Page 52 of The Marriage Debt
Just how Theo was managing to stop the animal taking off and doing exactly what it wanted seemed a mystery. Katherine watched him, seeing the almost invisible shifts of leg, tightening of thigh muscles, movements of long fingers that appeared to work this magic. ‘Did you ride in the army?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He seemed to think better of his abruptness and added, ‘I was a trooper. You get all sorts to ride. On a battlefield you can pick up some good beasts whose owners have no further use for them.’
Katherine shivered. ‘And you rode at Waterloo?’
‘Yes.’ This time he showed no inclination to expand on that curt response.
‘Your father will be very proud when he learns you fought there,’ Katherine ventured.
‘We have not discussed it. I mentioned it in passing, that is all.’ Theo’s voice was quite dispassionate, but his body betrayed him. The black tossed its head and broke into a trot for a few strides before it was reined back. Obediently the roan started totrot too. Katherine grabbed for the pommel, the mane, her reins, missed them all and found herself tumbling over the horse’s shoulder. It seemed a very long way down, and the ground, when she met it, much harder than she could have imagined.
‘Ough!’
‘Well done!’ Theo had swung down and was kneeling beside her, helping her to sit up.
Katherine took a painful whoop of breath. ‘Well done?’
‘You are still holding the reins. That is very important.’
‘It is?’
‘Of course. You don’t want to fall off miles from home and see your horse vanishing into the next county. Now, just wriggle everything, make sure nothing is strained…’
He broke off. Katherine found herself supported against his knee. Theo had one arm around her shoulders, the other was resting on her ankle. She was cradled in such a way that their faces were very close, close enough for her to see the gold flecks in his eyes, the sweep of his lashes, the scar over his eye, the way his pupils contracted seconds before his mouth covered hers.
The kiss was leisurely, exploratory, quite undemanding. Katherine was well aware that she only had to move away and push against his chest for him to stop. But she did not want this to stop. She summoned all her small experience and kissed him back, fighting to keep herself from betraying everything she felt for him with the pressure of her mouth, the way her fingers moved restlessly through his hair. With a sigh she closed her fists on the linen of his shirt and surrendered to the heat that his knowing mouth was evoking.
How long that sensuous caress would have gone on she had no idea. She had not the slightest idea how long it had already lasted when a wet, warm, soft muzzle pushed firmly against her ear.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Ugh!’ Katherine struggled to sit up from what had become a shockingly prone position on the grass and met the reproachful eye of her mount.
Theo rocked back on his heels and began to laugh. ‘I have never,’ he managed between gasps of mirth, ‘Never, been chaperoned by a horse before. I have, however, seen uglier chaperones.’
Katherine found herself giving way to giggles. ‘He looks so shocked,’ she managed to gasp, hugging her sides. Lightning gave her a disgusted look and began to crop the grass, apparently resigned to the stupidity of humans. She looked around her, saw that they were close to the lake and that tall red chimneys were rising over a small copse ahead of them.
‘Is that the Dower House?’
‘Yes. Kat, you wanted to talk, this is probably as private as we can be.’
‘What I really want to do,’ she said warmly, ‘is box your ears for deceiving me so. How could you not tell me you were a marquis, that your father was a duke?’
‘In Newgate? Would you have believed me?’ Theo sat up and clasped his arms round his knees. ‘This view – I would dream of it sometimes, when I actually managed to sleep.’
‘True, I would not have believed you then.’
‘I did tell you my real name, you could have looked it up.’
‘Naturally, that should have occurred to me,’ Katherine said sarcastically. ‘I meet a highwayman and should immediately assume it would be sensible to check on his parentage and titles.’ She picked a daisy, slit its stem with her fingernail and plucked another to thread through it. ‘You should have told me afterwards, when you were free.’
‘Would you have believed me then?’ He was watching her, not the view.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And what would you have done?’
‘Refused to come with you, naturally.’
