Chapter 15 Rhys
Rhys
Magellan’s fall brought everyone running.
Rhys reached her first. They’d been quarreling.
He had caused the accident. His anger. His accusations.
So bloody stupid of him and badly done. It was clear from the start she wasn’t skilled in the saddle, though she had said nothing.
And he’d purposefully not challenged her since Magellan refused to offer up anything about herself.
She was an absolute mystery. And like a buffoon he had confessed the machinations behind the house party and then accused her of trying to get him to court her.
When they were together, he found himself saying exactly what was on his mind, and now it might have killed her!
When he saw the blood, his heart stopped and he almost passed out. Then she opened her eyes and he expelled the breath he’d been holding, trying his best to remain upright.
“Oh dear God, can you move?” he asked anxiously. He’d heard of riders becoming paralyzed after a fall. He didn’t understand why women fell from their horses so much more frequently than men.
When she nodded she could, his relief was so profound it caused him to blink back the surprising urge to cry. Everyone was watching them. This was an unmitigated disaster.
He helped her to sit up. She was dazed and still in shock.
Vivianne had turned back to help, wanting to cancel the picnic and return with them, but Rhys encouraged them to go on.
To make matters worse, in the midst of the chaos, Lady Fauna slipped off her horse too, injuring her ankle, and was squawking on the ground like a chicken.
Rhys called to one of the footmen accompanying them to go help her.
He might be ruining his chances with the Winslow family, but right now, he simply did not care.
He lifted Magellan carefully and carried her to his horse.
“Grab on to the saddle,” he instructed, hefting her up and then mounting behind her.
Without a word he settled her across his lap and wrapped his arms around her.
Wincing, she leaned back against his chest and closed her eyes.
They headed to the house at a slow pace with Mudcake trailing docilely behind.
He tried to ignore the intimate feeling of her in his arms and settled his thoughts.
She was wounded, and he was assisting her in a time of need. Nothing more.
He tried to focus on the matter at hand. “Have you never ridden before?”
Her silence was her answer. He pursed his lips and reined in his urge to lecture her.
Instead, he said, “Forgive me for quarrelling. I will not press you further on your circumstance, and I will translate the diary for you. But then you will tell me everything?” he asked, his words quiet but firm.
He was offering a truce and more time to keep her secrets.
“Yes. Thank you,” she whispered.
They finished the ride back without speaking, and Rhys wondered what heavy burden she must be carrying. What secrets were so unspeakable that she had to pretend she could not remember herself?
When they reached the stables, there was a flurry to help when the groomsmen realized she had been in a riding accident. Rhys insisted on carrying her to her room.
“Vhat has happened?” His mother and her brigade of maids met them in the entryway and followed behind him in a fretful parade.
Magellan’s cheek was scraped, and she had a cut on her neck. When Rhys reached her room and laid her on the bed, she winced again in pain, grabbing at her right side.
“Fetch the surgeon,” he ordered.
“The surgeon?” Magellan sat up horrified and grimaced again at the sudden movement. “Rhys, I’m not dying. It was just a little fall.”
“A little fall? You were hurled through the air by your horse! You’re bleeding.” He waved a hand over her tattered riding habit. “He must inspect you,” he said, praying an actual blush was not blooming on his cheeks.
“I don’t want to be inspected. I’m fine.” Magellan lay back on the bed and covered her eyes with her arm. Her whole body began to shake.
Was she . . . was she laughing?
Rhys could only blink, utterly confused and captivated at the same time. “What is so funny, Miss Brighton? You’re bleeding and hurt.”
“She is embarrassed, Rhys,” his mother said. “You must leave.” She was already ordering a water basin brought with willow bark and healing herbs and a hot bath be readied.
“We’ll tend to your lady,” Polly teased him.
His lady?
Well.
Now it was Magellan’s turn for her cheeks to color. She lowered her arm and looked at him. They stared at each other a suspended moment.
Iktsuarpok was the Inuit word for the sensation of obsessively waiting at the window in anticipation for someone to arrive.
Rhys felt like he had been waiting for something or someone for years, and now she was here.
Their agreement she would tell him the truth once they were finished with the diary hung in the air between them.
He turned and left the room without another word.
He strode straight down to the library, even though the last thing he had time for was to translate Old English.
He really should be rejoining the house party at the lake.
He really should repair the damage he’d done by turning his back on Lady Fauna.
But translate Old English was precisely what he was going to do.
Not only for Magellan and their agreement, but for the promise he had made to his father.
The sooner he made good on it, the sooner Magellan would tell him the truth and the sooner he could be done with this wild infatuation for her that was burgeoning inside him.
However, as he began to read, all those thoughts fell away and he sat forward in disbelief. For Gwynedd had indeed broken the Druids’ renowned shroud of secrecy and written about England’s most ancient history. She had written about Stonehenge.