“There’s a mounting block.” The blockhead.
“I’ll do it.” His hands tightened, fingertips gripping onto muslin and flesh.
“You can’t.”
“You’re not using a damned mounting block when I’m here to help.” His hands tightened further, his arms flexing, muscle screaming against worn linen, and then her feet left the ground, and she gripped the pommel, pulling herself as he lifted. She reached the saddle with ease and with every inch of her body alive to his touch.
Then he released her and bolted, and she brushed her hands over her sides, trying to rub away the tingling, ghost sensations where his touch still, somehow, lingered.
He returned, leading another horse before she could set her mount toward the stable doors.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he saddled the second horse.
“Coming with you.”
“There’s no reason to?—”
“I’m coming with you.” His jaw flexed, and though clearly his stance on the subject wouldnotflex, hers did. No use wasting her breath to convince him to stay.
In moments, they were gone, galloping through the fields and toward the village. The morning mist had turned into a full-fledged rain, and she had to wipe her eyes to see the road ahead. When they reached her brother’s home, Mr. Keats swung her to the ground without question, without hesitation, his hands strong and steady around her. They didn’t evenlinger.
She’d wanted them to.
Before she could catch her breath, Keats was pounding on the door, her brother was opening it, and Keats was giving himall the information he needed. And his horse. To save time saddling another, Keats said.
Lucy watched her brother disappear down the road, feeling a bit… deflated. Beside her, Mr. Keats seemed deflated, too. His hands trembled, and he’d not lost the pallor of his skin. Yet he’d quite taken control of the situation. And of her.
“You are a reliable soul in a crisis, Mr. Keats.”
“Pardon? Oh, thank you.” He was still watching the road where Hades had disappeared.
“I barely did a thing.”
“You led me to your brother’s house.”
“I suppose. Mr. Keats, are you unwell?”
“Quite. I mean no. I mean… do not worry over me, Miss Jones.” He lifted her back up onto her horse and took the reins, guiding them through the rain and back toward Hawthorne House. He wore no cloak, and the rain molded his shirt to the curves of his shoulders, the planes of his back, lovingly over the muscled mound of his backside.
She pressed her center against the saddle to tame the aching there. “We need shelter. Over that way.” She pointed toward a stream and a thick copse of trees on one side of it. “That canopy will suffice.”
Without a word, he led her there, looped the reins around a tree branch, and held up his arms to her. Once more, his hands on her waist, her body ignited by his touch, her imagination ignited, too, by the strain of his muscle against the wrinkled linen of his shirt.
Under the trees, a large rock jutted out toward the stream, and he sat on it, shoulders slumped, head hanging forward as he scratched his fingers through his hair.
“Hell,” he breathed, scrubbing a palm down his face.
She sat next to him. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“I’m not one of your troubled ladies.”
“Very well.” She threaded her fingers together in her lap. Sometimes, threading a needle required meticulous patience. The clouds moved overhead, gray surging against dim white. The nearby stream rushed forward, crashing out of control with its new, rain-soaked inches. And still she waited.
He took a breath first, seemingly careful not to let his body show too much the rise and fall of an inhalation. And then he said, “My mother died in childbirth.”
Oh, what an unexpected blow.
He dropped his hands to his sides and spoke to the sky beyond the tree branches. “My first stepmother, too. My current stepmother is younger than me and will have her second babe in mere months. Hell, she’s tiny. And so quiet all the damn time.” He squeezed his eyes closed tight. “She has red hair like the lady you brought today. Do you think she’s well?” He turned only his head to look at her, and worried fear made his eyes swim a watery blue.
