Love and the Single Heiress

“I enjoy mythology. Milton said you were in your bedchamber.”

“I was, but only long enough to change into riding clothes. I felt the need for some fresh air.”

A feeling she could well understand, especially as it seemed someone had sucked all the air from the stables.

He opened the stall door and smiled. “Would you care to join us?”

Even as her mind told her to decline, her feet moved forward. She entered the stall and ran her hand over Venus’s satiny nose. The horse nickered and pushed affectionately against her palm.

“She’s a beautiful animal,” Mr. Stanton said, picking up the brush once again.

“Thank you. Did you ride her?”

“Yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. She loves to run.”

Silence swelled between them as Catherine watched him glide the brush over Venus’s glossy chestnut back.

Her attention was riveted on the tensile strength of his arms and the way the linen of his shirt pulled across his chest with each long stroke.

“How was your visit with your friend?”

Her gaze snapped back to his, and she experienced the unsettling sensation that he was aware she’d been watching him. “Fine. And your visit with Spencer?”

“Very nice indeed. He’s an exceptional young man.”

There was no mistaking the sincerity in his voice or his eyes, and some of the tension left her shoulders. Running her fingers through Venus’s brown mane, she smiled at him across the horse’s back. “Thank you. I’m very proud of him.”

“As well you should be. He’s very intelligent and remarkably mature.”

“He excels at his studies. His tutor, Mr. Winthrop, is in Brighton, visiting his family as he does for a month every summer. Yet even during his absence, Spencer reads avidly. As for his maturity, I suppose some of it stems from the fact that he spends all his time with adults.”

She watched him as she spoke, noting how he did not waste a single stroke, and except for the sheen of exertion dampening his skin, appeared tireless. “Venus tends to be skittish around strangers,” she remarked. “You obviously have a way with horses.”

“No doubt because I spent my youth working in stables.”

Catherine blinked at this bit of news. “I did not know that.”

He glanced at her, and she had to clench her hands to keep from reaching out to brush back the silky ebony hair spilling across his forehead. Damnation, he should not look so appealing. If she were sweaty, rumpled, with her hair in disarray and scented with horse, she wouldn’t look in the least appealing.

“There is a great deal we don’t know about each other, Lady Catherine,” he said softly.

His voice, his words, flowed over her like warmed honey, filling her with the unsettling realization that he was right. And the even-more-unsettling realization that she wanted to know more about him. Everything about him. She hadn’t ever thought of what his life in America had been like. Clearly he came from humble beginnings if he’d worked in a stable. Surely that wasn’t a fact she should find so interesting. And obviously he’d had a family there. Friends. Women…

Which certainly wasn’t a fact she should find so disturbing.

“I am hopeful we can remedy that and become better acquainted during my stay,” he added.

The distressing and alarming realization suddenly dawned that she harbored that very same hope. Adopting her briskest tone, she said, “But we already have become better acquainted, Mr. Stanton. Thus far we have learned that we have very little in common and hold diametrically opposed opinions on a number of subjects.”

Instead of looking offended, one corner of his mouth curved upward in clear amusement. “Such a pessimistic view, Lady Catherine. But whereas you choose to view the glass as half-empty, I prefer to see it as half-full. While our literary tastes may differ-”

“-Drastically differ.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “We do both enjoy reading. And we agree that your son is a fine young man. And that Venus is an exceptional horse.”

“Yes, well, I’m certain we could also agree that the sky is blue, the grass green, and my hair brown.”

“Actually, right now the sky is streaked with crimson and gold, the grass is better described as emerald, and your hair…”

His voice trailed off, and his gaze shifted to her hair, making her suddenly conscious of the fact that she’d left the house without her bonnet.

“The lovely chestnut color of your hair, the richness of the deep golds and subtle reds layered through the strands, is not well served when described as merely ‘brown. ’” He slowly reached out, and a heated tingle of anticipation raced through her. His fingers brushed just above her ear, halting her breath.

“Except for this,” he said, holding out a piece of hay pinched between his thumb and index finger. “This can be described as brown, although I must tell you, I believe most ladies prefer to decorate their hair with ribbons.”

Catherine sucked in a breath and clenched her teeth in annoyance, although she could not decide if she were more annoyed at him for throwing her so off-balance, at herself for allowing him to do so, or at him for not appearing the least bit off-balance. Well, clearly she was more annoyed at him as she had two reasons.

“And,”he added, “we clearly share a love of horses… do we not?”

“I can’t deny I love them.” She threw him an arch look. “Horses never argue with you.”

He threw an equally arch look right back at her. “No, they never do.” He walked around Venus to stand beside her. She inhaled sharply and caught a pleasing whiff of sandalwood.

“Our last conversations seem to have ended… awkwardly,” he said, “and I feel bad about it. Can we call a truce?”

Dear Lord, she didn’t want to call a truce at all. She wanted to summon up the irritation she’d felt toward him, which was far preferable to this heated, almost painful awareness of him. Of his strength. And height. And compelling eyes. And the sight of him, rumpled, the strong, tanned column of his neck visible where he’d removed his cravat.

When had their relationship taken this unsettling turn? She didn’t know, but she dearly wished she could retravel that road and avoid the disastrous detour she’d somehow taken. “I seem to recall asking you something similar,” she said.

“Yes. Although I suspected you really wanted my complete surrender.”

“And is that what you want, Mr. Stanton? My complete surrender?”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Are you offering it, Lady Catherine?”

He hadn’t moved, yet somehow it seemed as if he’d drawn closer to her, and she took an involuntary step backward. Then another. Her back bumped into the rough, wooden wall.

“Today’s Modern Woman does not surrender, Mr. Stanton. If the occasion calls for it, she may consider a graceful capitulation.”

“I see. But only if the occasion calls for it.”

“Precisely.”

“Well then.” He stepped forward, stopping less than an arm’s length away. He looked down at her, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t read, along with a hint of unmistakable amusement.

Amusement? Aggravating man. How dared he be amused when she was so… unamused. Out of sorts. And damnation, breathless by his nearness. She pressed herself harder against the wall, but compensated for her cowardice by raising her chin a notch.

He reached out and captured her hand in his, and her breath backed up in her throat at the sensation of his skin touching hers. She detected the roughness of calluses and realized she’d never been touched by hands like his- hands that did not bear the softness of a gentleman’s. Her hand looked pale and small and fragile against the tanned strength of his, yet his touch, while strong, was infinitely gentle. She watched, transfixed, as he slowly raised her hand to his mouth.