Page 23 of In Pursuit of a Christmas Bride
“I will go skating. Please, enjoy?—”
“I insist. I don’t wish to interfere—” he said, speaking over her.
“—the ride. It’s a beautiful day.” She laughed. Well, not laughed. That would have required dignity, which she had none at the moment because she tittered like a schoolgirl. She couldn’t speak around the earl, couldn’t think around him. And now she couldn’t act as if she hadn’t already lived lifetimes in her twenty-one years.
“I will go skating,” she insisted again, avoiding eye contact. “You can tell me all about the sleigh ride later.”
“Very well.”
The earl climbed up into the sleigh and settled beneath a blanket.
“Are you avoiding me, Miss Brennan?”
“I don’t know you,” she hissed, glancing toward the driver. “We have only met. And I cannot be in your company without Mrs. Craven as my chaperone.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Guilt swallowed her up. First, she acted a fool, and now she was no better than a pretentious shrew. He was much too polite to make light of her excuse.
“I will go skating,” she repeated, this time softer. “And though I should not say it, I am glad to see you once again.”
For a moment, he was quiet. Seriousness settled over his features. “Are you warm enough to go skating? Should I send for more blankets?”
“I don’t believe I need blankets to go skating. I will be fine.”
“Fine,” he said. It settled over his lips like he had swallowed a fly. He signaled for the driver to move forward, and the sleigh took off, leaving Tilly there in the courtyard.
Alone.
And she only had herself to blame.
Miss Matilda Brennan.
While at dinner last evening, dining on the most delicious roast he’d ever had the pleasure to eat, Mrs. Craven had referred to her as Tilly after one too many clarets.
Henry would have preferred to have enjoyed dinner with Miss Brennan, but she had taken dinner in her room. Leaving him alone with her crusty chaperone and giving him the distinct impression that she was avoiding him.
She could tell him otherwise, but she could hardly look him in the eye. She acted as if she were afraid of him, which was odd considering they had kissed in a dark forest when they first met.
He didn’t understand.
The sleigh rounded the corner, perched above the pond down below. Miss Brennan stood observing the pond, her armsakimbo on her hips. She was dressed in a beautiful burgundy cloak that only offset her fair coloring and bright fire-red hair. Her shoulders dropped with a deep sigh before she pushed off across the ice. With her arms wide out to catch her balance, she glided carefully across the ice before she waved her arms in giant circles and crashed onto her bottom.
He chuckled to himself the moment she tossed her head back and groaned.
Slowly, she struggled to stand back up as each limb went in the opposite direction she intended.
Henry climbed out of the sleigh and made his way to the freshly shoveled path down to the pond. He stood by, afraid to distract her.
She whirled around, her arms flailing and her eyes wide. “What are you…”
He rushed out onto the ice in his boots, instantly slipping and landing sprawled out on his stomach across the ice. The ice burned his cheek, and he was certain he would have a bruise on his jaw from the way he landed.
“I came to assist you,” he mumbled, reluctantly pushing up to his knees.
“It appears as if you are the one who needs assisting, my lord.”
Just as suddenly, she was on her back staring up at the sky and mumbling under her breath. “Oh, drat.”
