“Please don’t go,” she called. The man stopped moving, but she could see only a fraction of his countenance as he paused. “We all wish to thank you.” She continued toward him, extending a hand. The man did not turn, but he also didn’t swing his leg over the saddle.
“I was happy to help,” he said, facing the horse’s flank and returning his foot to the ground.
Charlotte was near enough now that something about his profile, though wet and disheveled, was familiar. “Please, how can we repay—”
The man finally turned toward her. Alex stood before her, as he’d done so many times when they were young: strong, steady, an anchor—a friend.
Hehad saved Walter.
A rush of gratitude, relief, and need surged within her. Her anger toward him weeks ago disappeared entirely, and she rushed toward him, but before she reached him, her brain righted itself and she stilled, managing a few breathless words. “You’re here.”
His eyes locked with hers. “I’m here,” he whispered.
Her mind was half-focused on the miracle of what he had accomplished and half-distracted by his strong jaw and confident eyes. Her eager mouth continued without deference to decorum. “How are you here?” It came out too shrill, almost like an accusation, and she immediately wished she could take back her tone.
His eyes turned hard. “Here I am, saving the life of your littlest brother, whom I’ve never even met, and you chose to berate me—”
“No.” She tried to focus her words on kindness and ignore the way his strong hand grasped the reins of his horse. “I’m not angry you are here. He would have drowned without you.” She twisted at her skirt, and her words came too fast. “Actually, I’ve wished to apologize for the rude way I spoke to you in the woods. And I am so grateful for your service to Walter. I just didn’t expect to see you, that is all. That is what I meant, and—”
“All right. You’ve proved your point. Now might I suggest you take a moment to breathe before you continue?” His mouth pulled into a slight smile as he analyzed her. He relaxed and shook some water from his shirtsleeves.
Charlotte’s mind raced. Why couldn’t she control her tongue? And when she glanced at him again, he had the gall to chuckle at her.
“As I can see I’ve disarmed your words momentarily, might I mention that this road”—he pointed behind him—“is not your land. It is the common route between Alnwick and Newcastle, and like most people trying to get from one place to another, I took said road.” He smiled ruefully.
“Naturally.” Charlotte sighed, relieved at his light tone and embarrassed by her hasty remarks. She found it much easier to turn and glance at her brothers and now Margaret, who’d joined the group, than to continue to notice the handsome, witty, and attractively disheveled man before her.
“The least we could do is give you a change of dry clothes,” she said over her shoulder. “Would you accompany us back home? We were going to walk—”
“But you wish Walter could have the use of my horse? Absolutely. I’ll take him back to the castle straightway.”
He’d read her mind. It was that uncanny trait of his that took her off guard and yet somehow made her wish he could always be near. How did he do it? How did he seem to understand her so fully when they’d known each other as children and only briefly as adults?
She turned and smiled at him, and the smile his eyes conveyed was inviting and comfortable and dangerous all in one. “Thank you ever so much.”
Together they returned to Charlotte’s brothers and explained their plan.
George nodded and extended his hand to Alex. “Our many thanks. You’ve done today what we as older brothers should have.”
Joseph eyed him more warily but nodded in agreement with George.
“Walter,” Charlotte said softly in her youngest brother’s ear. “Mr. Jenkins will take you back. We will follow right behind.”
George lifted the weak, waterlogged boy up to the saddle, and Charlotte watched in amazement as Alex gently cradled Walter’s limp body in his arms while still managing the reins.
“Are you determined to loathe him still, Joseph?” George asked when Alex was out of earshot.
“After this I daresay none of us can loathe him completely,” Joseph conceded.
George looked in her direction, but Charlotte said nothing.
She had thought Alex gone from Northumberland, but he was here once again, running across her path. Her own determination, which had been to forget him, evaporated. She was far more worried she was growing fonder of him than ever.
Chapter 17
Alex held Walter’s cold, wetbody tight against his chest as he drew up to the castle, and before he could dismount, the butler had glanced through a window and hurried down the steps.
“He fell into the lake,” Alex began. “I pray he makes a full recovery, though he has had a rough go. Dry clothes and warm blankets would be in order.”
