“I…Lord Randall, it seems a lot of trouble to go through, to hire a boat when I have a perfectly good mount.”
“The boat can accommodate horses as well as human passengers, and alleviates the need to await the changing tide. Traveling over the channel, we can get you on your way home much more expeditiously.” With a jaunty grin, he rapped the door jamb and walked out.
She hated boats. But the journey would be brief, surely?
On a positive note, he’d made no mention of last night’s rooftop interlude. Better that than for him to chastise her like a child for her lack of impulse control.
Likely, in retrospect the kiss had been of no real consequence to him. Undoubtedly, he’d kissed many a lady.
For Annabelle, though, that kiss had been beyond anything she could have imagined. Regardless of what happened in future, of who she was forced to marry and what she might endure, she would remember the feel of his arms around her, his mouth on hers and know she had touched the stars.
Chapter 12
Throughout the endless crossing, which in sum total took no more than an hour, Annabelle kept a grip on Buttercup’s reins and her eyes fixed on the mainland shoreline—when the bobbing craft and waves did not collude to obliterate her view. She murmured soothing words into the animal’s pricking ears while smoothing her hand down the horse’s neck.
In truth, the mare seemed unfazed by the journey, unlike Annabelle herself. She wondered if Lord Randall noticed her discomfiture. She dared not look at him, though she could swear she felt his dark gaze drift toward her again and again, not that it interfered with the running conversation between him and the ship’s captain, a jovial man with whom he was apparently on friendly terms.
Then finally,finally,the captain and his mates ran the coble up onto a strip of shingle. Soon the planks were laid, and she and Lord Randall led their mounts onto shore.
“I apologize,” Lord Randall said in a low voice as they started up the slope toward the flat land.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked, feigning ignorance, although she feared the heat rising in her cheeks gave her away.
“I should have asked if you were prone to seasickness.”
“Seasickness? Of course I’m not.”
The dubious look he sent her confirmed he’d noted her discomfiture aboard the small craft.
“I’ve never suffered from motion sickness, Lord Randall,” she insisted.
“As you say.”
“I tell you, I haven’t. I simply…” She broke off, belatedly realizing she’d have been better off leaving the man to his fallacious conclusion. Granted, she abhorred being thought feeble for any reason. But the truth was no less embarrassing.
Cresting the hill, he reached across her, snagging her horse’s reins and drawing it to a halt. “Go on.”
With his muscular arm blocking her way, she had little choice but to do his bidding.
In truth, she’d have answered him in any case. Something about the lack of censure in his quiet command.
“I have long had a…an unreasonable fear of the sea. Being on it, or in it.” She shook her head, making light of the revelation which had elicited no shortage of criticism from her parents and brother over the years. “We took a family holiday in Brighton when I was a child. There was an incident. A silly mishap. I’ve had the aversion ever since.” She fixed him with a defiant stare.
He searched her eyes. “What sort of mishap?”
“Nothing that need concern you.”
After a moment, he lowered his arm and they continued toward the narrow dirt track into Fenwick.
Dropping his horse’s reins, he turned to her, expression neutral. “May I?”
Before she knew what he was about, he’d wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto her saddle as if she weighed no more than a child.
In the next instant, he swung his big body up onto his own horse, a magnificent black beast standing at least seventeen hands.
She swallowed and told herself not to be impressed by the man’s obvious physical prowess.
“The inn is this way, if I remember correctly?” He inclined his head.
