Of course, he’d chuckled when she’d indicated she’d prefer the latter.
At least this way, Ambrosia reasoned, she could be certain he’d not take her in the wrong direction. It would be just her luck to have picked up some escaped prisoner or rogue highwayman and have him drive her to his hideout in the woods so that he could have his way with her.
The thought sent a confused shiver down her spine.
They had been on the road for nearly half an hour, and in an unexpected turn of events, Mr. Beckman had been unusually silent the entire time. He, who had carried on a one-sided conversation with his horse for nearly half an hour earlier, now sat with a set jaw and a distant stare.
He must be worried.
She glanced sideways at him, then took a breath. “He’s… quite large, isn’t he? Larger than most horses?”
That seemed to catch his attention. He turned to her slightly, his brow lifted, but then his expression cleared.
“She,” he corrected gently, “is a mare. And yes—Gwennie’s a Shire-cross.”
He looked away again, reins slack in his gloved hands.
“Oh,” Ambrosia said. “I see.” Even though she didn’t, really. “Do you think—? They won’t hurt her, will they? The person who stole her? It would be pointless to take her just to…” Ambrosia flinched at the inadvertent implication. She hadn’t meant to lead the conversation to such a morbid place.
“Oh, I doubt they got the chance to do anything with her,” he said, confident and with more than a hint of pride. “Gwennie’s not one to tolerate a strange rider on her back. No, I’m sure she bucked the blighter off first chance she got and is wandering the hillside as we speak.”
Well, that was somewhat of a relief at least. But still— “Will she be all right out there? I mean… sleeping out in the open. Without a barn? Or a stall?”
That brought another glance—this one longer.
“That depends,” he said after a pause. “If she feels safe. If it’s not too cold. She’ll find cover, most likely. She’s smart.”
“So she won’t… just keep walking?” Ambrosia asked. “Or get lost?”
He gave her yet another sidelong look.
“Horses don’t wander like housecats, Madame Bloomington,” he said dryly. “She knows the roads better than half the men I’ve employed.”
That silenced her—for a moment.
“Do they lie down to sleep? Like we do?”
He exhaled a soft laugh.
“Sometimes. But they can sleep standing up too. There’s a sort of… locking mechanism in their legs.”
She blinked. “Truly?”
“Truly,” he said, with a tone that clearly said, What sort of life have you led, woman?
“I never had the chance to learn much about them,” she murmured, and then added, “I’ve never even had a pet.”
“That’s a shame,” he said.
They fell into silence again for a while. But it was different now. Less brittle. More companionable.
“She’ll come back,” he said finally, almost to himself. “Horses are smarter than most humans. She knows how to find me.”
Ambrosia studied the way his hands rested on the reins. Strong. Tense. There was a kind of quiet grief in them—a stillness that made her chest tighten.
“Good,” she said softly. “I’m glad.”
He nodded, then slid his eyes sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching with something like reluctant curiosity.
