Page 87 of Blood of the Thistle

More laughter followed, which Anastasia accepted with a rueful smile, but when she turned and met Bram’s gaze, the smile disappeared and her expression settled once more into the composed courtesy he had come increasingly to despise.

Bram handed his own reins to Calum and went to the mare. “I’ll teach ye, lass.”

“She dinna need ye to,” Etta said.

“No, thank you,” Anastasia said at exactly the same moment.

Bram looked from his sister to Anastasia, though it was the latter’s refusal that held his attention. There it was again, that infuriating politeness—perfectly gracious and perfectly distant, giving him nothing against which he might reasonably take offense.

His tried to ignore this, dropping his gaze to the stirrup.

“’Tis too long.”

Etta frowned. “What?”

“The stirrup. For Anastasia.” Bram reached for the leather and shortened it. “And ye’re having her put her foot too far through it.”

“I was—”

“Only the ball of your foot,” he told Anastasia, ignoring his sister. “Else if ye fall and cannae free it, the mare may drag ye.”

Anastasia stared but briefly before acknowledging this. “All right.”

Bram took that as sufficient permission to continue. “And dinna haul yourself up by the saddle. Ye’ll pull it toward ye and make the mare shift beneath your weight.” He put one hand against the pommel. “Left hand here with the reins. Nae so tight. Ye need only keep her from walking away.”

He stepped aside so that she could approach and watched as she adjusted her grip according to his instruction.

“Now take hold at the back.” When she did, he added, “Put your foot in.” Bram watched her slide it into the stirrup and immediately caught her ankle before she could push it through as deeply as she had before. “Nae. Just here.” He drew her foot back until only the proper portion rested upon the iron, then released her. “Turn toward the mare a wee bit more. Ye were twisting away from her before ye even left the ground.”

Anastasia shifted obediently.

“Now spring from this leg,” he said, bolding tapping his hand against the skirt at her thigh, “and straighten the other as ye rise. Dinna try to climb the horse. Let the stirrup give ye the height and carry ye upward.”

She nodded and Bram took one step backward, giving her space.

Anastasia drew a breath, adjusted her hands upon the saddle and reins, and sprang. This time she rose cleanly, carrying herself upward with enough momentum to swing her right leg over the mare’s back and settle squarely into the saddle without any assistance from him. There was a moment when her skirts caught and gave her pause but she persisted and completed the action of mounting.

“I did it!”

She looked down at Bram with a wide, triumphant smile, all the pleasure of that small accomplishment shining in her eyes, and for one fleeting moment she was the Anastasia he remembered from the road—before he’d rejected her so brutally—turning instinctively to him because something had pleased or surprised her.

Bram grinned up at her. “Aye, ye did.”

Something in her expression faltered. He saw the light in her eyes dim and he wondered if memory surfaced in her as well—of that eerie storm, and of his cruel words meant to drive her into it. The smile vanished. She looked away, her hands suddenly busy with the reins.

“Well,” she said, her voice now carefully subdued, “Etta gave me a good foundation.”

Bram’s own smile disappeared and he gave his regard to her seat, immediately stepping forward to close his hand around her ankle, drawing her foot slightly backward in the stirrup before sliding his palm higher along the curve of her calf to reposition her leg. The correction required nothing more than that, yet beneath the wool of her skirt he felt the muscle tense abruptly beneath his hand.

His jaw clenched and his hand stilled.

It had been a simple thing to touch her on the road. He had lifted her onto the gelding, taken her hand to guide her across rough ground, slept beside her and ridden endless miles with her body fitted against his. Now, after days in which she had maintained so careful a distance between them, the innocent contact felt startlingly intimate.

Bram raised his eyes. “ʼTwas too far forward,” he explained, the words coming out clipped and low. “Keep your leg here, like this.”

Anastasia stared down at him, her eyes wide and unblinking, both her earlier excitement and the polite detachment of moments ago gone.

Slowly, Bram slid his hand away and stepped back.