As he assisted his mother to drink her tea, Diantha watched him. The same hands that could control a hunter eager to gallop out of the stable yard now delicately helped an old woman ease a porcelain cup to her lips. And she knew only too well the pleasure they could wring from her body.
The three of them enjoyed nearly an hour of conversation before Lady Rossburn’s pain required her to rest.
They walked back to their rooms to change for dinner in silence. Only then did he take her hand to brush his lips along her knuckles. “Doctor Andrews tells me my mother is in better spirits these days. Thank you.”
With those words he disappeared into his room. Diantha stared after him until Florette hurried her inside to change.
One evening, Kieran announced that her riding lessons would start the following morning.
Torn between pleasure at his attentiveness and dismay, Diantha raised her one solid objection. “I don’t have a riding habit.”
“Really, Nephew! You cannot expect a female to drop everything on one of your whims. We shall have to alter one of mine.” Thanks trembled onDiantha’s lips until Iona sniffed. “Of course, if you’d married a female of your own class, none of this would be necessary.”
She subsided under Kieran’s scowl, but even Barclay looked concerned at this gap in her education. Guessing that Iona would have more barbs to deliver after they withdrew, Diantha signaled a footman. “I believe I shall have a second glass of wine this evening, thank you.”
Nevertheless, two days later she emerged from her room attired in an out-of-date riding habit hastily cut down by Florette. Trying to manage the trailing skirt without dropping her riding crop, she walked right into her waiting husband.
“Oof! For a little thing you have a great deal of force.” He stooped to pick up the crop from the floor where she’d dropped it. He was dressed for riding as well.
Diantha beamed at him. “You’re going to come with me? I am so relieved!”
Kieran cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I thought I would at least see you out to the stables.”
She took his arm. “Please promise me you won’t laugh.”
“I promise.”
In the stable yard, he led her up to a burly middle-aged man engaged in chewing out a young groom. She suspected it was just as well the man’s thick burr and Scots dialect precluded her from understanding most of his words.
Kieran let the man rant until he paused for breath. “Archie! I have your new pupil here. Diantha, allowme to present Archie Green, one of our mainstays at Duncarie.”
She observed the leathery Scot as he was introduced. Grizzled waves of red hair stood in disarray above a pair of blue eyes that looked innocent until he scrutinized her for several moments in complete silence.
“Gie me your hands, then.”
Taken aback, Diantha glanced at her husband, then back at the servant. “I beg your pardon?”
He blew an exasperated breath. “Your hands, woman. Let me see them!”
Another glance at Kieran revealed him biting his lip and looking straight ahead. Hesitantly she extended her gloved hands. His callused palms enveloped them in a disconcerting tactile inspection.
Snatching them away, she glared at both men before addressing Green. “What are you doing?”
“How else am I supposed to know how light or heavy your hand is?” He indicated a saddled dapplegray horse tethered to the stable wall. “You dinna think I’m going to risk that poor animal’s mouth with a daftie who canna ride?”
She turned to her husband. “What did he say?”
He struggled to keep his face straight. “He doesn’t want you to hurt the horse.” A grin broke out despite his efforts. “So, Archie. What’s the verdict?”
The middle-aged man shrugged. “No’ bad. She’ll do well enough for Dancer.”
Her husband choked back a laugh as she whirled to face him. Her heart lurched. He had never looked so handsome as he did this instant, giving her a lopsided grin in the middle of a stable yard.
“Well enough, then. I’ll leave you to your lessons, wife.”
In her dismay, she actually clutched his arm before she realized how childish the action was. She released him. “I shall be sorry not to have your company.”
Kieran caught her fingers and gently squeezed them. “I am sorry, but I have some business to tend to on the other side of the estate.”
