Page 62 of How To Tempt A Bodyguard

"Again," he said.

By the tenth attempt, she'd managed a respectable three-foot arc. By the twentieth, she could hit a fence post from the wagon. Matthew watched with an expression caught between horror and admiration.

"You're a natural," he said.

"Please don’t say that."

She spat again, four feet this time, clean and sharp, and felt an absurd surge of pride.

"What else?" she asked, wiping her mouth on her sleeve without thinking.

Matthew raised an eyebrow.

"What? If we're doing this, we're doing it properly. What else do common folk do that would make a lady faint?"

He considered. "You know how to blow your nose without a kerchief?"

"Of course not."

"Press one nostril closed with your finger. Blow hard through the other. Aim away from yourself."

Florence felt her stomach turn. "That's... beyond the pale."

"It's called a farmer's blow. Every working man in England knows how to do it."

Her face scrunched up involuntarily while gathering her courage.

She pressed her finger to one nostril. Took a breath. Tried not to think about what she was about to do.

She blew.

The result was... successful. Disgusting, but successful. A glob of something landed in the dirt beside the wagon wheel.

Matthew nodded approvingly. "Perfect."

"I'm going to be sick."

"At least you’ll be alive."

She couldn't argue with that.

They practiced as they traveled. Every few miles, Matthew would quiz her and make her repeat phrases in her improving Scottish accent, make her demonstrate her sleeve-wipe or her farmer's blow. Each time she got it wrong, he corrected her. Each time she got it right, he gave her a curt nod that she'd learned to recognise as high praise.

By late afternoon, her accent was passable. Her laugh was rough enough to blend. Her manners had been systematically dismantled and rebuilt into something coarser, harder, more suited to survival.

She'd never felt less like herself.

She'd never felt more capable.

Chapter seventeen

Undone

Florence

The barn appeared as the last light bled from the sky. A crooked silhouette against the darkening moors, listing slightly to one side like a drunk man trying to find his balance.

"There," Matthew said, pulling the horse to a stop.