Free Elizabeth Mansfield by Poor Caroline Page B

on this occasion, was making his way back on foot. Irritated by having made another fruitless visit, he was remembering something he’d read in Latin during his college days: A man who understands the disposition of women knows that when you will, they won’t. He couldn’t help smiling at the recollection. It was strange how the sayings of the ancients came back to haunt one later with their truth. Who’d said it anyway? he asked himself. Cicero? Marcus Aurelius? Terence? Yes, that was it! Terence.
    Just then, his musings were interrupted by a terrible noise, coming from a distance down the street. He looked up to see a cart, drawn by two cob horses, trundling toward him at breakneck speed, the driver shouting curses as he pulled back on the reins in a desperate but useless attempt to get the cobs in control. But what stopped Kit’s pulse was the sight of a young woman who, engulfed in some sort of daze, was heedlessly crossing the street in their path. “Look out!” he shouted in terror.
    The young woman, blinking out of her reverie with a start, looked up and saw the horses almost upon her. She froze in horror. Kit, without thinking, dropped his umbrella, leaped into the street, threw himself upon her, and rolled them both out of the way. The horses and cart raced by in a thunder of hooves and shouts, spraying the puddles of water in all directions, crushing Kit’s hat under one of the cartwheels, but missing the two bodies by inches.
    With the breath knocked out of them, neither of the fallen pair was able to make the effort to get up. Kit, to regain his breath, panted heavily. He soon realized that the woman beneath him was in a worse way. He could feel her breast heave as she gasped in deep, guttural terror. Still shaken, he got to his feet. “Are you hurt, ma’am?” he asked, leaning down to help her up.
    She looked up at him, eyes still wide with terror. “I don’t ... think so,” she managed.
    His eyes met hers, and he blinked. The woman—much younger than he’d at first thought ... a girl, really—was startlingly appealing. Not what he would ordinarily call pretty he thought, but something beyond prettiness. Even now, with her bonnet crushed, wet, and askew, her short curls tousled and falling over her forehead, and her lips and cheeks white with shock, she made him catch his breath. There was an exquisite sweetness in the slightly rounded face and trembling mouth, but the most striking features were her wonderful gold-flecked eyes. They seemed to say everything that she could not—terror and relief and gratitude all at once. They were the sort of eyes a man wouldn’t easily forget ... eyes that, if a man weren’t careful, could capture him for life.
    He helped her up, but her knees buckled under her. “You are hurt!” he said, alarmed.
    She clung to his arm and steadied herself. “No, no,” she assured him, her voice choked and still short of breath. “Just shaken.”
    “No wonder! That deuced drayman should be shot!”
    Still keeping herself supported by his arm, she looked up at him, taking in his face for the first time. It was a likable face, lean, with lined, somewhat weathered skin, a square chin, and a full-lipped, generous mouth. But what she was instantly drawn to were the eyes, light gray and sharply keen, yet unmistakably kind. “I believe, sir,” she said slowly, “that you saved my life.”
    “Not at all,” he said. “I just prevented a few bruises.”
    She shut her eyes with a shudder and shook her head. “More than a few, I think. One of those horses ... I saw him rear! I was almost under him. I truly believed, in that flashing moment, that I was done for.”
    “Well, you weren’t,” Kit said almost brusquely, to cover a flush of embarrassed modesty, “so let’s make an end of it.”
    “How can I? You risked your life for me. Doesn’t that put me in your debt?” She threw him a sudden smile that he found utterly charming. “Isn’t there a rule somewhere—a