Caroline came out to retrieve grooming supplies.
“I will do it. Some activity will be welcomed,” he said.
She stood speechless while he pried the pail’s handle from her grip and removed the brush from her other hand. He took them into the stall. After a hesitation, she followed him.
“It is a fine little herd you have there,” he said while he worked. “That bay mare is magnificent.”
“You know horses well.”
“I would not be a Prescott if I did not.”
“I suppose not.”
He glanced over at her. She still wore the man’s hat that had obscured her identity when he watched the wagon yesterday. Low-crowned and wide-brimmed, it cast her lovely face in a shadow, but her eyes’ brightness would not be defeated.
“Even so, I perhaps know them better than most Prescotts,” he added. “I advise my cousin sometimes. He would not request that if he did not think my judgment better than his. Which he does, grudgingly.”
“Did you advise him to buy Galahad?”
“He did not need me to tell him that Galahad was one of the finest horses England had seen in years. Your father’s eye was unsurpassed, and his patience finally rewarded.”
Adam thought it a compliment. She did not react that way. “Galahad has been put out to stud now,” she said. “The fee is enormous.”
“That is the true value of a champion.”
“The bay you admired is from the same stock, only a different line.”
“Is she fast?”
“Not only fast, she has the heart for it.”
He might be discussing a horse with a member of the Jockey Club, so easily did they fall into the language of racing. She was saying that the mare had speed, and also the desire to win and the strength to stay the race.
“I asked your cousin to allow us to breed them. The mare and Galahad. I asked him to give us a lower fee, or to allow us to pay over several years.”
He kept the brush moving over the horse’s flank, but he knew what Nigel had said to that. Nigel was not famous for his generosity. “He refused?”
She nodded. “After what had happened, I thought—”
She thought there should be enough guilt, or enough justice, that the owner of Galahad would help the farm that bred him rebuild.
Adam picked up the pail and moved to the next stall and the other horse. He was pleased to see her follow him. “That was wrong of him,” he said while he used the brush. “However, if you think taking me will force him to change his mind, if you expect to see Galahad coming home over that hill, you will be disappointed.”
She turned up her face to him. A playful belligerence showed in her eyes and half smile. “I do not think I will be disappointed at all in abducting you.”
He regarded her while his mind tried to tease the meaning of her confident statement. It didn’t get far in such considerations because she appeared so lovely there in the most unconventional way. Those pantaloons, probably a youth’s, fit her nicely and showed the shape of her legs and most of her hips. The coat nipped at her waist and bulged higher where it buttoned over her breasts. His mind started removing that coat, then more.
Her expression changed. Softened. She knew what he was thinking, and she was not running away.
He needed no more encouragement than that. He followed his inclinations, as was the habit of his life. He strode across the space separating them, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.
Chapter 5
She should have turned and run, but she didn’t. Watching him groom the horses had mesmerized her. His hand, unsheathed from that glove, looked so masculine while it held the brush. The horse appeared in a state of bliss, as if she knew that a seductive man handled her.
Even so, when he came toward Caroline with his face firm and his eyes determined, she should have known what would happen and run. He was not for her, and she was not for him, and the last thing anyone needed was for this kiss to happen.
Yet it did happen, and she found herself breathless with astonishment, shock, and delight. The last was very bad of her. She had no business enjoying that kiss. None at all, for many reasons. Yet she did, too much, and his embrace warmed her inside and outside. His arms became a shelter, an enclave of comfort, intimacy, and excitement.
