?”
“They’d suffer a great deal if something happened to you. You’re not invincible, Evie.”
“No one is.”
“Some individuals are more fragile than others.”
She rocked back on her heels to glare at his back. “Are you calling me fragile?”
“No. I’d say you were more delicate.” He brushed his fingers along the water.
“Delicate,” she repeated slowly. “Really.”
Evie figured it was a testament to how long McAlistair had been secluded from members of the opposite sex that he didn’t show the slightest reaction to her annoyed tone. Not so much as a wince.
“There’s a gentleness to you,” he said absently. He stood up and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the water below his feet. “It’s too deep here.”
Gentle and delicate. Though she wouldn’t have gone so far as to call herself rough and indestructible, she rather thought she at least merited strong or, heaven forbid, clever.
“I do believe you’ve a mistaken impression of me.”
He spared a look over his shoulder, one infuriatingly condescending look. “I don’t think so. You’re a lady, through and through. You’re…good,” he decided.
“Good.” What a dreadfully bland description.
He returned his attention to the pond. “Hmm, and a bit naive with it. Dock might not work.”
“Naive?” There was nothing bland about naive. It was thoroughly insulting.
“A bit. It’s tied up with the delicacy, I suppose. Far shore looks promising.”
Gentle, delicate, good, and naive?
Well, every good woman had her limits.
Fifteen
Even in the years to come, Evie would never be able to look back at what happened next without laughing and wondering what in the world had possessed her to do something so childish, so petty, so ill-advised as pitch the dark and dangerous James McAlistair into a dirty pond.