How strange.
I can’t go back to sleep, so I get dressed early and head to the dining room for breakfast. I expect to find it empty, so I’m unpleasantly surprised to find Eleanor already there.
She nods at me from the head of the table.
“Good morning,” I tell her politely as I sit down.
“Is it?” she butters her croissant. I’m not surprised. Honestly, I would expect nothing less from Eleanor than her questioning how good a day will be before it even happens yet.
Before I can think of a good answer, Dare’s voice fills the room.
“Good morning.” He’s got a baritone voice. I soak in it before I answer.
“Is it?”
I keep my voice droll, and Dare lifts an eyebrow as he sits across from me, in the place designated to him by Eleanor.
“Maybe it will be,” he tells me. “Who knows?”
When I look at him now, I don’t just see his chiseled jaw and handsome face. I see forbidden fruit. Someone I love, but someone I know I shouldn’t…for reasons unknown.
That boy will be your ruin.
Lord have mercy. I take a bite of fruit, trying not to dwell on how he’s been in my dreams lately. No one needs to know that but me.
He sips at coffee and Eleanor surprises us by addressing him.
“Have you been riding lately, Adair?”
Dare slowly turns his gaze toward her, very obviously reluctant.
“No, it’s never been my cup of tea. Why?”
She stares down her nose disapprovingly at him.
“Your mother liked for you to ride.”
Dare swallows his coffee and fixes his dark gaze grimly on the Savage matriarch.
“No, Richard liked for me to ride. My mother liked for us to please him.”
He sounds disgusted by that, and by my uncle, too. It sends my thoughts spiraling. What exactly did Richard do to him?
“Well, either way. I know that Calla doesn’t know how to ride, and I’d like for you to teach her. Educated young ladies should have that skill.”
I practically swallow my grape whole.
“That won’t be necessary,” I choke. “I don’t need to learn.”
“Of course you do,” Eleanor counters, and I can see that there will be no arguing.
She stands up and pushes her chair back, and the conversation is over. Clearly, I’ll learn to ride and Finn won’t, because that’s how Eleanor wants it.
What Eleanor wants, Eleanor gets.
This is something I’m learning hard and fast.
Dare stares at me, humor on his lips and I can’t decide what he finds funny. That I have to spend time with him, or that I’m controlled by Eleanor, just like everyone else.
“We might as well start this morning,” he offers, taking a bite of toast and jam. He inadvertently smears just a bit on his lip, and the tiniest part of me wants to wipe it off for him, but I resist, of course, because he’s an ass.
“Fine,” I say instead, managing to sound bored and annoyed.
Because I am.
I won’t let him affect me. I won’t.
It’s something I’m still repeating to myself as Dare helps me into the English saddle thirty minutes later. My butt is ungracefully shoved in his face and there’s nothing ladylike about me as I kerplunk into the saddle. There’s no saddle horn to grab so I’m unceremoniously awkward as I struggle to right myself.
“The most important thing is to have balance,” Dare eyes me doubtfully as I sprawl on top of the massive animal. “Lightly squeeze the horse with your thighs. Pretend it’s me, Cal.”
Heat flares through me and I look away, trying not to remember what it felt like to be with him, to have him hover above me in the night.
My stomach flutters and Dare’s lip twitches, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.