"True, but it's hot, and it tastes better than one would expect anything named griskin to taste."
She hid her smile with a forkful of food. "I've had worse. Porcupine, for example, is good only if you're starving."
As they ate, she exerted herself to be friendly. It wasn't hard, but success proved treacherous. There was too much intimacy in laughing and sharing a table with an attractive man who gave her all of his attention. The darkness of the taproom made it seem as if she and Robin were quite alone. Even eating humble griskin couldn't destroy the romantic effect.
The thought strengthened her resolve. The last thing she needed was to take up with an alluring wastrel. She bent her attention to her plate and waited for a chance to slip away.
Robin finished before she did. His idle gaze went to the back wall of the booth, where devices made of hammered, interlocked iron pieces were hanging from nails.
"Do you have this sort of puzzle in America? The object is to take them apart, then remember how to put them together again." He took one of the devices down. "They're hard enough to solve when sober- frustrated drunkards have been known to use crowbars to rip the pieces apart."
"I'm familiar with tavern puzzles. They probably exist wherever there are blacksmiths to forge them, and taverns where people like to amuse themselves." She swallowed her last bite of potato. "I suspect you're rather good at solving them."
"On the grounds that I would excel at all useless skills?"
She had to smile. "Precisely."
He frowned at the puzzle. The outline was vaguely bellshaped, with several interlocking circles and triangles attached to it. "I guess I haven't spent enough time in taverns lately. I'm not even sure which pieces are removable."
As she gazed at the device, she noticed that his left wrist and fingers were subtly misshapen from what must have been numerous broken bones. He had elegant hands that he used expressively, more like a European than an Englishman. A pity that one had been so badly damaged, especially since he was lefthanded.
She studied the irregular contours more closely. The pattern of breaks was unusual, so regular that it seemed the result of a deliberate effort. Torture? A shiver ran down her spine. Perhaps an angry husband had chosen this way to wreak revenge for injured honor.
She reached across the table and took the puzzle from him. "This reminds me of a specimen called the devil's stirrup, only this version is more complicated. I think these pieces should come apart." After a minute of study, she made several quick twists and the puzzle separated into three sections.
He chuckled. "Which of us has the useless skills?"
"Taking it apart is only half the battle. Reassembling it is just as hard." She pushed the pieces across the table to him. "I'll wager sixpence that you can't get it back together by the time I return from the necessary."
"You're on." He lifted a triangle and a ring and tried to link them together.
The moment had come. No man would admit that a woman could best him at something like this. He would be so intent on solving the silly puzzle that he wouldn't miss her for the next hour.
Maxie slid out of the booth, holding her knapsack unobtrusively at her side. The food had been paid for when ordered, so she could leave with a clear conscience. She headed across the taproom to the door that led into the back courtyard. Once she was outside, she cut quickly through to the lane that ran parallel with the high street, behind the buildings.
Her sense of satisfaction was shortlived. The lane was only a dozen buildings long, and when she returned to the high street she almost collided with Robin, who was lounging against a garden wall, his arms crossed on his chest as he waited for her.
"Your opinion of my intelligence really is low if you thought I could be eluded so easily," he said with undiminished good nature.
She glared at him, for the first time believing that the imbecile man truly meant to accompany her all the way to London. "The issue is not your intelligence, but your presumption. I do not want your escort, your company, or your free meals. Now, leave me alone!"
She turned and started stalking down the street. Robin stayed at her elbow. Whirling angrily, she snapped, "I have warned you. Believe me, I am quite capable of defending myself."
She was about to say more when he cut her off with a sharp warning gesture. "People are coming. If you want to maintain your masquerade, don't make a scene here."
Several approaching locals were watching them curiously, but even so, Maxie would have exploded with fury if she hadn't been caught by Robin's gaze. His blue eyes had measureless depths, the eyes of a man who had seen more of shadows than sunshine.
He was also older than she had thought. She had assumed he was near her own age, but she revised that upward, past thirty. She stared at him, feeling that she was in the presence of a dangerous stranger.
Before she could react, Robin took a firm grip on. her arm and started walking toward open country. As they passed the interested group of villagers, an elderly woman said in a broad Yorkshire accent, "Eh, Daisy, isn't that gent-"
"No, it isn't." Robin's clear tones cut across the woman's sentence. His interruption was accompanied by a dazzling smile that made her mouth go slack with admiration. Leaving a murmur of voices behind them, he marched Maxie down the road before anything more could be said.
Fuming, she considered calling to the villagers for help, but that would require endless explanations, and she was sure that Robin could talk his way out of any accusation she made.
Besides, she did not feel threatened by him. On the contrary, he was in far more danger from her than vice versa.
She waited until they rounded a bend and were out of sight of the village. Then she stopped and jerked free. "If I had any doubts about traveling with you, they are resolved," she said furiously. "You arrogant, egotistical-"
"You're quite right, I am presumptuous," he said in a steely voice. "But you had better accept that I intend to see that you reach your destination safely."
She reached for her knife, but he grabbed her wrist. Though his hold was light, it was impossible to wrench free.
"Don't do it, Maxie," he said, his gaze holding hers as implacably as his hand… "You are one of the two most formidable women I have ever known, but you are a foreigner crossing a country rife with unrest. Besides the usual bandits, there are starving soldiers released from the army and unable to find work, angry radicals who want to destroy the government, and God knows what else. You might be lucky all the way to London, but it's not likely. I guarantee you will be safer with me than alone."
She could have fought him, but the last few minutes had changed her views on his ineffectuality. His desire to protect her seemed genuine. Probably he had other, less honorable motives as well, but she was experienced at resisting seduction and didn't think it likely that he would force her. If his fraudulent lordship wanted a woman, all he had to do was give out one of those melting smiles in a village and females would follow him down the street like mice after cheese.
Reserving judgment on whether she might choose to escape him in the future, she said coolly, "Very well, Mr. Andreville, I accept the inevitability of your company, at least for the moment. Just remember to keep your hands to yourself, or you will find them taken off at the wrist."
"I'd sooner tease a tiger." All traces of shadow vanished, and again he was the easygoing charmer she had met in the forest. But she would not forget what he had revealed of himself.
As he released her wrist, she found herself asking, "Who is the other of the two most formidable women?"
He grinned. "An old friend of mine. You'd like her."
"I doubt it." She turned and resumed walking down the road. It would be light for another hour, so they might as well cover more ground. "I hope that your pseudo aristocratic self can survive sleeping under a hedge when there isn't a barn."