The rider turned his mount, then took off down the road. Leo kicked his heels into his horse’s sides. The thudding of the animals’ hooves on the gravel path kept pace with the erratic pounding of his heart. He kept close behind his quarry but did not overtake. The road was pitted, and one misstep could send him flying.
His brother, the viscount before him, had died in just such a manner. They had found his body the next morning, crumpled in a heap at the bottom of a cliff. A victim of his own poor judgement.
And here I am about to repeat his mistakes.
The rider maintained an even distance, and Leo was considering giving up the chase when the man skidded to a halt. The viscount had to pull hard on the reins to stop from soaring over the neck of his horse as she dug her hooves into the slick earth and threw her head up, whinnying sharply.
Then the rider lifted his hood to reveal the blazing, brown eyes of Saffron Summersby, her mouth set in a tight line.
The shock of seeing her nearly unseated him, and he had to clutch the reins.
What the devil is she doing here?
“You scared me half to death!” she shouted. The words were barely audible over the rumble of thunder. He urged his horse closer until his thigh pressed against the heaving sides of her mount.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “It’s dangerous out here.”
She glowered at him, her hair tangled around her face, her body shaking beneath her heavy, water-logged cloak. She gestured with her hands, and her lips moved, though he could only make out a few words.
Carriage. River. Help.
“An accident? What happened?”
She pointed to her ears, then to the road, the way they had come.
He nodded, all thoughts of the thief gone from his mind, and then brought his horse around to follow her, hoping that she would not be foolish enough to take off again.
What she does with her time is no concern of yours. If she wants to run about in a storm, you cannot stop her.
Hypocrisy aside, he could see her trembling from three horse lengths away. If they did not get warm and dry soon, the consequences might prove dire.
He remembered the groundskeeper cottage and imagined putting on dry clothing and sitting in front of a warm fire. They might even find some old jerky, hard and salty but wholesome. He urged his horse closer, then grabbed Miss Summersby’s arm beneath her cloak. “Let’s take shelter,” he shouted. “I’m soaked to the bone.”
She tried to speak again, but when he shook his head, unable to hear, she scowled and resorted to nodding her head up and down in an exaggerated gesture.
Relieved, Leo turned his horse toward the cottage.
When they arrived, he jumped down from his mount, clutching on to the saddle to keep from slipping onto his back in the mud. Saffron followed his lead with a much more elegant dismount. Without asking, she took his reins and her own and led their mounts into the small stable attached to the side of the cottage.
Trusting her to see to the needs of the animals, he gathered his saddlebags then entered the dark structure and took a cautious sniff.
Smoke.
As he examined the remains in the firepit, the roaring wind buffeted the sides of the cottage, and the thunder crashed overhead.
The cottage was a single room with stone walls and a wooden floor that creaked as he stepped. The only window was boarded over, letting in a sliver of cold air through the gaps in the wooden planks.
By the hearth were two wooden stools, which he broke apart with his heel and assembled into a pile, grateful for the first time in his life for his father’s lectures on keeping his saddlebagsfully stocked. He retrieved a box of matches, then nursed a small flame in the hearth with numb fingers, hoping the chimney was clear enough to allow the smoke to pass through.
The door creaked open and then shut with a bang.
“We can’t stay here,” Saffron said.
“What were you doing out in that storm?” he asked, pushing down his temper as he fed the small fire with more splinters. “You could have broken your neck if that horse had thrown you. I could barely keep astride.”
She stayed stubbornly by the door. “I left my aunt and sister. Our carriage lost a wheel at the riverside and our driver abandoned us. We can’t leave them alone!”
Leo cracked a branch harder than he’d intended, spraying splinters onto the floor. The damned woman was going to get herself killed. “I’m not letting you leave this cabin until the storm calms down.”
