His fingers probed beneath her boots, sliding against her stockings, seeking the knobby protrusion of her bones. She would have shooed him away, swept her skirts back down, but there was something about the Duke of Bainbridge’s touch on her ankles that made her heart leap in a different fashion than being unseated from her horse had.
“I was thinking I longed for an escape.” She strove for honesty. “Also, I was not thinking. I did not wish to endanger Damask Rose. She is a beautiful horse, Duke. I greatly admire her.”
“You would,” he muttered, continuing his inspection of her person. His touch skimmed her calves, searing her through the barrier keeping him from her skin. “She is wild. I instructed the grooms not to allow guests to ride her.”
Was it her imagination, or did he linger overly long on his inquiry into the state of her calves? His fingers were long and strong, enveloping the muscled curve of her lower limb, stroking in a way that made her feel flushed despite the cool chill of the early morning.
She met his gaze, doing her best to pretend indifference, for she would not allow him to see that she liked this search. No, indeed. “I prefer wild, Duke. And I never ask for permission. I do as I wish. Life is much better lived in such fashion. Perhaps you should try it.”
He made a dismissive sound deep in his throat. He found her knees and lingered. His thumbs traced circles in the sensitive hollows beneath. “Fools do as they wish and suffer the consequences.”
Perhaps he had a point there, but she refused to acknowledge it. His examination moved on, beyond her knees to her thighs. What was wrong with her that she longed to open wide, feel him glide his fingers even higher?
She forced herself to think. “You are wrongheaded in that statement, Duke. In truth, fools suffer the consequences for not doing as they wish.”
“On this, as in many other matters, we are in disagreement, Lady Boadicea.” He worked over her inner thighs. She gasped when his touch grazed the slit of her drawers. “Are you injured?”
No. She was not. Her cheekbones went hot. She fell into his gaze. “Yes,” she lied, hoping it would make him remove his touch.
He stilled, his mouth tensing even more. “Where?”
“My pride,” she said tartly. “Is that located inside my drawers, Your Grace? I’m sure you would know better than I. You seem to be quite familiar with them.”
“Fuck,” he ground out, withdrawing his touch and flipping her skirts back down and into place. The delicious rumble of his voice sent a frisson of something unwanted and yet pleasant through her. “Where do you find your impudence, Lady Boadicea?”
She should have been shocked by his curse even though it was the second time in as many days that she’d heard him utter it. She ought to have been offended as a proper lady would be. Definitely she should have recoiled. But Bo had never been the sort of lady who did was she was supposed to do.
“Where do you find yours, Duke?” she asked instead.
He rose to his full, commanding height and held out his hand for her. His expression was tight. “If attempting to ascertain whether or not you’d suffered harm to your person is impudence, I stand guilty as charged.”
She ignored his hand and hauled herself to her feet on her own strength. A twinge of pain scored her lower back, but aside from that, it would appear she was none the worse for wear. She wondered then at the odds of him happening across her path when Boswell Manor encompassed thousands of acres.
Suspicion blossomed. “You were following me, weren’t you?”
He raised a haughty brow, and she was sure he was the only man in all the world who could smolder with arrogance. “I found myself unable to sleep, and I decided to go for a head-clearing ride. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a Lady Boadicea-shaped figure making off with my prized broodmare.”
She shot him a look of disbelief. “You expect me to believe you could discern my identity by my shape alone?”
The thorough glance he swept over her body made heat rise to her cheeks anew. “Yes.” He paused, his lips twisting into a half-smile, as though he didn’t dare allow himself to find humor in the moment. “There was also the certain knowledge that no other lady present would have the effrontery to steal one of my horses from the stable at dawn.”
Her bottom ached, her pride stung, and she felt oddly weak after her fall, and she was still quite put out with him after yesterday’s ball. Yet she could not quell the smile that curved her mouth in return. “Touché. One thief recognizes another, I suppose.”
He clenched his jaw. “Are you certain you didn’t hit your head? It would explain a great deal.”
She pinned him with a glare. “Very amusing, Your Insufferable Arrogance, particularly for a man of little humor. I’m so heartened you find entertainment in my brush with death.”
The moment the word left her lips, she wished she could call it back.Death.It fell between them with the harsh severity of a dropped guillotine. His façade changed, the hint of amusement flirting with his mouth firming instantly into a frown. His handsome countenance hardened back into its customary mask of icy disdain, those vibrant green orbs of his going flat and cold.
He stepped closer to her, gripping her upper arms once more, and lowered his face to sneer into hers. “That was not a brush with death, my lady. That was a fall from a horse caused by your own idiocy. Consider yourself fortunate you did no serious harm to either yourself or the mare.”
His derision pricked through her defenses. He was right, of course, but that wasn’t her greatest trouble just then. The odd weakness that had held her in its thrall ever since her fall assailed her then with renewed force, and she swayed and lost her balance, falling into his chest.
“I am sorry,” she whispered into his coat, for she was, as much for her foolish lack of care in riding Damask Rose as in the thoughtless way she’d forced his mind to return to the demons that still haunted him.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, gathering her up in his arms in the next instant as if she weighed no more than a mewling babe.
She made a sound of protest, clutching his lapels for purchase. “Duke! Put me down at once.”
