AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A frown marred Carrie’s forehead. “You think that now, dearest, but…”
“But I know it to be true.”
Her sister nodded. She didn’t attempt to change Bella’s mind, for which she was grateful. She kissed Bella’s cheek. “Sleep well, dearest.”
Bella lay in bed, staring into the dark. Tomorrow, she must find a way for them to be alone again.
*
“Back home tomorrow,Roald,” Friedrich said, fiddling with his cravat before the mirror.
“Yes, Baron.” Roald fussed around him, brushing the shoulders of his black riding coat.
Why had she run from him beside the lake? A man knew when a woman wanted him. “If I had more time…” Friedrich mused.
Roald bent to flick a cloth across Friedrich’s boots. “Yes, Baron?”
He released an agonized sigh. “Nothing. My boots are perfect. Do stop fussing, or I shall keep people waiting.”
He patted the valet’s arm as he passed. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
Roald wrinkled his nose. “English food is barbaric.”
With a chuckle, Friedrich left his chamber, and pulling on riding gloves, made his way down.
Bella waited in the great hall, studying an oil painting with surprising intensity. It featured a flimsily dressed goddess sitting within a columned temple while a god, probably Zeus, watched her from behind a ruined column. It was highly sensual, with Zeus intent on some lustful quest.
“You like it?” he asked, coming up behind her.
“I do. It is exquisitely done.”
Friedrich sighed. Right now, he was not unlike the Greek god. He wanted to be the one to awaken Bella to passion. To give her his love and have her love him in return. He would not have believed it of his cynical self when he left Vienna on what he saw as a tedious mission to support his sister.
Nicholas and Karl entered in their riding clothes, crops in their gloved hands.
“Ah, we have some feminine company,” Karl said, smiling at Bella. “It appears the other ladies do not wish to ride.”
“We shall leave them to their slumber.” Nicholas tucked his riding crop under his arm and pulled on his riding gloves. He stood back to allow Bella to pass through the front door, where pale morning light streamed across the marble floor of the porch, the air fresh and brisk. “We are most fortunate with the weather,” he said. “We’ll take the bridle path through the woods to the river.”
“Excellent,” Karl said.
From Nicholas’s stable of superb thoroughbreds, mounts were selected for Karl and him. Once mounted, they rode out across the cobbled quadrangle.
Nicholas and Karl rode on ahead. They entered the woods, with Bella behind them and Friedrich bringing up the rear on the narrow trail. Always at home in this environment, he breathed in the woody smells of bark, lush growth, and musty leaf mold while birds, disturbed from the trees, fluttered overhead.
“Is this similar to the Vienna woods?” Bella asked, turning on the saddle to view him.
“Different habitation, but every bit as wonderful,” he said. “You are not tired, rising so early?”
“Oh, no. I often ride with Nicholas before breakfast. Carrie isn’t so keen these days.”
“You have a pleasant life here, I see.” He was glad for her, of course, but he could offer her a better one.
“Yes. Jeremy and I were most fortunate when Nicholas became our guardian after our father died.”
“And then your sister married him and bore him a child. Your family is complete.”
“When Carrie fell in love with Nicholas, she refused to consider another man, although there were many who wanted her. We are alike that way, Carrie and I. Once we make up our minds, we never change it.” She searched his face for a moment before turning back to negotiate a small ditch filled with stones at the bottom.
