“Pardon?”
The gentleman waved a hand and turned back to the animal. “Never trust aphorisms. Any sentiment short enough to be memorable is undoubtedly wrong.”
Kate suppressed a smile. As if the gentleman could see her, his lips twitched upward. Of course, focused as he was on the trembling cart-horse, she doubted he even knew she was still here. Slowly, she slid from the top of the wall to the ground.
The gentleman fished in his pockets and pulled out an apple. The animal’s nostrils widened; its ears came forward slightly. Kate could see its ribs. They were not prominent enough to indicate starvation, but neither were they covered with a healthy amount of skin and muscle. Underneath those healed lacerations, its coat might once have been chestnut. But coal dust and road mud, stretched over scarred skin, had robbed the pelt of any hint of gloss.
“Oh, don’t feed it, for the love of all that is precious,” the carter protested. “The beast is useless. I’ve had it for three months, and no matter how I beat it, still it shies away from every last mother-loving noise.”
“That,” said the gentleman, “sounds like an explanation, rather than an excuse. Doesn’t it, Champion?” He tossed the apple on the ground next to the horse and then looked away into the distance.
He seemed good with the beast. Gentle. Kind. Not that it mattered, because whoever he was, she couldn’t speak to him. No matter how kind he was, he couldn’t know what Lady Kathleen had been doing, not if she intended to keep her secrets safe. Kate began to sidle away from the scene.
“Champion? Who’re you calling Champion?”
“Well, has he got another name?” The man had made no move to get closer to the horse. He stood, a rein’s distance from the beast, looking away from the valley. Toward Berkswift, actually. Kate’s home, just beyond one last rise and a row of trees.
“Name?” The carter frowned, as if the very concept were foreign. “I’ve been calling it Meat.“
“Meet?” The gentleman frowned down at the reins gathered in his hands. “As in a championship meet? A tourney?”
“No. Meat. As in Horse Meat. As in I could get a ha’penny per stringy pound from the butcher.”
The gentleman’s fingers curled about the reins. “I’ll give you ten pounds for the whole animal.”
“Ten pounds? Why, that’s barely what the knacker—”
“If Meat here panics on the way to the knacker, you’ll be out far more than that in property damage.” The man glanced at Kate, where she’d been sneaking away from the battered cart.
It was the first time he’d looked at her directly, and Kate felt his gaze settle against her, disturbing and familiar all at once. She pressed against the wall.
The gentleman simply shook his head and looked away. “You should be brought up on criminal charges, for endangerment.” He reached into his pocket, produced a small purse, and began to count coins.
“Here, now. I haven’t agreed. How am I supposed to move my cart?”
The gentleman shrugged. “With that shaft broken? I don’t imagine a horse would prove much help.” But as he spoke, he added a few more coins from his purse and then dropped them on the cart driver’s seat. “There’s a village yonder.”
The carter shook his head and collected the pile. Then he stood and left his cart, trudging on toward the village. The gentleman watched him go.
While the man was still distracted, Kate began to walk away. The horse was safe, and if she left now, her secret—Louisa’s secret—was safe, too. Whoever this man was, he couldn’t have recognized her. No doubt he thought her some servant, off on her mistress’s errands. An unimportant thing, as nondescript as the beast he’d rescued.
He touched his hat at her, and then turned back to his own manicured steed, which waited in nonchalant obedience ten yards down the track.
Kate had supposed the newly purchased beast would follow docilely in the gentleman’s footsteps, beaten-down specimen that it was. But it did not hang its head; instead as the fellow led it back to where he’d loosely tossed the reins of his steed, Horse Meat tossed its ragged mane. It lifted one lip in disdain and stamped its bone-thin, lacerated legs.
The gray mare ducked its head and backed away a step.
“Do you suppose they’ll walk calmly together?” the gentleman asked.
With the carter gone, there was nobody else around. He had to be addressing her.
Kate glanced at him, in the midst of her escape. She didn’t dare speak. Her voice would betray her as a lady, even if her clothing hadn’t. She shook her head.
Horse Meat curled its lips at the mare, showing teeth. It could not have communicated more clearly, had it spoken: Stay away from me. I am a dangerous stallion!
The gentleman looked from animal to animal. “I suppose not.” A soft smile of bemusement passed over his lips, and he turned to meet Kate’s eyes, once again halting her forward progress.
There was a restless vitality about those eyes that resonated with her. Something about him—his voice, his easy confidence—set her skin humming in recognition. She knew him.
Or maybe she just wanted to know him, and she’d invented this subtle sense of familiarity. She would have remembered a man like him.
Unlike other gentlemen, underneath his hat, his skin was sun-warmed gold. His shoulders were broad, and not by any artifice of padding. He was walking away from his steed, toward Kate.
No, she couldn’t possibly have forgotten a man like him. His gaze on her made her feel uneasy, as if he knew all her secrets. As if he were laughing at every last one.
“Well,” he said, “this is a pretty pickle, my lady.”
My lady? Ladies did not wear itchy gray cloaks. They didn’t cower under shapeless bonnets. Had he seen the fine walking dress she wore underneath when he lifted her up? Or did he know who she was?
His eyes flicked up and down, once, an automatic male survey of her figure, before returning to her face.
Kate was not fool enough to wish he’d let the horse trample her. Still, she wished he’d been on his way earlier. At least he didn’t remark on her outlandish garb. Instead …
“This,” he told her, gesturing with the reins of the animal he’d just acquired, “puts me in mind of one of those damnable logic puzzles a friend of mine used to pose when we were at Cambridge. ‘A shepherd, three sheep and a wolf must cross a river in a boat that fits at most two….’”
Understanding—and disappointment—took root. No wonder he wasn’t courting her ire by asking inconvenient questions about her cloak and her lack of companionship. He was one of those men. He addressed her with easy intimacy. A tone of expectation warmed his voice, entirely at odds with his formal “my lady.” She recalled his hands on her waist, that brief flash of heated contact, body to body. At the time, she’d noticed nothing more than a fleeting impression of hard muscle pushing her out of harm’s way. Now her skin prickled where he’d touched her, as if his gaze had sparked her flesh to life.
If he knew her well enough to attempt to win that wager, then he knew her well enough to gossip. He knew her well enough to spread the word in town, and well enough for that word to travel round until it reached Harcroft’s ears. It was no longer a question of if Harcroft would hear about this episode; it was a matter of what and when.
Kate didn’t dare panic, not now. She took a deep breath. She needed to make sure that the crux of his story had nothing to do with the clothing in which he found her.