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But he’d never asked her to meet at the stables. It wasn’t where they usually worked together, and anyway, he always preferred to visit the horses alone. She wasn’t sure why he wanted to meet there now. Though really, it didn’t matter where he wanted to meet her. She went wherever he requested and if he wanted to meet her at the stables, that’s where she’d go.
They weren’t far from the castle itself, down through the long, beautiful set of terraced gardens that led into rolling fields and the royal wood where generations of the Isaveran kings and queens had gone hunting. There was no hunting now; the wood had been left to regenerate.
The stables were a set of long wooden buildings and Winifred walked briskly along the path beside them, wondering where on earth Augustine could be. Though she could guess. He’d be with one of his favourites, a spirited mare called Honey.
She stepped inside the stables and approached Honey’s stall, and sure enough, Augustine was there, grooming her glossy chestnut coat with long, practised strokes.
He wasn’t in his usual suit today, but worn jeans that sat low on his hips and a simple black T-shirt that clung to his muscled shoulders, arms and chest.
Her mouth went dry and she had to look away, every part of her so physically aware of him it was almost painful. Lord, it was ridiculous. She’d seen him in casual clothes before and hadn’t had this reaction.
Maybe it’s the small fact that you’re in love with him?
Yes, but she’d been in love with him for years and hadn’t felt quite this strongly...physical about him. It was that night with him that was the problem. Something had flicked on inside her, making her responses to him even more intense. Nothing else could explain it.
‘Sir?’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m here.’
He didn’t turn, not immediately, but there was something taut about his posture that set her on high alert.
After a moment, he put down the curry comb, gave the mare’s nose a long stroke, then dug into the pocket of his jeans and brought out an apple. He held it in his palm and presented it to the mare whose soft mouth closed around it, crunching as she ate.
Augustine still didn’t turn. ‘Come, Freddie,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk outside.’
She tensed. There was a note in his voice that made her catch her breath. She knew him; she knew him better than she knew herself and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Her heartbeat hammering, she followed him outside and over to where a wooden seat sat beneath a shady oak. His face was absolutely impassive, his blue-green eyes betraying nothing at all as he gestured to her to sit.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, her voice hoarse. A feeling of trepidation had collected inside her and sitting was the last thing she felt like doing. ‘What is it, sir?’
He was staring at her, his gaze scalpel sharp.
Her heartbeat grew even louder, her mouth dry as the desert that had surrounded her family’s trailer.
He knows the baby is his.
No, that was impossible. He hadn’t known it was her that night. He couldn’t have, because he’d never said anything to her about it.
Slowly Augustine folded his arms, his gaze pinning her to the spot.
‘So, just out of interest,’ he said. ‘When were you going to tell me your baby is mine?’
He watched the colour drain from her face, her eyes going even wider, the dark velvet of her irises deepening into black, almost becoming one with her pupils. And he felt something catch hard inside him in response.
She didn’t need to say anything. The truth was written all over her face.
That night in Al Da’ira, that night with that passionate, silky little woman, the woman he’d lost his mind with, that woman was her.
And she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t said a word.
He could feel it now, the surge of hot desire already building inside him, Remembering that night and the feel of her around him, holding him tight, the taste of her mouth and her skin and her sex. The way she’d put her arms around him, the sounds she’d made...
Didn’t some part of you know? Didn’t some part of you realise who she was?
Perhaps he had. Perhaps all this time some part of him had wanted her. Yet that didn’t explain the rush of intense desire as he stared at her. He’d never felt it before, not with her.
Maybe you did and you ignored it.
Did he? He couldn’t remember. His memory was as shot full of holes as the rest of his faculties. She had always been just...Freddie. As ubiquitous in his life as a favourite chair, or a picture he passed by every day, noting its presence, but never really looking at it.
