“You had… some blood on your lip,” he said thickly.
She shyly licked the place he had just caressed with his thumb, tasting an unexpected sweetness instead of bitter metal. “It is not blood,” she told him, mustering a smile. “It is blackberry.”
“Pardon?” He frowned.
“It is blackberry juice,” she explained, gesturing at the ground where countless plump berries had fallen. At that moment, she realized she was covered in dark red stains. It would have been quite a horrifying sight, in truth, if she had not known the real cause of the blood-like patches.
A wheeze of laughter escaped Evan’s throat. “Should we pause and make preserves?”
“Thrashing around is certainly a novel way to crush the berries,” she replied, feeling the shakiness ebb from her limbs. He was sturdy and secure, and he would not let her fall; there was nothing to fear now that he was there.
He turned his attention to the dark red he had brushed from her mouth, and, holding her gaze, he tasted the juice, putting the side of his thumb between his lips. Olivia’s heart reared, threatening to throw off every scheme and plan she had conjured to escape her engagement to him.
“You… did not answer my question,” she said, her voice catching.
“Which question?”
She placed her hand upon his at the curve of her waist. “What are you doing? Why do you have your hand in such a… place?” She hesitated. “Indeed, a more pressing question might be, why are you here? You were supposed to ride off in the opposite direction. Were you… following me?”
Evan returned his hand to her face, his thumb tenderly stroking the apple of her flushed cheek. “No matter how talented you are on horseback, I would never have left you alone out here. I considered it for half a second, then I pursued you, hoping I might race past you at the last moment to seize victory from the jaws of defeat.” He expelled a nervous breath that blew back a strand of hair from her face, tingling her lips. “Now, the very notion of winning or losing seems so foolish and childish. I am just glad I was here to prevent something worse from happening.”
“As am I,” she confessed. “I truly thought I might die, and no one would be able to find me.”
Evan closed his eyes, inhaling sharply. “Do not say that.”
“It is the truth. I… have never been so afraid, nor so relieved when I saw you standing there,” she went on, pressing her palm harder against his chest to feel the familiar rhythm of his heart. It raced.
As his eyes opened, she noted that the hunger had returned to his gaze, but it was not the sordid, lusty sheen of a rake who merely desired one thing; it was a pained sort of desire like he knew he should not want what he wanted. Either that or Olivia was seeing her conflicted desire reflected at her.
“Oh, and I have my hands upon… your waist because I need to lift you onto the back of the horse,” he added quietly, his fingertips gingerly caressing that intimate curve.
Breathless and weak from the frightening experience, even the slightest nudge of his fingertips brought her closer to him until she was almost flush against him. Her hands curled around the lapels of his riding jacket, gripping them tightly—for balance, she tried to convince herself. All she had to do was stand on tiptoe, and their lips would meet.
“We should return to the manor before we are missed,” he murmured, slowly dipping his head as if their thoughts were aligned.
Olivia’s body seized as he drew closer to her lips, her mind and heart waging war against each other, torn in two. Her mind screamed for her to push him away, her heart yearned for the touch of his mouth upon hers, to see if he still tasted like the blackberry juice he had sucked from his thumb. Seconds stretched into minutes as she wrestled with herself, knowing that if she allowed him to kiss her, if she kissed him back, it would change everything irrevocably. She would lose the will to fight the betrothal that had bound them together, tricked into submitting with a single kiss.
His lips were a breath away when her mind finally won.
She stepped back, bumping into the side of the horse, lifting her hands in a gesture of protection or surrender; she was not sure. “You are right; we ought to return to the manor before we are missed.”
Confusion and disappointment crossed his face, but he also took a step back and raised his hands as if asking forgiveness. “Of course, Olivia. Of course.” He shook his head, blinking as though emerging from a daze. “Let me assist you. I would offer to walk the horse, but I think it will be faster if we ride together.”
“I can manage that,” she agreed.
As the desirous shine in his eyes began to dull, he closed the gap between them once more, and, just for a second, Olivia wondered if he still meant to kiss her, if he meant to swoop in and demand a kiss. Her lips parted slightly, waiting to feel the press of his mouth on hers. But it did not come. Instead, he grasped her by the waist and hoisted her upward with impressive strength until she sat perched upon the saddle.
He climbed up behind her, sitting astride the horse. Foolish though it seemed, Olivia had not quite thought ahead to what “riding together” actually meant until she felt his arm encircle her waist and pull her back against him, while his other hand took hold of the reins.
“Keep your wrist against your chest,” he reminded her in a stern tone that was as far from the soft, enchanting words he had spoken before as it was possible to be.
She nodded stiffly. “Do not ride too fast.”
“I will not,” he promised, wheeling the horse around.
* * *
By the time Westyork Manor came back into view, the dull ache in Olivia’s shoulder had been replaced by the very particular torment of being betrayed by her own heart. Whenever her thoughts had wandered to how pleasant and warm it felt to be held in Evan’s arms, she had deliberately prodded her injured wrist to punish herself with a sharp jab of pain.
