Still he shook his head. “You'd have gotten back up on that horse before the doctors even let you out of bed. What really happened?”
It was none of his business. None of his concern. At least, not while he considered himself promised to another. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly that, only to hear herself say, “A disappointed fortune hunter. He was infuriated with my mother for keeping him at arm's length and chose to take it out on me. He took what little was left in his wallet and bribed our groom.”
And when the first fall did her no damage—having just slowed down when the saddle strap snapped, she slid off and landed on something soft—he tried it one more time. “I was lucky. The doctors said I could easily have broken my spine and been bedridden for life rather than just two months.”
Mr. Henry Hyde, Gigi's would-be maimer, had been arrested two days later on unrelated charges. Apparently he was so desperate for fresh funds that he'd attempted to poison his widowed aunt for the few hundred pounds promised to him in her will. He died while imprisoned.
Lord Tremaine listened intently. She couldn't tell by his solemn eyes whether he was disgusted or saddened. She regretted her candor already. What good did it do to burden him with all this ugly history?
“Please wait here,” he said. “I'll be only a minute.”
He returned, leading his horse behind him. For such a tall man, he moved with an easy grace, his leisurely seeming gait eating up the distance swiftly. His long riding boots reached halfway up his thighs. She had to exercise considerable restraint to not follow the lines of his fawn trousers and stare where she shouldn't.
“Will you walk a little with me?” he asked, with great solicitude that told her nothing.
“Certainly.” She didn't understand what he wanted, but it mattered not. She would do almost anything with him, up to and including forfeiting her virginity, if he but asked, with or without a nuptial contract.
Since meeting him, every morning she woke up with a sweet, wrenching pain in her heart—the joy and overwhelming terror of being in love—not knowing how she would get through the day without him, not knowing how she would ever survive another encounter with him.
The land rose and flattened into a meadow, gray and yellow in winter, densely wooded to either side. They walked until they came to a weathered hitching post that hadn't been used in years. There Lord Tremaine stopped, tied the horse, and removed its saddlery, setting everything carefully down on the ground.
“What are you doing?” she asked, beginning to be suspicious. “Is anyone going to ride bareback?”
“Come closer,” he requested. “I want you to watch me.”
As if she could do anything else while he was near.
He looked into the stallion's eyes and ears, ran his hands down the horse's legs, and raised and inspected each hoof in turn. “We really should sell him,” he said. “Carrington had a good eye for horseflesh, too good for his finances.”
He picked up the saddle pad, smoothed it, and settled it on the horse's back. Then he placed the stirrup irons over the back of the saddle and folded the girth strap up so that neither would hit the horse while the saddle was being mounted. Only then did he lift the saddle high and set it down on the horse, as softly as he would place an infant in its bassinet, sitting the cantle just slightly high on the withers, so that as the rider swung into the saddle it would slide down into position while keeping the horse's coat in the correct orientation.
She was amazed. She'd never seen gentlemen do anything more physically demanding than lifting a shooting rifle. Yet here he was, performing a groom's work as if he'd done it hundreds of times before. There was a neatness to his motions, an efficiency, every task completed quickly, attentively, and well. She was beginning to understand his poise—it was more than inborn confidence, it was also knowledge and experience.
“Come feel the girth,” he commanded her.
She complied. The strap was strong and in good repair. He made her test the billet straps too and verify with her own eyes that everything had been properly fastened to the saddle. Only then did he buckle and tighten the girth, making sure that he didn't cinch the horse too tight, that he could slip his fingers between the girth and the horse's belly. She stared at his hands, so capable, skillful, dexterous—and impossibly erotic in those supple, close-fitting black leather gloves.
He stood by the stallion's head and had it raise each of its forelegs, to settle the saddle and smooth out wrinkles in the pad. When he was at last satisfied that the horse was properly saddled, he rebridled it too, so that she could see every precaution had been taken, every procedure impeccably observed.
“You know what I want you to do, don't you?” he said with a small smile. “You are not afraid of horses. You are afraid of people wishing you harm.”
She shrugged. “What's the difference?”