Chapter Thirteen
Theo seriously contemplated leaving and never coming back, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He’d had moments before, where he was startled, where—he didn’t know how to describe it really—but he lost himself. To fear. To dread, like an anvil crushing his chest. His mind was not his own. His body was not his own. But he’d never had so many people witness one of these moments before. And Annabel… Most of all, he hated that Annabel had seen him like that.
After a sleepless night, he worked up whatever tattered bits of courage he still had left and went to the drawing room to eat breakfast. He was on edge. He didn’t want to see his family, or anyone else, but he knew he must. He couldn’t escape from his duties, and a better man wouldn’t want to.
But he did wonder if it was possible to throw himself into his work so completely that he forgot who he was. And where he’d been. That he forgot everything racing through his mind and became like a ship with no anchor, floating on the open sea.
Clouds were hanging low in the sky, ominous, heavy clouds, when Annabel stomped into the room and drained a cup of coffee before devouring a barley cake and marching out again. She hadn’t even sat down.
He blinked, and it took him a second to find his voice. “Where are you going?” he called.
She stuck her head back in the doorway. “Riding,” she said, disappearing again.
“Riding?” he repeated. He’d expected her to say something about the night before, to say anything, but she’d surprised him yet again.
A pause, and then her head reappeared. “Yes, my lord,” she answered, sounding vaguely condescending. “It involves a horse and a saddle.”
“I know what riding is,” he snapped. “Why are you going now? It looks like it might rain.”
She peered at the window. “I think it will hold off.”
He surveyed her innocent face, and suspicion took hold of his gut. Annabel never looked innocent—wild, sometimes—devious, certainly—thoroughly tantalizing…well, he shouldn’t notice something like that. “I’m coming with you.”
“That’s fine,” she said.
She disappeared again, and this time when he called her name, she didn’t pop back into the doorway.
Damn. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being manipulated. He had the even more uncomfortable feeling that if he let her go simply because he was scared to ride, when he’d told her clearly that he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, he’d look abysmally weak.
And he didn’t want to look any weaker to her than he already must.
He swore, set down his coffee cup roughly, and followed her.
By the time he reached the stable, she’d already saddled two horses with the help of the stable boy. His horses. At least she was wearing a dress and not those skin-tight breeches.
“I see you’re making use of my property.”
She shrugged. “We’re practically family.”
“Not quite,” he said drily, knowing she was just trying to bait him. He didn’t consider being distantly connected by a short-lived marriage anything close to being family, and he certainly didn’t view her with anything close to familial regard.
It was unfortunate that he didn’t—if anything, he viewed her too much the other way, and it seemed to be getting worse the longer he was around her. Which meant his vow to keep an eye on her had been an ill-advised course of action. Well, to tell the truth, it hadn’t been advised at all, but rather a thing born from anger and frustration and betrayal, and no small dose of feeling like a fool.
Wolves. Good God…he’d known there weren’t any wolves in Scotland and he’d still found himself wondering.
But a vow was a vow. He’d backed into this corner himself. And even if it was an ill-advised course of action, at the moment, it was his only course of action—he didn’t quite trust her not to attempt to sabotage him again, somehow, or corrupt his sisters.
He could only hope his solicitor made haste on that letter.
“We could wrangle up some of the Highland horses, if you prefer,” she said with what he thought was supposed to be a demure smile, but Annabel was not capable of demure, so it looked more challenging than anything.
“No, I do not prefer,” he said. “This will take enough time as it is.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Time away from what?”
She had a good point. He didn’t have anything so pressing to do that it couldn’t wait for an hour or two.
While the stable boy held the horse, Annabel stepped onto the mounting block, and without waiting for Theo’s assistance, swung herself into the saddle. He realized too late that she wasn’t using a side saddle, and when her yellow gown bunched and slid upward, he was instantly mesmerized by the curve of her long, stockinged legs.
The maddening, wretched woman.
“Are you incapable of behaving in a decent manner?” he said through gritted teeth.
She stared down at him—she could have been Marie-Antoinette—sitting with her legs on both sides of the horse, looking down at him with the cool imperiousness of a queen. But there was something decidedly un-queen-like about the shimmer of wily amusement in her eyes, of excitement, and anticipation, something that was somehow pure, but also a bit unholy.
It was an expression that was, he was starting to realize, essentially Annabel.
With a concerted effort, he drew his attention from her. The stable boy had dragged the mounting block to the chestnut gelding. A pit of fear formed in Theo’s stomach as he glanced from the mounting block to the horse—a great chasm of distance. Too far to bridge. Too far to even attempt.
After last night, why had he thought he could? How much of a fool was he?
Annabel leaned forward. “Do you want me to take your cane?”
If it was anyone else, he might have been insulted, but Annabel spoke the words with such calm detachment that no frustration rose to meet them.
He handed her the walking stick and felt suddenly barren without it. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. An object he’d nearly despised at first had become something he didn’t want to give up. He felt like snatching it away from her. But Annabel was watching him, and the stable boy was watching him, and he didn’t think he could back out with his dignity intact.
“Give me your hand,” he said gruffly to the stable boy.
Through some careful maneuvering, he managed to get on the mounting block, and then, with one hand braced in the stable boy’s hand and the other braced on the back of the horse, he swung himself into the saddle.
It was clumsy and inelegant—his false leg was like a dead weight in this instance, marring his balance, and he very nearly toppled over—but he managed to stabilize himself at the last moment. For a second, he simply looked around. He’d forgotten how the world appeared from the high back of a horse. He’d forgotten the sensation of all this power to be guided by his hands.
He waited to see if any memories would flood him—he remembered too many horses screaming unnatural human screams, killed, crumpled, lying in pools of their own blood. But the memories didn’t rush in. Instead, a trembling relief poured in to fill his chest. He was mentally able to ride, and that alone was something he hadn’t been sure of.
“Are you ready?” Annabel said softly.
Their gazes met, and Theo had to quickly look away from what he saw in her eyes. It was more dangerous than pity, far, far more dangerous. It was compassion—an openness, a wanting to understand, that made him, in turn, want to open himself to her, to make her understand.
But how could she? He could barely understand himself, or cope with the horrors he’d seen. How could he think about forcing his ugly memories on this wild girl from the moors?
He nodded—he was ready to try riding again. But it felt like she was asking a far different question, one that went deeper than this moment, one that encompassed past and future. And he was giving a false answer. He knew in his heart that he wasn’t ready, and he probably never would be.
He followed her from the stables and into the gray, open expanse, into cool air that smelled like rain. He breathed deeply, thinking that, for a moment at least, he could enjoy himself. For a moment, he could forget.
It didn’t take him long to realize it was difficult to press as firmly with his artificial leg, and he had to adjust his seat slightly so his cues weren’t unbalanced. For several minutes, he tested out his new seat, gradually increasing and decreasing speed until he felt comfortable again. Once he did, he nudged the gelding to a trot to catch up to Annabel on the trail ahead of him.
Relief washed over him. He was physically able to ride, too. This was one thing war hadn’t taken from him. One thing it hadn’t stolen.
“Do the horses have names?” she asked when he drew alongside her.
“Robin and Marian.”
She laughed. “I suppose you didn’t name them?”
“Georgina did,” he said with a wry twist of amusement. “I was content with calling them the gray and the chestnut.”
“Of course you would be,” she said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“There is nothing wrong with a little whimsy, Lord Arden. Speaking of which… I wonder if Marian is faster than Robin,” Annabel said idly, glancing between the two horses.
“No,” he said, alarmed.
“No?”
“I agreed to go riding with you, not race at breakneck—”
She kneed Marian into a gallop over the dirt trail, and he was left watching as the wind took her hair from its pins, unfurling the strands into streamers behind her. Wondering if she had too much of a head start for him to catch up.
He was actually considering it. He must be an idiot.
But Annabel’s graceful, straight back, her soft hair flying out behind her like a wild bird, the pounding of Marian’s hooves in a primitive rhythm…it called to him. It drew him, as surely as a moth to a flame.
And when she took a moment to call, “Coward!” gleefully over her shoulder, he did what he’d been poised to do since she’d sprinted ahead.
He chased after her.
The wind whipped around him, billowing his coat and tumbling his hat from his head. He didn’t slow as the hat caught beneath Robin’s hooves. He leaned low over the horse, Robin’s mane flicking against his face. Adrenaline pounded through him, matching Robin’s gait, matching the thump, thump, thump of his heart.
In those moments, breath to breath, beat to beat, he felt gloriously, agonizingly alive in a way he hadn’t since the war. In a way that was purer than any battle, because it wasn’t tainted by the ever present specter of fear. Those spaces between breaths weren’t taut with the possibility of death; they were full of giddy joy and sharp focus. They were filled with the possibilities of life.
He caught up to Annabel and surged in front of her, a rusty laugh escaping from his chest. He crested the hill, looking on as the loch emerged before him, deep and still and gray, a body of water that looked otherworldly enough for him to contemplate the existence of sea monsters in its depths.
He slowed Robin and pulled at his reins to face Annabel, grinning broadly. When she saw him, her lips parted in surprise.
“What?” he asked, battling a surge of self-consciousness, smile fading. “What is it?”
“You…” She stopped. Something in her face shuttered. “Nothing. Let’s return.”
They walked at a slow pace back, letting the horses rest.
“How often do you ride?” Theo asked before he could stop himself.
“As often as I can. I find it very calming. Very peaceful and relaxing.”
He glanced at her sharply, his chest tightening. For a moment, he’d forgotten about the night before. He wished she’d forgotten, too. “You’re not even trying to be subtle.”
“If you crave subtlety you should look elsewhere. I’m not a subtle woman.”
He snorted. He tried to hold onto his anger but was unable to. She didn’t push him further, and there was something about her beside him and Robin’s easy gait under him and the oppressive gray of the sky that he liked.
Until the sky split apart.
When they were nearly to the stables, the clouds opened and a sheet of cold gray rain came down, so thick they could barely see a few feet in front of them.
“Oh blast!” Annabel swore. Theo winced as the wind sent harsh gales against his face.
By the time they entered the stables, they were both drenched, even though they’d been in the rain for less than a minute. Annabel pushed her dripping hair back with one hand and looked at Theo with a lopsided smile.
“I think your stable boy left,” he said, for lack of anything better to say. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.
“So he has,” she remarked. “He must not have expected us back so soon. Do you need me to help you dismount?” When he hesitated, she rolled her eyes. “There is nothing wrong with asking for help.”
“An easy thing for you to say,” he pointed out. “You aren’t the one who needs it.”
But there was nothing for it. Now that he knew he could do it, he could work on mounting and dismounting on his own, just as he’d relearned how to go up and down stairways, but it would take practice, and patience.
For now, he reached out his hand for her, and she quickly swung down and came to Robin’s side. He gritted his teeth, then braced his weight on his left leg, swinging the fake leg back over the horse. Except he didn’t swing it high enough. The wooden leg glanced off the saddle, and he didn’t so much dismount as fall into Annabel, nearly knocking them both on their arses. But she was stronger than he’d given her credit for; she promptly wrapped an arm around his waist and braced him.
That slight contact made his pulse quicken. His hands had found her shoulders, which, covered by wet muslin, were as good as bare, and he wanted nothing more than to push, to press, to exert enough pressure to draw her against him. Instead, shaken by the intensity of how much he craved the heat of her body, he let his hands fall.
Embarrassment pooled in his stomach and heated his face. Annabel stepped away to dry off the horses with a blanket before stabling them, and it took him several seconds to work up the courage to look at her.
She was trembling. For a confused moment, he thought it was because of their earlier proximity, but then he realized she was cold.
It was at least a ten minute walk to the castle and that walk would be unnavigable in this kind of rain. If she didn’t get dry soon, she might catch ill. As much as the alternative felt like a jagged, treacherous ravine that should not be crossed under any circumstances, it really wasn’t much of a choice when her health was at risk.
He paused, and then plunged ahead recklessly. “We need to remove our clothes.”