Page 37 of Hunted By the Guardian
He stared at her. “Was this what you were really thinking all the time? Is everything a contest to you? I truly was just trying to help you.”
“Well, I have no need of your help. I will handle this matter on my own, thank you very much.”
She turned and strode up toward the house, still dripping with tomato juice, still wearing Jonathan’s jacket.
For a moment, he just stood there and watched her go.
Then, coming to a quick decision, he set off after her.
All right, so she didn’t require his help—he wouldn’t try to force it on her. But he was going to watch this. He could imagine that it was going to be very entertaining to see her try to correct Noah’s behavior, and he didn’t want to miss the show.
And besides, he thought as he walked several paces behind her, there’s every possibility that she’ll realize she does need my help after all—and, of course, I will give it to her. Because what matters most is not this feud between the two of us—it’s making sure that Noah has everything he needs.
CHAPTER 20
It didn’t occur to Violet until she was face-to-face with Noah that it would have been better to clean herself up before confronting him.
Things would have gone much better if she had been presentable. As it was, she could only see herself through his eyes—walking into the house, the obvious victim of his prank, covered in tomato juice and shivering as it began to dry on her skin and her clothes. It was going to be difficult to present herself as any kind of authority figure while she looked like this.
The moment he saw her, he began to laugh—he didn’t even try to hold himself back—and she realized that this was going to be even more difficult than she had believed it would be. Noah didn’t see himself as in any sort of trouble here. All he saw was that his prank had happened the way he had intended it to. He was proud of himself.
Proud—of this mess! Jonathan is right about one thing. He really does need to be corrected. He can’t continue to go around doing this sort of thing.
But what was she supposed to say to him? That was the part where she became more unsure. What were the right words that would convey to him how serious this was—but without being too severe, without making him think she was so angry that he had lost the new friendship that had begun to develop between the two of them?
She tried to imagine what her father would have said, but stopped almost at once. There was nothing he would have said that mirrored what she wanted to say to Noah. Her father was, in this instance, more of an example of what not to say and do. And if she was honest, she didn’t want to use him as an example in that way either. She didn’t want anything she had taken from her father to influence the way she handled Noah now.
I don’t need him for this. I can figure out what to do here on my own.
She waited quietly for a moment, her gaze fixed on Noah, hoping that he would get the message she meant to convey by her silence and her serious expression—and he did. His laughter faded, and he watched her warily, waiting to see what she would say.
“Do you think this is funny?” she asked him, striving to keep any aggression out of her voice. Her father would have made that statement roughly; he would have demanded to know whether she thought it was funny, and there would have been nothing funny about that situation at all. She would have been frightened no matter what answer she had given him. She didn’t want Noah to feel afraid. She wanted him to consider what she was saying and to genuinely tell her what he thought about it.
“It’s a little funny,” he said, his lips quirking slightly.
So he wasn’t afraid. She supposed that was a good thing. But it also seemed as if her message wasn’t landing with him as she’d hoped it would. She needed to come up with something else to say, something that would show him she meant business. He had to realize that this was not a shared joke between the two of them, and that Violet really was unhappy with his behavior.
Jonathan had come into the room behind her and was standing with his back to the wall, watching the proceedings. She wished he would leave. She didn’t appreciate having an audience for this, especially when she was sure there was a part of him that wanted to see her fail.
I still can’t believe I opened up to him outside. That was so foolish. I should never have let him see my fears and concerns. I should have known he would use them against me, make me think I wasn’t capable of disciplining Noah. I can’t allow him to get into my head about this! I know I can manage this without any help from Jonathan, and if he really wants to stand there and watch, it just tells me he’s a strange man with odd hobbies. I would never spend my day watching someone like that.
She lifted her chin. “It isn’t funny at all, Noah,” she said. “You could have caused serious damage with that bit of mischief. As it is, you got tomato juice all over my dress, and this is one of my favorites.” She spread her arms wide so that he would have no choice but to look at the damage, even though she was still wearing Jonathan’s jacket. The jacket covered some of the mess, but most of it was still visible.
Noah looked her up and down. “It’s not that big a concern.”
“You’re trying to tell me how concerned I ought to be about my damaged clothing?” she asked him. “I don’t believe that’s up to you, Noah. It’s for me to decide how much your actions upset me—and they upset me plenty. This is a dress I love a great deal.”
“It’s only tomato juice,” he told her. “It washes out of clothes. Trust me. I’ve gotten it on plenty of my clothes.” He chuckled. “You look very silly.”
“Do you really think this is the best time for you to make jokes about what I look like?”
“Aw, come on, Violet,” Noah teased her. “You must admit that it’s a little bit funny. I didn’t know who I would get with that prank. I thought maybe it would be the gardener. But I think it’s even funnier that it’s you.”
He was smiling expectantly, as though he thought that at any moment she might give in. As if she was going to burst out laughing, commend him on his high-spirited sense of fun, and admit that she thought the prank had been funny or clever.
In his defense, it was clever. If he could put that cleverness to use, he could really make something of himself—and that makes it that much more important, I suppose, that he should learn how to read. A bright boy like him needs an education, not a bucket of tomato juice to dump on people’s heads.
“Well, it’s not a very kind thing to do,” she said. “You owe me an apology.”
