Before retiring for the evening, Kendall informed Allie that she would be riding with himself and Lord Charswood in the morning.
“I expect you to display those immaculate manners you keep so well hidden,” he said, giving her his stern, ducal stare.
“Like the manners you retain for Lady Isolde?” Allie countered.
Kendall’s long-suffering sigh was a thing of beauty.
However, Allie dutifully rose early, though the sun was already high in the sky. The sun scarcely set when this far north and so close to the summer solstice.
After donning her favorite blue riding habit, she met Kendall and Charswood at the stables.
The earl looked presentable in his leather riding breeches and close-cut coat. His lordship wore his age well, Allie could credit him that.
He paled in comparison to Ethan Penn-Leith, but then all men did.
The three of them set off at a canter out of the stable-yard, Allie’s head stuffed with thoughts of Ethan.
She hadn’t been avoiding him. Not technically.
But then she hadn’tnotbeen avoiding him either.
It was simply . . . she didn’t know how to manage the chaotic, often fevered emotions the Scot inspired. And she had been forced to spend the entire evening watching him flirt with Lady Isolde, which had done nothing to improve her mood.
Naturally, she, Kendall, and Charswood had only been riding for ten minutes when Kendall urged his mount ahead, still within sight but out of earshot, effectively leaving Allie and Charswood alone.
Of course.
Her twin should endeavor to be less obvious.
However, his actions did effectively wipe thoughts of Ethan temporarily from her brain.
Allie and Charswood walked their horses in silence for several minutes, directing their animals around a grove of young Scots pine.
Allie’s horse, a spirited mare provided by Hadley’s stables, was proving a bit rambunctious and curious. After dancing sideways, her horse paused to chomp on a fern growing out of a stump. Charswood came to a standstill beside her.
“You are an excellent horsewoman,” Charswood said. “Another point your brother neglected to mention.”
A selling point, you mean,Allie thought dryly.Besides, Kendall likely does not know the extent of my skill in the saddle.
“You are too kind,” she said aloud.
Pulling her mount away from the fern, she nudged the animal into a walk again.
Charswood followed suit.
Knowing very little of the earl, Allie was hesitant to initiate the chess match this conversation promised to be.
Thankfully, Charswood moved his pawn first.
“I assume Kendall has informed you of his aims, Lady Allegra,” his lordship said.
Clearly, Charswood was an aggressive chess player. He had opened with a strong Nordic gambit, intent on cutting right to the chase.
And .. . aims? What a neutral word to use when describing the sale of your sister to the highest bidder.
Allie swallowed a sarcastic reply. “Yes, my brother has mentioned that you wish to court me.”
He nodded. “I am too old, Lady Allegra, to dillydally around a point. And I appreciate that you seem a rational, sensible sort of woman.”
