At his shout, Siân pulled up short, and her horse, which had been poised to jump, skittered sideways.
Heart pounding, she leaned over his neck to hold her seat. Where were her thoughts? She should be thinking of how terrible a person she was. After all, she was now safe from Eryl, but she’d left her servant Mary behind! She was letting her mind wander toward this man and almost laming her horse!
“Are you well?”
Shaking, she nodded. “Couldn’t see there for a moment.”
His brows drew down. Not trusting the rain to hide her thoughts, she swung her gaze away.
In front of her was a portion of crumbling wall surrounding the haunted keep. Stroking the neck of her impatient horse, Siân exhaled and spluttered water.
“Is this our shelter?” Mr. Payne’s eyes were wide.
Oh, she knew his exaggerated manner was meant to ease her fear after she’d almost hurt her horse, but still she pointed. “No, that is.”
Even though she didn’t want to look, when his eyes rose, so did hers. She shivered, and she wasn’t altogether certain if her sudden chill was from the rain or the keep, which was as dark and forbidding as she remembered.
Mr. Payne muttered a curse. “You’re cold. Let me get you inside.”
Siân watched him dismount and walk over to her with an unexpected grace, but it was his hands suddenly at her waist that she noticed.
All day at the estate, she’d watched those same hands guide the livestock back to the pen and latch the barn doors. They were strong, and yet it was their surety that she was most aware of.
Too aware—she stumbled out of his sure grasp.
When she shivered again, he cursed low and grabbed the horses’ reins with one hand while the free hand hovered somewhere behind her back. None of him touched her, but she was aware he was there at her side. So near that, if she wanted, she could touch him.
“This way,” she said, though he hadn’t asked, and she didn’t know what she meant. Not really, and she couldn’t shake the feeling she was asking him for more than to merely follow her. That she wanted more from him. Not just to guide her to Charles, but to be the man she traveled for. To be the man she was to marry.
No, it couldn’t be him. She barely knew Mr. Payne. It was this keep, its tale, the fact she knew they’d have to shelter inside…at night.
“You’re shivering again,” he commented.
His voice held a kindly depth she hadn’t heard for many years. Her sisters wouldn’t have spoken in such a tone, and she’d never heard Charles be both sympathetic and protective.
Charles…her betrothed, who’d asked for her to come to him when he was recovering from a broken leg, and sent this man to bring her to him. Mr. Payne should have been no more or less than a messenger. They’d barely even spoken, so busy at the chores they’d been. It was relief she felt with him. A gratefulness he’d helped her with her duties to her sister and their estate should be no more than that. Itwasno more than that. How many more times did she have to remind herself of that?
Her watching him all day was understandable. It had been years since she’d seen her childhood friend. She remembered Charles being finer made than Mr. Payne, and not so rough. Sandy hair perfectly in place, sandy eyes with a confidence that the world was his to take. She remembered him being handsome, not so…raw, like her current companion with his dark brown hair and blue-green eyes.
Eyes that—
Why could she not contain her thoughts? Siân hurried her pace.
Chapter Five
Reggie wasn’t relievedthat the rain eased to something less torrential so he could hear and tend to the woman at his side, because the wind had picked up, and the thunder had followed the lightning too closely. They were in the middle of the storm, not at the end.
And Siân hadn’t brought them to a shelter, but ruins. Dark, damp, saturated with water and greenery growing up around it.
“This heap carries a roof?”
“Only in one particular part.” She swallowed hard. “But we’ll have to risk it. The horses will be safe outside, though, since there’s an overhang.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“I haven’t been inside since I was a child.”
So, it was possible there was no roof.
