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She was fascinating to watch. Emotions played out on her face constantly—a barrage of them—from fear for her aunt, to loneliness, to laughter that let happiness overshine everything else. There wasn’t an emotion that wasn’t crystal clear on her face.
He’d never known anyone like that. One who could let emotions recklessly fly—who had emotions, period. The people he associated with kept everything guarded. One did that to stay alive. That or they simply didn’t have feelings.
He truly didn’t know where on that spectrum he was anymore—if he’d just stopped having feelings, or he never had them in the first place.
So to see the fire in Victoria, wild and vulnerable—especially when she was irate at him—it was fascinating to behold, like embers crackling far and furious from a fire.
Fire that he was determined to not let burn him. He had to keep the upper hand.
His terms. Not hers.
Now he just had to find her. She should have been out of the woods and past the bridge by now. Even if she was walking slowly, she should have made it out of the forest.
But she hadn’t. She was nowhere. No footprints in the snow. No new tracks from a horse or a cart or a carriage.
What the hell had happened to her?
It’d been a calculated risk, leaving her to stew in her own anger until she was ready hop back onto his horse and stop fighting him on every little decision he made. A risk that maybe he shouldn’t have taken. A risk that could have had her picked up by a rogue farmer or, God-forbid, a highwayman.
But no. This road had been barren of people all day. No one was out in this weather. Carriages would get stuck in no time with the slush cooking under the blanket of snow, and only the most determined riders would choose to suffer this bitter wind.
His eyes scanned the trees on either side of him, searching for her footprints in the snow. All he saw were drifts and squirrels hopping through the white covering.
Was that?
A dark grey form sat on the ground just up around the bend, leaning against a tree, doing what?
He jabbed his heels into the horse and thundered forward, his stare locked onto the form. It had to be her.
The closer he got—was that her foot out in the air?
Shit.
For a man that didn’t feel anything, his gut just sank to his toes.
He was off his horse, dropping the reins and running the last few feet to her.
Her head was hiding from him, lost in the hood of her cloak, but her left foot—her bright red left foot—was propped up over her right leg, her hands furiously rubbing her toes like she was trying to start a fire.
And her skirt—the bottom of the blue wool was darker than the top—wet?
He slid to a stop directly in front of her.
“Victoria—what—what are you doing?”
Her whole body shuddered. Bloody Zeus, was that a dog in her lap?
His look went from the big black eyes and charcoal nose peeking out from the folds of the cloak bunched on her lap to her head hidden by the hood.
“I-I-I’m c-c-c-old. I’m n-n-never c-c-c-cold.” Her chattering teeth barely let words through and she didn’t look up at him. “B-b-but I’m c-c-cold.”
“I can bloody well see that, you fool woman.” He dropped to balance on his heels in front of her, his hands pushing her fingers away and clasping over her bare foot. Even through his gloves he could feel it was like ice.
She gasped with a tormented wince at the touch, like he’d just sent a hot iron poker through her skin.
“What the hell have you done?”
She looked up at him and he could see tears flooding her eyes. Streaks of frosty ice marred her cheeks where tears had already flowed and frozen.
