“I never learned.”
“Then ye will,” he replied simply, as though it should have been obvious. “Lachlan, help her onto the horse.”
She shook her head, her palms beginning to sweat.
“I—I don’t know how. I’m afraid I’ll get hurt.”
“You’ll be fine,” Lachlan told her, as he led the mare towards her. The horse dipped its head slightly, and she reached out to lay a hand on its neck. Her coat was smooth and silky, and her eyes were framed with long lashes that reminded her of her sister. She took a deep breath. She supposed, if she was going to stay here, she’d need to adapt to the skills expected of a lady.
“What do I do?” she asked nervously.
“Take the reins,” Arran instructed her, as he guided his steed with ease around to stand next to them. “Lachlan, help her up.”
The young man offered her a boost onto the horse, and she managed to scramble on, throwing her leg with a degree of inelegance over its back. She felt the leather of the reins digging into her hands, holding them so tightly that it felt as though they might pierce into her skin. She could not risk letting them slip through her fingers, or else, she feared, she would be thrown from the horse’s back before she could think twice.
“Ye dinnae need to hold them so tight,” Arran told her, as he reached over to ease her fingers back slightly. His touch, though gentle, had a firmness to it that left her with no choice but to do as he asked.
“She’s well-trained, you just have to hold on,” Lachlan remarked, and she stared down at him with panic in her eyes.
“What happens if I don’t? Will she throw me off?”
“Probably not,” Arran cut in. She parted her lips, ready to protest and beg for a chance to just go back to her bedchamber and sip on her tea and leave her wedding gift where she had found it, but, before she could, Lachlan landed a sharp slap on the rump of the horse, and she jerked forward beneath her.
“Oh!” Amelia cried out, fear pulsing through her with a shock of discomfort. Arran laughed. She realized, all of a sudden, that it was the first time she had heard him laugh in such a way, and she began to relax slightly. Perhaps, he was not quite as staid as she had once thought.
The horse settled into a steady pace, walking slowly beneath her, as Arran led the way on his steed to the large stone arch that led out onto the hills beyond. The horse seemed to know what she was doing, and Amelia did her best to keep her balance, finding a rock back and forth in time with the slow movement of the creature beneath her.
“She knows what to do,” Arran called over to her, as the wind began to pick up a little. “Just hold on tight, ye ken?”
With that, he picked up into a trot. Her horse swiftly did the same, and she let out a yelp of surprise, her newfound confidence flying away with the breeze that picked up her hair. But, despite herself, she realized that she was smiling, a grin curling up her face before she could stop it. As much as this scared her, the freedom she felt with the wind in her hair and the land laid out before her was a welcome relief from the confines of her bedchamber—or, for that matter, the weight of expectation her father had placed upon her shoulders.
As she glanced at Arran out of the corner of her eye, she wondered if he could be the freedom she had been searching for all this time, wrapped up in the guise of a man whom she would never have expected to come to her rescue.
Or if he was really her damnation, and she just didn’t know it yet.
12
Arran clicked his tongue against his teeth, calling for Fern, the horse upon which Amelia was riding, to follow him. Though she was still clearly unsure of herself, she was starting to grow more and more comfortable with his guidance, and the terrain was soft and easy to traverse; he was simply showing her around the estate. Given that she had asked to see her family, he had supposed he’d need to come up with something that would keep her distracted from her urges, and he hoped the swooping hills and dense forest surrounding them would give her reason enough to see the good in this place.
Fern turned, and Amelia let out a little squeak of surprise as the horse changed tack. As she drew up alongside him, he couldn’t help but notice the way the beams of sunshine filtering through the clouds above them caught in her pale hair, glittering like strands of gold thread.
“Where are we going?” she asked her. Her face was still slightly pale, but there was a small smile on her lips as she grew more and more used to the sensation of riding.
“I thought ye’d like to know a little more of the land,” he explained. “Here, follow me…”
“I don’t know how to follow you,” she protested. “I don’t know how to control this thing.”
He glanced over at her. He had supposed, at first, that her claims that she had never learned how to ride were nothing more than her attempt to avoid spending more time with him, but it was clear that she’d not been lying. She truly had no idea what she was doing on horseback, a surprise given her noble lineage.
He reached over and took the reins of her horse, guiding her along the dirt path that led into the forest. The ground was dappled with sunlight, and around them, he could hear rabbits and hares darting out of their path.
“This place is beautiful,” she sighed, glancing around, beginning to relax now that she knew he had control. “When I was growing up, my sisters and I went to a place like this a few times; they used to call it a fairy glade…”
She trailed off. He could tell that the thought of her sisters had cast a dark shadow over her mind, and he spoke swiftly, filling the silence before she could be too distracted by it.
“Aye, I used to come down here all the time as a wain,” he replied. “It was peaceful, ye ken? My mother and I?—”
He came to an abrupt halt before he could finish his thought. He could feel her staring at him out of the corner of her eye, as though sensing that there was more that should have been said. He cleared his throat, narrowing his eyes at the path ahead, as though struggling to make it out through the trees.
