The man’s thick, dark wool overcoat could not obscure the breadth of his shoulders, nor the tension in them as he brought his enormous bay gelding under control. Her gaze traveled up to his face, which was set in rigid lines of displeasure. Above the flat line of his mouth and a straight, hawkish nose, blue eyes as cold as an iced-over Highland loch captured and held her immobile.
“Are ye the governess?”
From the smart cut of his coat, this man was clearly a gentleman. Yet he didn’t speak like one.
What little of her mind she could marshal snagged on the unusual inflection in his voice. She couldn’t quite place it. He certainly wasn’t English—Amelia had yet to hear an accent to match her own since she’d come to Glenrose. A faint trace of the Highland brogue she’d grown accustomed to these last few years curled through his words, yet his accent had been flattened somehow, smoothed of its roughest edges.
She should have been offended at his sharp tone and blunt question, but all she managed to do for a long moment was stand there in silence. It felt as though she were an insect pegged to a corkboard by those piercing eyes.
Amelia gave herself a small shake. Whoever he was, he clearly knew about her position at Glenrose. “Y-yes.”
“What the bloody hell are ye doing out here?” he demanded.
As the fright from their near-collision dissipated, her wits at last began to catch up. “What business is that of yours, sir?”
He reined his horse around, never breaking their stare. “It is my business,” he ground out, “because I have no interest in employing a foolhardy governess who wanders about in all weather, leaving her charge unattended. Nor do I wish to be answerable for one who dies of exposure.”
Employing? Comprehension rushed over her. Lord Glenrose’s solicitors had written that they’d discovered a distant relation who could serve as guardian to the estate—and Livie.
Amelia jerked her head down and dipped into a curtsy.
“Lord Brenmore. I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Word travels faster in the Highlands than the wind,” he muttered. “How do ye know my name?”
“Mr. Morgan, one of the solicitors handing Lord Glenrose’s will, told us you were to manage the estate until Lady Livie comes of age.”
Though she kept her head ducked out of respect for her new employer, she could feel his gaze on her. “Ye still haven’t answered my first question. What are ye doing out here?”
Amelia swallowed. “When my lessons with Livie are complete, I visit the children of some of the nearby crofters. Lord Glenrose gave his blessing for these outings.”
“But Lord Glenrose is no longer in charge of such decisions.”
Her head snapped up and despite the fact that she knew better, she stared incredulously up into his eyes. How dare he speak so callously of the deceased? “He was a good man. A kind soul.”
“I have no doubt of it. But I am now responsible for Glenrose—and all those on the estate—until Lady Lavinia inherits.”
“Are you rescinding Lord Glenrose’s permission that I may assist the local children in learning their letters and numbers, then, my lord?”
He shifted in the saddle. “That remains to be decided. But ye ought to prepare yerself for a great deal of change at Glenrose, Miss Harlow. Starting with this—ye are not to go walking alone so close to nightfall, nor in poor weather.”
Beneath her cloak, Amelia’s hands tightened into knots. In the span of just a few minutes, Lord Brenmore had managed to insult the late Earl, throw the future of the local children’s education into doubt, and restrict her to walking only when the sun was shining—as if that ever happened in a Highland December.
But what he did next shocked her most of all.
“Come.” He extended a gloved hand down to her. “I’ll see ye back to Glenrose before this rain worsens.”
She stared at his hand, then up at him. “I am perfectly capable of walking the rest of the way.”
He sighed, a white puff of frosty air forming before his face. “Of course ye are. But as I said, I’m not in the business of employing governesses who catch their death while roaming about on some folly or other.”
She bit her tongue against the retort that helping children on the Glenrose estate was no folly.
“Come,” he urged again, the edge easing from his voice. “Spare me from becoming damper than I already am and let me escort ye back to Glenrose. Besides, I cannot leave ye out here to accost some other hapless rider.”
Was it her imagination, or was he teasing her? She ought to refuse. It was entirely inappropriate to share a horse with a strange man, let alone an Earl who was her new employer. But she found herself reluctantly placing her hand in his anyway.
Instead of waiting for her to notch her foot over his boot and boost herself up, the instant she’d given her hand he lifted her straight off the ground with shocking ease. A startled noise rose in her throat at the feel of his arm wrapping around her, her feet dangling in the air for a fraction of a second before he settled her across his hard thighs.
As she dropped into his lap, her hood was dislodged. It fell back, leaving her head bare to the icy downpour. A hank of her dark brown hair came loose from the knot at the back of her neck and quickly became plastered to her cheek by the rain.
Lord Brenmore grunted and shifted her slightly so that one of his hands was free. To Amelia’s stunned confusion, he reached up and tucked the lock behind her ear. Even through his kidskin gloves, she could feel the heat
