impulse made him turn back and pick up the phone by his bed. It would be late afternoon in England, and Gabe ought to be ready to take calls.
“May as well see if he ever managed to find the place,” Randall muttered with a grin. Slightly to his surprise Gabe was not only there but he answered the phone with a terse “What now?”
Randall stared at the phone. That was never his happy-go-lucky cousin, surely. He sounded as if the pressure had gotten to him already.
“Gabe?” he responded cautiously. “How’s it going, then? Are you all right?”
It was amazing how Gabe’s voice changed when he knew he was talking to Randall. “Of course I’m all right,” he said too quickly. “What do you think?”
“I just…thought you might need a little moral support,” Randall said cautiously.
“Well, I don’t. I’m fine. No problem,” Gabe said airily.
Randall ground his teeth. Trust Gabe to use his charm and get all the locals dancing to his tune on the first day.
“Nothing to worry about,” Gabe went on. “A child could do it.”
I’ll bet that’s meant as a dig at me, Randall thought.
“How are things at your end?” Gabe asked.
“Fine,” Randall declared, imitating Gabe’s airy tone. “Couldn’t be better.”
Couldn’t be better, he thought, except that Claire hates me for not being you, and the hands crease up every time I open my mouth, and the only one who doesn’t wish me dead is Susan.
He hung up with Gabe’s parting injunction, “Don’t call me again,” ringing in his ears. He wondered if Gabe could tell he’d been lying through his teeth.
Come to that, how much truth had Gabe been telling? He’d probably been lying, too.
The thought made Randall feel suddenly better. It might be uncharitable, but at least he wasn’t suffering alone. He was grinning as he picked up his jacket and headed for the door.
He opened it to find Claire standing there. “I came to see if you’d dressed up right,” she said.
“Gabe’s thickest shirt, old bean.” He held out his arms in display, and she came right into the room.
“What are you wearing underneath?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
She began to unbutton his shirt. For a moment Randall thought his wildest dreams were about to come true, but her brisk manner dispelled his hopes. She took his undershirt between her fingers, testing to see how many thicknesses she could find.
“You’re only wearing one undershirt,” she accused him.
“My dear gel, that’s winter long johns. Gabe warned me. And it’s cashmere, the warmest wool in the world.”
“Put two more on top of it. You want pneumonia? Socks cashmere as well?”
“The very finest.”
“Three pairs. You’ll need ’em.”
“You wouldn’t care to undress me and put them on, I suppose?” he asked. “I forgot to bring my nanny with me.”
“So I see.” She hesitated and added, as if reluctantly, “Be careful about Dave. Don’t get him mad.”
“I’m a big boy, Claire. I survived in the army. I think I’ll survive the hands.” He added wryly, “Whether I’ll survive you is another matter.”
“Is that an example of British humor?” she asked suspiciously.
“No, it’s called black humor. It’s for when your neck’s on the line.”
She was too cautious to answer this directly. “Hurry up. We want to be setting off.”
She departed in a whirlwind.
“Yes, ma’am!” Randall murmured, beginning to strip off.
As he worked he ground his teeth, annoyed with Gabe, annoyed with Claire but mostly annoyed with himself. The feel of her fingers unbuttoning his shirt had caused a flare in his loins that he would have denied if he could.
But he couldn’t. He tried to dismiss it: a knee-jerk reaction, inevitable when a woman opened your shirt, because your subconscious was remembering other occasions. Nothing at all if you looked at it rationally. But it had been there, a swift spurt of pleasure, fierce, hot and totally crazy. He was wearing long johns, for pete’s sake. And so was she, probably. Three pairs. Old men’s underwear.
But how would she look without it?
He pulled himself together and tried to think pure thoughts. But the memory of Claire’s womanly shape got in the way and the thoughts took on a life of their own.
Thank goodness it was freezing cold outside, he thought desperately. It needed to be.
When he’d added several extra layers of clothes he went down.
Monk, the horse they’d given him, was big and lively, but he’d handled tougher beasts in the Household Cavalry, and he and Jackson soon came to an understanding.
A white moonscape stretched before them as far as the eye could see. Beyond it were the mountains. The sun was brilliant on the snow. But the cold was bitter, and he silently gave thanks to Claire for making him put on the extra clothing. When he saw her glancing at him in mischievous enquiry he grinned and gave her a thumbs-up salute. Dave watched them through narrowed eyes.
Four gigantic horses stood ready, harnessed to a huge sled full of hay. A signal from Dave and they were off, over the silent landscape, now brilliant in the sun.
Randall began to enjoy himself almost at once. The Stantons had been landowners for centuries, and he was a countryman born and bred. Years spent in offices, staring at figures, seemed to fall away from him as he rode out that morning.
The haystacks were huge, and the hay had to be forked off them by sheer human effort. It was back-breaking work, but it reminded him how enjoyable it could be to feel his body alive with effort, the blood pounding through his veins as though he’d just come back to life after a long sleep.
The cattle knew why they were there, and crowded forward eagerly. Randall remembered his own cattle, his in the sense that he owned them, but in no other sense. Other men and women fed and tended them, knew them. Until this moment, he hadn’t felt that as a deprivation. Now he knew it was.
Sentimental nonsense! he tried to tell himself. But the thought wouldn’t go away.
On the way home Jackson made one last effort to be the boss. Randall gave him his head, controlling him lightly, enjoying the gallop. Then he heard hooves pounding beside him and realized that Claire was drawing level, making a race of it. He grinned and urged Jackson on.
Out of the corner of his eye he managed to watch Claire, controlling her enormous horse with confidence and grace, her eyes alight with purpose. Nothing fazed her, he realized with admiration.
He thought of Honoria, who insisted on riding only well-mannered horses, and would turn back halfway through the day because she’d broken a fingernail. Randall, who enjoyed a
