Page 75 of Duke of Sapphire

Ian did it again. And again. He was gaining confidence with each pass, sitting a little taller, and Charlotte was just thinking that the lesson was going very well when the mare stepped sideways on a loose stone, Ian lurched, and then he was off.

It was not a bad fall. The drop was short and the ground was soft. But Ian hit sideways and lay still for one terrible second. Then the breath came out of him in a gasp and he started to cry, not the quiet kind but the panicked kind, the kind that came from fright rather than injury.

Henry was already beside him.

He went down on one knee in the mud without any hesitation at all. His hands went to Ian’s shoulders first, checking, and then to his face, tilting it up, his voice low and even.

“Look at me. Ian. Look at me.”

Ian looked at him, gasping.

“You are all right. You had the breath knocked out. It comes back. Just breathe.”

“It hurts⁠—”

“I know. It will stop.” Henry’s hand moved to Ian’s back, steady between his shoulder blades. “There. Feel that? Breathe into my hand.”

Ian breathed. Once, and then again, and the gasping slowed.

“Good.” Henry did not move his hand. “Are you hurt anywhere? Show me.”

Ian lifted one elbow, reddened from the ground. Henry examined it without comment and then looked at Ian’s face, waiting.

“That’s all,” Ian said, in a smaller voice.

“That’s all.” Henry helped him sit up. “Falling is part of it. Every rider falls. You know that.”

“Tam never dropped me like that.”

“Tam has had six years to learn you. She has had twenty minutes.” Henry looked at the horse, who was standing at the end of its lead with a very innocent expression. “She did not do it on purpose.”

Ian looked at the horse. Then back at Henry. His chin had stopped doing the thing. “Will you make me get back on?”

“Yes.”

Ian wiped his nose on his sleeve. “All right,” he said, and stood up.

Charlotte let out a breath she had been holding since the fall.

Henry got to his feet and glanced across the yard at her. Just for a moment. She looked back. His expression was entirely composed, but his hand was still resting at his side in exactly the shape it had held against Ian’s back, and Charlotte thought about the man who was reluctant to show his feelings, and then she thought about that hand.

Her heart stuttered, then tenderness followed, unfurling like a summer bloom. She was, she thought, in a very great deal of trouble feeling the way she did.

Ian remounted with some assistance and considerably more dignity than the preceding two minutes had warranted. Henry resumed his place at the mare’s shoulder. The lesson went on.

A footman appeared at the gate.

He came across the yard with the careful gait of a servant delivering something he had been told was important and offered the folded note to Henry on a small salver. Henry took it and read it.

His face did nothing. That was the problem.

Charlotte crossed the yard toward him.

“Is it about Nathan?” she said.

Henry folded the note. “Yes.”

She waited.