shrugged. “Within a few weeks. I still have some business here in England.”
A movement drew his eye back to Alexandra, and he found her stiff now, the smile fading from her face. “What kind of business?”
“Oh, various things. As manager of Somerhart, you must understand how tedious these matters can be.”
She watched him carefully for a moment, then seemed to blink away her suspicions. “Yes, but I don’t find the work tedious at all. I find it invigorating.”
He couldn’t help a disgusted grunt. “I would rather work the horses.”
“Well, we all have our passions, I suppose.”
His eyes locked with hers, seemed to draw the color back to her cheeks. “Aye,” he agreed finally, and wondered why she was becoming one of his.
Alex stepped into the dim morning light of the courtyard, announcing her arrival with a wistful sigh. She’d hung about in the breakfast room for almost an hour, straightening at every sound that filtered in from the hall. She’d even trailed about the library for a while, hoping to run into Collin Blackburn.
The man had disappeared early last night, staying no more than half an hour in the drawing room before murmuring his goodnights. He hadn’t appeared since.
Lucy claimed not to know where he’d hidden himself and had found her own words oddly amusing. Alexandra decided on a tour of the horse yard. At worst she’d walk off some tension. At best, she’d run into him.
Hurrying toward the stables, she chastised herself for this sudden tendre she’d developed. She hardly knew the man. And what he knew of her, he didn’t like.
The hazy light of the stable enfolded her as she stepped through the door, an apple held idly against her skirt. The golden dance of dust motes caught her eye first, then a slow movement in the closest stall…
Alex’s muscles locked, her heart stopped beating, her mind creaked to a shuddering halt. Here he was. Collin Blackburn. Right under her nose and wearing nothing more than breeches and boots.
She devoured the sight of his naked back as he groomed a pitch-black horse. Muscles tightened and bunched and stretched as he brushed. Drops of sweat gathered like liquid crystals at his neck, then dripped in a warm slide down his spine, tracking a path to the waist of his tight gray breeches. She watched each drop dissolve into damp fabric.
Surely she’d never seen anything so lovely in her life. Her fingers curled into the palms of her hands and her lips went so dry she had to lick them. Oh, she’d seen men remove their shirts before, laborers and noblemen alike, but nothing had ever moved her like this. Nothing had set her nerves to a hum.
Blackburn crouched down and ran a careful hand over the stallion’s hind leg, checking for soreness. Alex thought of his hands running over her like that, and a frightening jolt of heat swept through her belly. Oh, God. Would that he’d check her for tender spots. He’d find them.
She must have made some small sound, must have sighed, because he was suddenly on his feet and spinning around to face her.
“Christ!” he barked, turning to jerk his shirt up from a stool and wrestle his arms into it. He stared at her as he buttoned it, eyes narrowing as the seconds passed.
She couldn’t speak, could only watch in sorrow as the muscles of his chest disappeared beneath white linen.
“What do you want?”
She blinked and met his eyes again, flushing with the thought of just what she wanted. “I…I want…”
Collin growled a low curse and grabbed his coat.
“I—” Her brain clanked back to working order as his body disappeared beneath too many layers of cloth. “Brinn! I brought an apple for my mare.”
He did not say a word, only put his tools away and shut the stall door before edging carefully past her toward the yard. “I must send a letter to my manager.”
“Such an urgent one?”
“Aye,” he threw over his shoulder.
“I thought we had reached a truce.” Her words slowed him to a halt, until he stood silent in the bright square of the door. “Mr. Blackburn?”
He turned, reluctance punctuating the movement. “Forgive me, Lady—”
“Call me Alexandra. We are very nearly cousins.”
He slanted a look at the door. “Very well. Alexandra. It is nothing to do with you. I’ve just remembered something important.”
“Your dislike of me?”
“Of course not.”
She stared at him, trying to read his shuttered face. He did not blink under her gaze, but his jaw softened and ceased to tic.
“It’s not that I dislike you.” The hard glint left his eyes and the silver began to warm to gray. “You are a very interesting woman.” And with that, he spun on his heel and left.
Alex huffed her outrage, growling out a foul name as the stable door swung shut and plunged her into twilight. But there was no true anger behind the curse. Indeed, the word sounded a great deal like a sigh, even to her own jaded ears.
A sigh, because Collin Blackburn liked her.
He could be as rude as he wanted, but she wasn’t some silly young girl who didn’t know when a man wanted her. He had come close to kissing her in her bedroom yesterday. She had wanted him to, had been surprisingly desperate for it, but he’d fled the room instead.
That moment had passed so quickly she’d begun to think it imagined. But just now…Oh, he’d been disturbed all right. Almost as disturbed as she. She wanted Collin Blackburn, and he wanted her.
It wasn’t that she thought it would be right to take a lover. No, it would certainly not be right. It would just be…lovely. A momentary joy. She’d lost so many friends that night in London, so many connections. And though she was satisfied, even happy with her life as it was now, she also felt very alone. And the great advantage of her fall from grace was that she could not fall again. She was free to take what risks she would, and Collin was undoubtedly a risk worth taking.
Interesting, he’d called her, as if she were a new animal. “Ha!” Alexandra huffed. Interesting indeed. He would find out just how interesting she could be. And how much trouble. They hadn’t named her The Errant Heiress for nothing.
Chapter 4
Collin adjusted the girth of Thor’s saddle and patted the stallion’s shoulder. He tried to quiet his mind to match the silence of the dawning day, the peace of the deserted stable. Only the soft shift and snort of horses disturbed the morning.
He’d slept badly last night and woke before dawn, restless and edgy with a need he refused to acknowledge. Even as he pushed the thought of that woman from his mind, Thor’s ears pricked, warning of an intruder.
“Collin!”
A heartfelt curse lurched to the tip of his tongue. He froze to gather his self-control, bit back the curse, and turned to look at her. “Lady Alexandra.”
“Just Alexandra, please. May I join you for a ride this morning?”
He tried to wither her with his glare, but her pretty face smiled back, undaunted. “I’m not out for a leisurely ride. Thor needs a good run today.”
“Wonderful.”
“You’ll have to keep up.”
Her eyes glinted, but she nodded and smiled.
Collin wracked his mind for a better excuse to leave her behind, but a drowsy stable boy hurried in, no doubt awakened by their voices, and led Alexandra’s mare from her stall.
He really couldn’t avoid riding with her