‘Is that how you learned to ride?’ Avery demanded.
‘Certainly.’ And she still did when she could get away with it. ‘I am only concerned with Alice’s safety.’
‘Very well.’ As she had guessed, that clinched the argument. Avery lifted the child and swung her into the saddle. ‘Now you—’
Alice promptly slid her feet into the stirrups, heel down, toes out, and gathered up the reins. ‘Aunt Caroline showed me on the rocking horse in the nursery yesterday while you were out.’
‘Aunt?’
Laura shrugged, her nonchalance hiding the warm glow of pride at Alice’s quick learning, her trust. ‘I appear to have been adopted.’
‘So long as you do not mind the familiarity.’ Avery took the leading rein from the groom. ‘I will take her this first time, Ferris.’
‘I am coming, too.’ As if she would not watch her daughter’s first riding lesson!
Avery cast a dubious look from the paddock’s rough grass and muddy patches to her neat leather half-boots, but did not argue. Sensible man, she thought. I wonder where he has learned to humour women. But he would not be so casual about anything that actually mattered to him.
‘Gather up the reins so you can feel the contact with his mouth, press in with your knees and just give him a touch with your heels to tell him to walk on,’ Avery ordered.
Alice gave a little squeak of excitement as the pony moved, then sat silent, her face a frown of concentration.
‘Let your hands and wrists relax.’ Laura reached across to lay her hand over the child’s clenched fingers just as Avery did the same thing. Their gloved fingers met, tangled, held. Alice giggled. ‘Poor Snowdrop, now we’re all riding him.’
‘Relax,’ Avery murmured and Laura shot him a stern glance. It had not been the child he was speaking to. ‘Shoulders back,’ he added as he released her hand to correct Alice’s posture.
‘And seat in.’ Laura patted the target area. ‘That’s perfect. When you ride side-saddle your back and posterior will be in exactly the same position as now.’
They walked around the paddock twice, speaking only to the child, hands bumping and touching as they reached to adjust her position or steady her. Laura was in heaven. Despite the looming masculine presence on the other side of the pony, and despite the crackle of awareness at every touch, she was with her daughter, able to help her, see her delight. She praised, she reassured, she smiled back as Alice beamed at her, and fought down the emotion that lurked so close to the surface. Five days left.
‘I want to trot now.’
‘No,’ Avery said flatly.
‘Why not?’ Laura countered. ‘It is hard work, Alice. You must push down with your heels, tighten your knees and rise up and down with the stride or you’ll be jolted until your teeth rattle.’
‘She’ll not be able to post when she’s riding side-saddle,’ Avery pointed out.
‘Which is why you see ladies trotting so infrequently, but it will strengthen her legs. Pay attention to your balance and don’t jab his mouth, Alice. Use your heels, that’s it.’
Off they went, the tall man jogging beside the pony, the excited child bouncing in the saddle, bump, bump and then, ‘Aunt Caroline, look! I’m going up and down!’
She stood by the gate and watched them until the circuit was completed and Avery came to a halt beside her, not in the least out of breath. For a diplomat he was remarkably fit. She had supposed he would spend all his day at a desk or a conference table, but it seemed she was mistaken.
‘Enough, Alice. You’ll be stiff in the morning as it is.’ He lifted her down. ‘Now run inside to Blackie and get changed into something respectable before luncheon.’
He took Laura’s arm as the child gave her pony one last pat and then ran off towards the house. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’ For indulging myself with my daughter’s presence for an hour? For reassuring myself that you really do care for her and will look after her?
‘For finding her those clothes and persuading me of the benefits of allowing her to learn to ride astride. She is very confident now and that’s half the battle. In a week or two we can try her with a side-saddle.’
Laura was not aware of making a sound, but he glanced at her. ‘We won’t have to have one made. Ferris found a small one in the stable loft. You will stay for luncheon?’
‘I—’ I would move in if I could, absorb every impression, every memory. In a week or two we could teach her to ride side-saddle... Oh, the temptation to stay, to dig herself deeper and deeper into Alice’s life, into her affections.
‘You hesitate to come inside a bachelor household when I am at home? Alice and her nurse will be adequate chaperons, don’t you think?’
‘Of course they will. I would be happy to accept.’ Not that she now had any worries about what the ladies of the parish might say if they found out. She would be gone in a few days and her purpose in meeting them, to help find Alice some little playmates, had been fulfilled. It was her own equilibrium she was concerned about. That and the man by her side.
Without Alice’s presence to distract her Avery seemed to loom over her, tall, solid, an immovable object as much in her mind as in reality. Alice loved him; he, Laura was forced to accept, loved her. He was intelligent, good company, handsome and part of her wanted to like him, wanted...him. And yet he had stolen her child with every intention of keeping her from her mother. He had bribed another man’s tenants into lying and he would ruthlessly do whatever it took to get what he wanted. She should hate him, but she could not. Instead she envied him, she was jealous of him and she feared him.
And none of those emotions were attractive ones. Hatred was condemned from the pulpit as a sin, of course, but somehow it seemed a more straightforward feeling. If one could express it, of course, Laura pondered as she walked beside Avery Falconer to the house. Piers’s house. That was another pain, the way Avery had slipped so easily into the role of master here. And it was something else she should not resent, for the tenants were being treated well, the land was in good heart, the servants had employment. It was not this man’s fault that his cousin had died, that Piers had broken his word to her, left her before they could marry, abandoned her for some romantic notion of duty and valour.
She was not wearing a bonnet and the breeze blew strands of her hair across her face. Laura pushed them back, wishing she could hold her head in her hands and think, clearly, rationally and not be filled with so many conflicting feelings.
She was conscious that Avery was looking at her, but she kept her eyes down, reluctant to meet his now she was the sole focus of his attention. Ever since he had made that remark about physical attraction he had said or done nothing the slightest bit improper or provocative. As a result Laura found she was constantly braced for words and actions that never came. And she was thinking about him as a man, an attractive man, a desirable man.
Was it a strategy? Was Avery playing with her, hoping she would be intrigued by that statement? Perhaps this was an opening gambit in a game of seduction.
‘That was a heavy sigh. Are you tired?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ she said before she could think better of it. ‘I am tired of playing games. Two days ago you spoke of physical attraction between us and then nothing. You do not explain yourself, you do not flirt, you do not try to make love to me. I do not want any of those things, you understand. It is just very unsettling to have them...hovering.’
Under her arm his guiding hand tensed. ‘I did explain. I said I felt that attraction and tried to understand it.’
‘You had no need to mention it at all.’ It had kept her awake at night. ‘It makes me uneasy. And I suspect