Page 30

“Mm,” she hummed, while patting the young girl on her head.

Juliet still hadn’t quite forgotten Eloise’s crying episode in these very stables, and she thought it was good to see the child smiling so brightly now, but the image of her small, crying face still haunted her.

She couldn’t help but wonder if this little visit could change the child’s mind…help her forget what had made her cry…but Juliet also suspected what had upset her.

“How precious she is, Juliet!” Eloise scratched the pony’s nose, giggling in delight when Moonsong pressed into it. “Did you have ponies when you were small?”

Juliet’s smile was nostalgic. “I did have one. It was a gray mare called Persephone…She was old, very slow, and absolutely magnificent.” Now, Juliet reached forward to brush her fingers through Moonsong’s mane in steady passes. “But…my father disapproved of how much time I spent at the stables.”

Eloise’s eyes were bright and curious when she asked, “Why?”

Juliet thought she could tell this child anything if she asked with those adorable eyes of hers. But she paused for a moment, thinking about how to couch something rather…unpleasant to think and talk about all at once.

So she said, “He thought it was not becoming. Ladies were meant for drawing rooms and watercolors.”

Eloise gasped. “That sounds dreadful.”

Juliet laughed. “I thought so too. Very vigorously,” she agreed, tapping the child once on the nose affectionately.

They worked in companionable quiet, with Juliet now working through the horse’s mane with a brush, and Eloise attempting to mirror the motion on Moonsong’s far side with a smaller brush and considerably more confidence than technique.

The morning was warm, the south field air moving through the open paddock gates in slow, unhurried drafts. They had been out since after breakfast and their itinerary for the day was rather occupied: first brushing, then feeding, then a turn around the paddock.

There was a rhythmic ringing across the paddock fence. Blade meeting blade in a loud clang, then men’s voices floating on the wind. Juliet turned to look…and froze, her eyes flying wide.

Adam worked through a sequence at the far end of the grounds with Sergeant Flynn beside him, who had been at Ravenlocke before Adam inherited the title.

She found herself mesmerized by the way Adam moved…with a fluidity that was all strength deliberately kept in check, driving the blade forward in a lunge that put his whole weight onto his front foot. His white shirt had darkened across his shoulders and down his spine.

Juliet swallowed, finding that she could not look away…especially from those hands that’d roamed over her body barely two nights ago now.

She’d tried her best to forget about it…but nighttime always brought its memory back to her in full, and now, in the most inconvenient of times, she realized she could think of nothing else: the pressure of his hand below her cheekbone, the placement of his thumb at the angle of her jaw. The give of his lapels under her fingers when she had gripped them, and the low sound against her mouth when she had kissed him back.

Her cheeks heated up so much that she felt as though her face were on fire, and Juliet turned away from the sight, her heart pounding in her chest.

Oh, dear God.

She’d done her best to avoid him for the last two nights…and it was just her luck that the first time she’d seen him today would be with him doing…that.

Her eyes strayed again towards him, unable to look away.

Now, he pressed forward through another exchange, and the shirt pulled flat with the movement, every line of muscle visible through wet linen: the shift of his shoulder blades when he raised his arm, the cord of his forearm as his wrist absorbed Flynn’s parry and redirected. He straightened, dragged one hand back through his hair, pulled the collar open, and then the shirt came off entirely.

Juliet’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head, her mouth falling open. How…how could he just…undress like that so brazenly?

But even though she thought this, she was looking at the breadth of his shoulders and the expanse of his back as he drove forward, at the way his muscles shifted with each extension, his whole body committing to each line with a raw sensuality that made her pulse kick.

Now, her fingers tightened around the brush in her hands… an attempt to keep the excitement within the walls of her body from spilling out…but her core turned molten with want.

What are you thinking, Juliet? she chided herself, but she could not look away, no matter what.

He moved with the same intensity with which he had kissed her—with complete attention and no wasted effort, his hand at her jaw as deliberate as his footwork was now.

She walked directly into the gate post. The impact reverberated through her left elbow, and the brush dropped from her hand to the straw with a clatter. Sable started and took one sideways step, and Juliet had to hurriedly grab the mare’s reins, hushing her with a low murmur.

A sound reached her then, and Juliet turned her head to find Eloise with both hands clapped over her mouth.

“The fence appeared,” Juliet said, with full composure, “quite suddenly.”