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In the distance, she saw the tenant’s house, and she sped the mare to reach it. At the house, she knocked, but everything was still, too still. The place looked deserted.
Heart beating fast, she walked around the building and the barn, no one came to greet her. She thought to find Burns or whoever might be in the house. And give an excuse she had been lost and try to strike a conversation to probe for fragments of evidence.
Vexation took her when she found the door locked. Maybe this Burns lived alone and volunteered to travel. Since she had been outside the house the day of the meeting, she did not know who the Duke appointed to the task.
Round to the back door, she had more luck. Almost trembling with the danger of it, she entered the unlocked door, looking around for any clues. None found, blast it!
* * *
A hunch hit Romulus’ mind as he checked the present ledgers. Springing from his chair he looked down the window just to see a watery sun misting over greenery in full bloom as May approached.
He had been the paramount of reluctance this morning when he must leave Annabel cosily snuggling in his bedclothes to meet with his steward. All he wanted was to stay there with her and continue what they had been doing the night away. He could not neglect his duties though, so he forced himself to give his back to her and start his day.
In haste out of the solar, he went after the woman. This was the same hunch he had had that first day of her visit when he had caught her in his chambers.
She was nowhere to be seen. He instructed Miller to let her be, convinced that she desisted from doing whatever she came here to do. She fled the castle, did she not?
In the stables, he learned she had taken the mare and ridden in the direction of Burn’s cottage. Damn the hellion! Would she not give up this nons
ense?
As soon as Tristan was saddled, he mounted and galloped to the cottage.
The pounding of the hooves must have warned her, because, she was running to her mare and mounting by the time he approached the cottage. Mare and woman bolted through the fields and he sped after them. Even side-saddled, she surpassed any other rider. But he did not want to press too hard, for fear of an accident.
She rode to a steep slope covered in tall grass, a piece of land put to rest this year and would not be sowed. Riding down it, the vegetation hid the mare’s legs.
Suddenly, his speeding horse passed by her. She dismounted and watched him as he continued on for several yards before he could stanch the stallion and dismount.
“What the hell are you doing. Annabel?” He rasped to her when he climbed part of the distance.
“Nothing that concerns you.” She answered nonplussed.
“Then go back to the castle before I carry you belly down on Tristan!” How was it that the woman had him angry and aroused at the same time? The question begged an answer he could not give.
“I would like to see you try.” She defied, as she unsheathed a sword.
He scowled at her. “Do you think we are in some kind of Arthurian tale, woman?”
Posta Frontale posture, both hands holding the sword mid-air, facing her opponent, she cast a belligerent glance at him. “No. But you threated to manhandle me, so I am defending myself.”
She tucked part of her skirts in her sheath’s belt and he glimpsed her stockings. That did not help his arousal, even less his anger at her exposing what was supposed to be for his eyes only. Well, so they were alone in the prairie, but still…
He braced his legs, arms crossed over his chest. “Stop it, Annabel!” He commanded. “Mount that mare and head for the castle.”
A faint smile on her beautiful features. “You should know by now I am not very good at obeying, Your Grace.”
His glare might incinerate the hellion, except it did not. “You want to fence? Right. Let us do it in the armoury.”
Without taking her attentive eyes from him, she neared Iseult and took another sword from the saddle bag there.
Tossing it to him, she said. “En garde, monsieur!” Sword held straight in front of her defiant chin.
Problem was that she got the higher ground on that slope and the tall grass did not favour fencing. The woman was raving mad. And drove him mad, too. With lust!
No other choice but raise to her challenge. He positioned his body for attack, in no doubt she excelled in this as she did in every other skill she honed.
The blades clashed with a clinking sound in the open air. He was not wrong. She primed with a sword in her hand. Her beauty increased with her midnight ringlets bluish in the sun, her supple body agile and heedful.
