“Sophie!”
She heard him move toward her. Then he had her by the shoulders in a brutal grip.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Sophie couldn’t answer him. Now that the danger had passed and Alex was safe, she was beginning to feel the darkness weigh in around her.
“Do you think…?” She licked dry lips with a dry tongue. “Can we light a candle now?”
Alex swore viciously, then grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room. They crossed the foyer swiftly and headed out the front door. Sophie relaxed considerably at the sight of the first hints of dawn in the eastern sky. Alex pulled her along until they reached a small shadowed recess against the house. Abruptly, he pushed her into the little corner.
“Stay here,” he ordered, holding her against the wall. “Do you understand me? Stay here. Do not move from this spot.”
She nodded.
“I will have your word, Sophie.” His face was an unfamiliar mask of stone.
“I promise,” she whispered.
“Don’t ever break your promises to me.”
“I won’t.”
She watched him until he disappeared around the side of the house, then took in her surroundings. The darkness in her little corner didn’t extend much past the tips of her toes, and she could make out the expanse of the side lawn clearly. It was enough.
And she felt stronger now, besides. She would probably always be afraid of the dark, but to night she had fought that fear and won. Maybe now, she could control it well enough to keep from truly panicking, from losing herself like she had at the cabin.
Someone yelled in the distance.
She instinctively took a step toward the sound.
No. She’d promised. She forced herself back into the corner, balling her hands into impudent fists at her sides. Damn that promise. And damn Alex for insisting on it. What good did it do either of them if he died for it?
What good would she be able to do if she broke it? She no longer had her knife, and she wasn’t confident she could bring down a fully grown man with her fists. She was better at fighting then most women, yes, but probably not better than most hardened criminals, certainly not the homicidal type.
Of course if she found a weapon of some sort…
Sophie’s eyes scanned the yard. She’d just settled on a particularly sturdy-looking stick, deciding that she would rather have Alex alive and hating her, than Alex dead and she hating herself for allowing it to happen, when he appeared from around the corner of the house leading two horses.
She waited diligently until he reached her side, then said, “Are you hurt? Were you followed?”
“No.”
“Thank God,” she breathed, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you ever, ever ask me to promise something like that again.”
He shot her a look that would have made her fear for her safety if she hadn’t already been overwhelmed with fear for his. “I cannot believe you would make me wait here while—”
“Get on the horse, Sophie.”
“—you run off to certain danger. You could have been hurt or—”
“Now!”
Every instinct screamed at her to run at the horse and vault on top.
Sophie was more than a little sick of her instincts. He was not going to witness her jumping to do his bidding like a cowed servant. She tilted her chin up and walked, not ran, toward the horse. She had briefly considered arguing with him, but she was aiming for brave, not stupid.
Apparently, Alex didn’t feel she was being brave quickly enough. He reached over, picked her up by the waist, and fairly tossed her into the saddle.
They rode in silence for the first quarter of an hour, never setting the horses at more than a trot for fear they might stumble into a rut on the shadowed road.
Sophie spent that time searching for an advantageous opening to the argument she felt was coming. She was weighing the pros and cons of simply sidling her horse up beside his and giving him a healthy shove, when suddenly he was next to her. He grabbed her horse’s reins and brought them both to a stop.
“You’re angry with me,” she stated quickly, figuring she might as well get in the first word, even if it wasn’t particularly brilliant.
“I told you to stay in the closet,” he snapped.
“I’m not a child or a soldier to be ordered about, Alex.”
“No. You are my betrothed. Very soon you will be my wife, and you will not put yourself in harm’s way again. Do I make myself clear? It is my duty to protect and—”
“You were worried about me?”
He shot her the sort of disbelieving look usually reserved for the terminally stupid or criminally insane. “Have I not been making that clear?”
“No. What you’ve made clear is how much you dislike being disobeyed. But I’m warning you now, Alex, I have no intention of standing aside if your life is in danger—”
“I wasn’t in danger of dying,” he snapped. “You, however—”
“I saved your life!”