She was aware of this after the fact. She had not decided to stop there. Her feet had simply refused to carry her further, and her hands had folded themselves together in front of her as though one was trying to keep the other from bolting.
Bess turned her head and looked at her.
Mel took a small step back.
“Miss Grace.” Rhys’s voice was quite different now. The teasing had now left.
“Come and meet her.”
“I am quite comfortable where I am, thank you.”
“You are three paces away.”
“A considered distance.”
“From a mare who is two and twenty years old and currently occupied with an apple.”
“Nonetheless.”
The children had stopped what they were doing. Anna’s pencil had paused mid-stroke. Thistle’s mouth was open, the next proclamation caught somewhere in her throat. Even Viola had turned to look.
Mel registered, with the clarity of mortification that she had gone still in the particular way that she had seen horses do when they were preparing to bolt. Her pulse was doing something undignified behind her ribs. The mare, sensing attention, shifted her weight, and Mel flinched before she could stop herself.
Rhys saw all of it. She watched the recognition arrive in his face, the narrowing of his eyes, the small adjustment of his whole posture as a man who had been expecting one thing and was now being handed another.
“Girls,” he said, without looking away from Mel.
“Take Bess and an apple each. Anna, you may begin your grooming inspection. I will return in a moment.”
“But the list,” Anna said.
“The list will survive five minutes of unsupervised execution.”
“That is structurally unsound.”
“Annabelle.”
Anna subsided. The children moved further down the row of stalls, dragging Thistle by the elbow when she tried to linger, and Mel was left standing on the flagstones with Rhys three paces away and the bay mare watching them both with mild, chewing interest.
He did not approach. He stayed where he was, which she appreciated more than she could have said.
“You are afraid of horses.”
“I am cautious around large animals with their own opinions.”
“Mel.”
She found she could not answer that, because he had said her name the old way, the way he had said it before the title reveal, without any of the careful formality that had lived between them for weeks. It undid something.
“I was thrown as a girl,” she said. “It was a long time ago. I have preferred my own feet ever since.”
“How old were you.”
“Twelve.”
“Were you hurt?”
“My wrist. It mended badly for a season and then it mended well.” She made herself meet his eyes.
