“I’ll address it with Allison.” Hunt moved to lower his foot to the floor, intent on fetching a pencil and paper and then cursed. The aching was more of a stabbing sensation now. Blast and damn, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Hand me something to write on, will you?” he asked his cousin. “I need to make some notes.”
More Wooing
Hunt shifted in his saddle as he watched Allison cross to where he waited at the stables, her riding skirt swirling around her legs, her gaze focused on the ground.
He’d not been alone with her for three days.
Although he’d fully intended on seeking her out sooner, he’d underestimated the limitations of his injury, and he’d been all but trapped in his chamber.
Even he couldn’t bypass the conventional proprieties that did not allow for a lady to make solitary visits to a gentleman’s chambers. And so he’d been limited to daily, chaperoned meetings—with Miss Fortune, of course, but also his mother and at least one of his sisters.
He shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to dispel his foul mood. It had begun when Evans ignored his request to prepare Hunt’s riding clothes and only got worse as his valet uttered dire warnings while dressing him.
And now, his left boot, which had taken considerable effort to don in the first place, was so tight as to be nearly unbearable.
Proving at least one of his valet’s predictions to be true…
Still, Hunt refused to sit around another day.
And so, with the assistance of Edgeworth and Damien, Hunt managed to drag himself out to the stables and even climb onto the back of his horse.
Sitting on Arturo, Hunt ignored the aching protests his foot made for being dangled off the side of his giant steed.
“Good morning, Miss Meadowbrook,” he called across the yard. She glanced up from beneath her jaunty hat, her skirts swishing as she approached the block where Leroy, his stablemaster, a stout elderly fellow, waited to assist her onto the elegant side-saddle.
Hunt typically would have assisted her himself, but…
“Good morning, my lord.” She held his gaze as though prepared for battle. But did she sound just slightly out of breath? “Are you quite certain you’re up to this?”
“Quite,” he answered.
She stepped up to the block and nodded graciously before accepting Leroy’s gnarled hand.
Hunt had expected her to look awkward around Buttercup, a particular docile mount he’d had readied. While negotiating the contract, her father had provided a summation of his daughter’s abilities. Riding had not been one of them.
Unless Hunt was mistaken… He frowned.
Allison eased herself onto the horse as though she’d been doing so all her life.
A natural.
“Your father said you didn’t ride.”
She glanced over at him as she took the reins from Leroy, her mouth open and looking… guilty? “I, um, have had a few lessons at Miss Primm’s.”
Hunt nodded. “You’ve obviously had an excellent instructor.”
Her hands fluttered in the air for a moment, and then dropped as she urged the horse away from the mounting block. Her ease in the saddle indeed was astonishing.
“What else did my father tell you about me?” Her question sounded like a challenge. She urged Buttercup to sidle up beside Arturo, a considerably more powerful horse who’d been a faithful friend to Hunt for over a decade.
“That you were spoiled,” Hunt answered honestly. Had Meadowbrook been testing him? Was her father, in fact, the person in this agreement who was playing games?
That familiar charged sensation danced in the air between them. She stared down at her hands without answering.
“But I’m inclined to disagree,” Hunt added.
