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She lifted her chin. The glowing leaves above made a golden-green bell of serenity. “A woodpecker must live up here somewhere. Most of his feathered friends prefer the hedges, or the furze.”

The pause lengthened.

At last, Griffith spoke. “You know a lot about birds.”

She glanced down, relieved he’d taken her cue. “Not really. Prescott has a better eye. He spotted a pied flycatcher by the lake.”

This earned her a grunt. “You two seem to get on well.”

“We have plenty to talk about. We both appreciate the natural world.”

“Delighted to hear it.” Griffith’s close-lipped smile didn’t look delighted.

“Funny,” he said, after a tense beat of silence. “You preferred to go down to the shore by yourself.”

“Prescott’s keen, but he would have gotten in the way,” she responded slowly. “Egg too. They’d both have come along, and I’d have been minding them instead of the seaweed.” She hesitated. “You understand.”

He did understand, surely. There was a particular kind of work a woman had to do to manage the men who helped her unnecessarily.

His face didn’t change. The fine hairs on her neck stirred with unease. He was seething, and not only with misplaced fury at her imagined attackers. Instinctively, she raised her defenses.

“It would have been tiresome.” She frowned. “I only wanted a look.”

“A look.” Tiny muscles ticked near his temple. “Hardly worth separating yourself from the group.”

The look had been worthless, in fact. She’d walked a small stretch of coarse sand and seen nothing but a few cuttlefish bones and egg cases.

Griffith was squinting at her now, his irritation plain.

“The others didn’t wait for you.”

She gave a huff. “I didn’t assume they would.”

“And me? Did you assume I’d continue as well?”

She bit her lip. Drat it. She hadn’t intended to disrupt his ride. She’d simply followed the urge to beachcomb. And he’d been well ahead all day, vying with Deighton.

“I suppose I did assume so,” she said. “I was quite prepared to ride alone. It’s only fifteen more miles, fewer perhaps. I’m sorry you turned back.”

“I’m not.” His expression darkened.

She blinked at him. “Isn’t that why you’re angry?”

“Please. You’re my wheelman. Wheelwoman.” He waved a hand. “There was never any question.”

She blinked again. “Yours?”

“Not in a proprietary sense.”

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow. “What’s the other sense of the possessive?”

His expression grew darker. “Penny. You can’t just disappear. What I meant is we’re a unit.”

She tilted her head. “Since when?”

“Since we started riding.”

“And you’re in charge of this unit? What you say goes?”