Five minutes, Mayhew told himself. They’d be in Twyford in five minutes. And that was good. It was better than good; it was excellent. Miss Culpepper’s trunk would be waiting for her, and she’d have time to bathe and change into clean clothes. Right now, she looked as if she’d been dragged backwards through a hedge, but by ten o’clock she would once again be the respectable, faintly aloof young lady he’d met yesterday morning: her hair tidy, her gown unwrinkled, everything about her pristine and immaculate.
Five minutes,He preferred her as she was now, perched alongside him on this dung-cart-turned-firewood-cart, with her messy ringlets and her grubby clothes. This young lady was the Sweet Willie he’d heard so much about, the girl everyone in the second battalion had loved for her spirit
