“Very well, then, Bradford,” she said, then consciously ungritted her teeth and forced herself to speak calmly. “I shall endeavor to remember to leave your honorific aside when addressing you.”

“I greatly appreciate that, Mrs. Bright,” he replied. “As I know you never forget anything.”

She lapsed into a stony silence, grateful to have distracted him from his questions.

“But I’m still wondering why you’re in such a rush to see to a dead cat,” he said. Although she wasn’t looking at him, Phyllida was certain the corner of his mouth quivered, as if he were suppressing a grin. “Especially when you were already planning to be there at half eleven. What could cause such a rush that you’re going an hour early?”

“A deceased feline, someone’s pet, is reason enough,” she told him frostily. “Wouldn’t you be quite beside yourself should something happen to that bounding, slathering beast of yours? As a cat owner, I find myself completely sympathetic to poor Rita’s grief, and I told her I would assist with its—er—disposal.”

He took his eyes from the road to gape at her, then burst into laughter. “You? You’re going to dispose of a dead cat?”

With his eyes alight and his mouth upturned with glee, Bradford looked almost handsome—a thought that Phyllida noted with complete objectivity, and then firmly dismissed. Any attractive physical characteristics of the driver—including his broad shoulders and strong, dark hands (ungloved, of course)—were utterly irrelevant.

She kept her lips primly closed, despite the number of tart responses that ran through her mind. There was no need to engage with the impossible man. He could cackle and giggle and poke at her all he liked, but she would give him no further ammunition.

And next time, she would sit in the back.

Still chuckling, he focused his eyes on the curving road, easily navigating around an approaching wagon, then taking a curve with a bit too much enthusiasm. Since she suspected he’d done so in order to elicit a reaction from her, Phyllida kept quiet and gripped the seat where he couldn’t see her white knuckles.

“Right, then. So the great and practical Mrs. Bright has suddenly left all of her responsibilities at the hall to fly up to the village more than an hour early in order to dispose of a dead cat,” he said. “Surely it could have nothing to do with the murder that she definitely isn’t investigating.”

When had he become so dratted talkative? When she’d first met him, he’d been surly and spare of words. Now it was as if a dam had burst and he couldn’t contain himself.

Oh, how she wished she could escape . . . and then, horrified, she stopped the thought and instead gave herself a firm talking-to. Phyllida Bright did not run or escape adversity or discomfort or smug chauffeurs.

She managed them.