Page 59 of Tempting Her Viscount

“Going somewhere?” Kit asked as he strode into the stables.

“Yes. I’m going into the village.”

“Might I accompany you?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

Now that they had agreed on keeping their relationship friendly, Kit hadn’t looked at her with that familiar longing.

Except, they hadn’t actually agreed upon it. Kit had made the decision without consulting her and she was left with no option but to go along with his plan. Not that she could disagree with his concerns.

They had grown accustomed to leaning on one another to satisfy their physical urges, but it was time to move on. And that started with a trip to the village to see what men might be available.

Kit commented along the way, pointing out places he’d played when he was a child living there with his father, and later with his uncle or alone with just the servants watching over him.

He told her of the improvements he’d made recently now that his lands were turning a profit.

“I know it isn’t done to speak to women of such things as money, but you’re not like other women and I’m rather proud that I’ve managed to turn my finances around after all these years.”

“You should be proud, Kit. Most men would continue to run their properties into the ground without a care until it was too late. Then they would marry a woman with a heavy dowry to fix all their problems.”

Or a widow with her own wealth.

Celia shook off the thought. Kit hadn’t asked her to marry him for her money. Though her funds, in addition to his, would certainly take care of any lingering issues with his estates.

“I only decided to marry after I was certain I could offer a good life for my bride and any children we conceived. I’d seen how you were used for financial gain and I would never want whomever I married to think they were nothing more than a means to an end. I will marry someone because I respect them, care for them, and want to spend my life with them, but never because I need their coin.”

“You didn’t mention love?”

Kit shrugged and looked away. “I can’t say, I would know if someone loved me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She only knew the love of her brother, which was certainly not the same. She hated that Kit had been passed around between his indifferent parents between England and Scotland. Never feeling secure or loved.

He winked, not in the naughty way she’d come to expect but in his normal fun way. “I wouldn’t mind if someone offered.”

Her throat burned and her eyes watered. If they hadn’t been sitting on horses, she would have gone to him and pulled him into a hug.

“I only know brotherly love. I don’t think my father was capable of love.”

“You don’t remember your mother? Did she not love you?”

“I remember snippets of her. Gray doesn’t remember her at all. I tried to tell him, but somewhere along the way I think I turned our mother into something she never was. Almost a deity. Eventually, I didn’t know what was truth and what I had made up to fill the hole in our lives.”

“Holes,” he said, correcting her word to the plural.

“Yes. You’re right. In a way we lost our father at the same time my mother died. While he was still there in the physical sense, his soul was gone. And a man without a soul is capable of almost anything.”

“I’m glad you and Gray have each other. I know most days you drive each other mad, but deep down you’re family, and he clearly loves you even if he’s quite an—”

“Arse.” They laughed.

“Yes, quite.”

“This is nice,” she said, taking in the trees and the man next to her. He was attractive and she still felt the pull he had over her body, but he was also fun. She enjoyed spending time with him outside of their beds.

“It is. Mind you, I’ll miss the sex, and in a matter of days I’ll most likely regret my decision to only be friends, but this is nice.”

He’d made her laugh again. She loved the way he just blurted out the truth no matter what light it shed upon him. His confidence was one of the many things she found so alluring about him.

“Your stablemaster is a woman,” she said out of nowhere.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she knows the most about the horses.” He made it sound like it was an obvious thing. Perhaps it was, and she was the one caught up in convention.

“Hale’s wife is a master of horses as well. Did you think horses only responded to humans who had a penis?”

She laughed at his outrageous comment and they continued on.

In the village, she was introduced to a number of people, all of which were happy to see Kit. Many thanked him for some kindness he quickly brushed off. They visited the shops and he bought her a few things.

It wasn’t until they had made it back to Blairgowrie that she remembered the reason she’d gone to the village in the first place. She was on the hunt for a man who would move her forward in her plan.

She tried to recall if she’d met anyone that day who would do and couldn’t think of anyone who had interested her as much as Kit.

Bother.