Page 29 of My Queendom for a Horse

To his credit, he does dress much more quickly this time. “I’m done.”

I open my eyes slowly, like I don’t quite trust him, but he looks much, much better than I would have thought possible. He used one of my hair bands to pull his hair back into a knot. He’s wearing Gustav’s clothes properly, and he left the top three buttons undone on the shirt. It makes no sense—I’ve seen him naked now over and over, but for some reason, the golden-brown skin that’s exposed nearly takes my breath away.

When he catches me looking, he grins.

“Alright,” I say in Russian. “Remember to stick to only Russian, and to butt out of my conversation. Got it?”

He shrugs.

It’s not very reassuring in light of the last few hours, but I can’t keep Sean waiting any longer. I reach for the knob, my hand pausing just in front of it. I’m trembling, and I need to get it together. I don’t blame myself for being a mess. It’s been a weird day. But I can’t walk out there and convince anyone that we’re a good investment, and that the farm will be in good hands, when I can’t even grasp a doorknob properly.

“Let me.” Aleksandr reaches around me and flings the door open. “Can’t keep your savior waiting.” He said it in Russian, like I asked, but I’m beginning to wonder if telling him to speak Russian was a mistake.

He sounds. . .too confident in Russian. “What were you in your past life?” I ask.

“My past life?” One eyebrow arches. “I’ve only had one life. The curse locked me into horse form and froze me underground.”

I blink. “So you’ve been alive for the past hundred years, and just stuck underground?” How could he not be insane? Is he insane?

He shrugs. “You might liken it to sleeping. My personal magic kept me alive—preserved me in a sort of stasis. It’s such that I have a very long life in any case, but I couldn’t use it to free myself because of the curse.”

I have so many questions about this curse, and who he was, and what’s going on, but they’re going to have to wait. Because Sean’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at me.

And then his eyes move past me to the very tall, very large man standing behind me. And they widen with alarm.

“Who are you?” Trust Sean not to even ask me—he always goes straight to the source. It’s the height of rudeness for an aristocrat to use blunt questions. He always said it made his mother insane.

Aleksandr turns toward me, a questioning look on his face. Thank goodness he didn’t immediately give himself away by responding to an English question.

“This is my new trainer,” I say.

“Your what?” My dad’s spluttering behind Sean.

I toss my head and walk around the corner and down the stairs. “Mirdza told me last week before we left that she’d heard of an amazing trainer, just in from Russia, who needed work. I told her we didn’t have anything for him, but now that I know how much John hates Obsidian.” I shrug. “I called her, and she dropped him off.”

“She dropped him. . .” Dad looks around and frowns. “When? I didn’t even see her today. I don’t see any bags, either. He just sort of. . .appeared.”

So he did. But Dad can’t possibly know how true his words are.

“Look, he’s starving, so I hope you don’t mind if he tags along?” I’ve reached the bottom of the stairs, Aleks on my heels, and Sean’s forced to step back to make room for us.

Sean doesn’t look pleased. “It might be better—”

“I’m starving,” I say. “And he won’t understand a word we say, anyway. Can we just go?”

I brush past him, and Aleksandr does the same thing. As I turn sideways to make room for opening the front door, I watch Sean’s face. Emotions flash across it in quick succession: irritation, appraisal as he looks Aleks over, and then determination.

“Where did you want to eat?” Sean asks.

“How about sandwiches,” I say. “There’s a decent—”

“I just tried a place called SkovoroTka,” Sean says. “It’s not bad. It’s a bit of a drive from here, but that gives us time to talk.”

To talk. Why does that sound so ominous to me? “Oh.” I swallow. “Okay.” It helps that he named my favorite restaurant.

“I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised,” he says. “Daugavpils is a nicer city than I realized.”

“The only city in Latvia larger is Riga,” I say.

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