The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [36]
Douglas laughed aloud with the pleasure of it. He spoke to his stallion, patted his neck, then without a backward glance, he urged him into a gallop.
Alex watched the stallion and the man for a moment, then said, “Well, Fanny, perhaps we should show him we’re made of firm stuff and not to be left to choke on his dust.”
She gave a jaunty wave to McCallum and followed her husband down the long drive bordered with thick lime and beech trees, now full-branched and thick and riotously green.
Douglas was waiting for her just beyond the old stone gatehouse. He watched her ride toward him. His expression didn’t change. McCallum was right. She rode very well. It pleased him only to the extent that she wouldn’t hurt Fanny’s soft mouth. He merely nodded at her, and click-clicked Garth into a gallop. He took a fence into the northern fields of Northcliffe, watching from the corner of his eye as Alex gave Fanny her head and easily took the fence after him. He pulled up finally at the edge of the winding narrow stream that had been one of his favorite haunts as a boy.
When she pulled in Fanny beside Garth, Alex looked about her, and said with pleasure, “What a lovely spot. There is a stream much like this one on the Chambers land. When I was a little girl I spent many happy hours there fishing, swimming—though the water was usually too low for anything other than just thrashing about and getting thoroughly wet—all in all, having a wonderful time.”
As a conversation effort it didn’t succeed.
Douglas looked off into the distance toward the Smitherstone weald, and said without preamble, “Tell me why you did it.”
Alex felt her heart begin to pound, low, dull thuds. The good Lord knew that there were many truths at work here. She would give him one of them and hope it would satisfy him, one that Tony had doubtless already pressed upon him the previous night. It was a good one, actually, the primary one, if one spoke from her sire’s point of view. “My father desperately needed funds, for my brother has just fled England leaving mountains of debt on his shoulders, and any settlement Tony made wouldn’t be nearly enough and—Don’t you see, my lord? Time was of the essence else we would have lost our home and—”
Douglas slashed his hand through the air. Garth took exception to his master’s peculiar behavior, twisted his head around and took a nip of Fanny’s neck. Fanny shrieked, rearing back onto her hind legs. Alex, taken off guard, cried out in surprise, flailed her arms to find balance, failed, then slid off Fanny’s rump, landing on the narrow path on her bottom.
She sat there, feeling as if her bones had been jarred into dust. She was afraid to move. She looked up at Douglas, who was calming his horse. He looked down at her, his eyes darkening to a near black, then quickly dismounted. Fanny, curse her hide, kicked up her back legs once more and wheeled about, galloping back toward the Sherbrooke stables.
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Luckily you appear well padded, what with all those petticoats and the like. Can you stand?”
Alex nodded. She came up onto her knees, felt a strange shock of dizziness, and shook her head to clear it.
Douglas clasped her beneath her arms and drew her upright. She didn’t weigh much, he thought, as he continued to support her. She did, however, feel very female. Finally, he felt that damned broom handle stiffen all the way from the back of her neck to her waist.
He released her. She weaved about, then straightened. “I’m all right.” She looked back toward the hall, obscured by two miles of trees and fields. “Fanny left me.”
And it was his fault, Douglas thought, wanting to howl because it meant that now he would have to hold—actually hold—this girl in front of him. He didn’t even want to look at her, much less be in her company, much less hold her.
He’d even have to talk to her, since it was all his bloody