Chapter 10 #2
“I think this door is wedged against the ground,” Georgia said, shifting from her position atop him. Her thigh slid over his, and she paused—just long enough to feel the hard length beneath her. Her breath caught, and Keaton felt a flush creep up his neck. She moved quickly after that.
Perhaps it was providence. It prevented us from making what would have been a grave mistake. Prevented me from becoming vulnerable to an attachment.
Carefully, he began adjusting his position until he could stand on the tilted door of the carriage. It took a few minutes for strong hands to help him climb out of the carriage after Georgia.
“What happened?” he snapped, not knowing where his man was and therefore where to look.
“A wheel collapsed on a discarded piece of metal. It happened just on the bend in the road and the axle snapped, leavin’ us on our side, Your Grace,” came the voice of his driver from the right.
“You have a very nasty bump on your head. What is your name?” Georgia asked.
“His name does not matter,” Keaton said irritably.
He was alone with only voices to tell him who stood where. It left him feeling exposed. He felt a soft hand slip into his, and Georgia's perfume wafted closer.
“Some men came to help, they are righting the carriage, and they helped get us out,” she said, then whispered, “to your left, two of the clock where I am standing at twelve.”
Keaton could not deny her intelligence or empathy. She seemed to know precisely what would assuage him. He turned in the direction she had given him.
“My thanks to you. We are most grateful. The carriage is wrecked, I assume?”
“It is, Your Grace,” the driver confirmed.
“The horses?”
“Both well, Your Grace, a bit shaken but unharmed.”
“Unhitch them. You take one and we will take the other,” Keaton ordered.
It took a few minutes to get the horses unhitched from the carriage. Keaton vaulted into the saddle using one of the carriage wheels to boost himself.
“Georgia,” he said, offering his hand.
He felt her accept it and then lifted her effortlessly to the horse's back.
“I have never ridden bareback before,” she said by his ear.
“And I have not ridden since I lost my sight. But I will not be in control. You will.”
He gathered the reins, which had been recovered from the carriage's bridle as though he meant to steer the animal. Georgia sat before him, in what would have been side-saddle had there been a saddle.
“Order the driver to go back to Westvale, collect some of the male servants, and come back here in the trap to recover the carriage,” he said quietly to Georgia, “I do not know where he stands.”
Georgia gave the orders, and Keaton gritted his teeth against the need to delegate. He felt that all must have been watching him. He wanted to be somewhere he knew and knew well. He needed to be back in control.
“Do you know the way?” he asked Georgia as they set off.
She laughed. “I do not. Do you know where we are in order to give me directions?”
“I... do not.”
For a moment, Keaton was silent. Then the humor of the situation overwhelmed him.
He smiled first. Heard the sounds of merriment coming from Georgia, and his smile became a laugh, which became a guffaw.
It bubbled out of him, refusing to be denied or suppressed.
Georgia's laughter was delicate and musical but sounded just as heartfelt.
Without thinking, he tightened his hold on her. He felt secure on the stallion, holding on with his thighs, but there was an instinct to keep her close, to hold on tightly. She patted his hand, murmuring to the horse as it trotted along.
“We gave in to weakness,” Keaton said presently, addressing what had been hanging in the air between them since they escaped the carriage. “It will not happen again.”
“We did nothing wrong. We are husband and wife,” Georgia put in reasonably.
“In name only, as we agreed.”
“Yes, I will ensure I give no cause for it to happen again.”
“Nor I. Most assuredly.”
“Was it a weakness, though? I thought it was just desire,” she said after a moment of riding in silence.
“They are one and the same.”
“Why?”
“Whatever do you mean, why? It is self-evident.”
“Apparently not, or I would not have asked. Put your thorns away, Keaton,” she rebuked.
“Well, I see it as self-evident. It results in the forming of attachments that hold one back.”
Georgia sighed. “We fundamentally disagree then. Speaking as someone who has nothing except what my Aunt and Uncle have given me, attachments have been everything to me. My cousin Amelia is one of my closest friends, and I value her enormously.”
Keaton could smell livestock and grass. Birdsong of a kind not heard in the thickest parts of the city reached him. He tilted his head back, seeking the warmth of the sun. From that, he judged direction.
We head north, which is correct. Now, if I hear the sound of geese, I will know we are near.
“Are we heading in the right direction?” Georgia asked just as Keaton detected the raucous honk of a gaggle of geese.
“Yes, those gray geese congregate on the mere to the south of Westvale,” he answered.
That comforting sound grew louder, and they soon arrived home. Keaton felt himself relax as familiar noises reached him. He sprang down, helped Georgia to the grounds, and then orientated himself from memory.
“I will dine in my rooms,” she declared.
Keaton did not reply but felt her absence sharply as he listened to her footsteps across the stable yard cobbles.
Carefully, he pivoted and guided the stallion to the stables, tracing his hand along the stone wall as a guide.
The door was open, and the smell of straw and horse told him he had reached his destination.
The sound of hay being forked and thrown told him a stablehand was at work in one of the stalls.
“I will unsaddle and brush him down,” he announced, receiving an acknowledgement from the lad before work resumed.
With ease, he took the horse to an empty stall and began going through the ritual of unsaddling and currying the animal. It allowed him to examine his thoughts, losing himself in the mindless routine.
His desire for Georgia was undeniable. He did not need to be able to see her to know that he was attracted to her.
In fact, his blindness made that attraction even more powerful.
He could imagine her beauty and embellish the evidence of his other senses so that she became a goddess in his imagination.
“Nephew,” Edric called out as he entered from a side door on the house’s side, “what is happening? Why were you riding?”
“Uncle, I did not expect you,” Keaton announced.
“I came to invite the two of you to Swinthorpe for dinner. Has something happened?”
“An accident on the road. We are unharmed individually.”
There was no trace of Georgia's perfume in the air, nor any sound of her. Keaton could have asked his uncle if she were still within earshot, but his pride in his own skills would not allow it.
“Individually?” Edric asked in confusion.
“I fear as a married couple, we may have suffered a mortal blow.”