Chapter Six
“You are going to the stables? In this weather?”
Molly’s tone suggested Fiona had announced an intention to sail for the Americas in a teacup.
“The rain has ceased.” Fiona fastened the borrowed cloak about her shoulders—one retrieved from the castle stores after her own had been lost in the accident—and reached for her gloves.
“The sun is attempting an appearance. And I have been confined indoors for nearly a fortnight. I require fresh air.”
“Fresh mud, more like. The grounds are a swamp, miss.”
“Then I shall traverse it with fortitude.” Fiona adjusted a stray curl beneath her bonnet. “I find I am in need of movement.”
Molly sighed the sigh of a woman long acquainted with futile protest. “Shall I accompany you?”
“There is no need. I am merely taking a turn about the grounds. I shall return before tea.”
Before tea. Before four o’clock.
Before she would sit opposite Christian in the yellow parlour and pretend she did not still feel the phantom imprint of his mouth along her throat, the memory of his thigh pressing between hers, the fierce restraint in his hands.
They had taken tea together each afternoon since the library. Perfectly civil. Perfectly correct. Mrs Blackley’s shortbread. The condition of the roads. Crop yields. Safe topics for the greater part, carefully managed.
A respectable span of carpet between their chairs.
It was intolerable.
He looked at her when he thought she did not notice. She would feel it first—the weight of his gaze—before catching him in the act. Heat, swiftly shuttered. Longing, masked by polite discussion of barley yields.
He was restraining himself. She knew it. He was attempting to be noble.
Some treacherous part of her wished to overturn the tea table and climb into his lap simply to see how quickly that restraint would fracture.
She had not done so.
She was a lady.
But she had thought about it.
Frequently.
***
The grounds of Thornwick were precisely as Molly had warned—a treacherous expanse of softened earth and standing water. Fiona navigated the gravel paths carefully, grateful for the sturdy half-boots lent by a sympathetic maid.
The gardens bore the faded dignity of former grandeur. Rose bushes that would bloom gloriously in summer. Hedges once shaped into exacting geometry. A fountain now silent and softened by moss.
Everything spoke of neglect endured with quiet endurance.
Like its master.
The stables stood at the far edge of the property—a long stone building, slate-roofed and solid. As she approached, she heard the sounds within: the stamp of hooves, the restless snort of a horse, and a low murmur of masculine reassurance.
She paused just inside the doorway, allowing her eyes to adjust.
The Duke stood in the central aisle with his back to her.
He had removed his coat. Of course he had.
The man seemed incapable of remaining fully dressed when she encountered him unexpectedly.
His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms roped with muscle.
His dark hair hung loose about his shoulders, and all his attention was fixed upon the animal before him.
The horse was magnificent. A stallion, coal-black and enormous, with wild eyes and a mouth that foamed around the bit. It stamped and snorted, tossing its head, clearly unhappy with its confinement—but Christian stood before it without a trace of fear.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy. I know.”
The horse stamped.
“You were not handled kindly.” His voice—softer than she had ever heard it—was steady and patient. “You were taught that hands mean pain. But not mine.”
He extended his palm slowly, offering the horse time to withdraw. When contact was finally made, the animal trembled—but did not bolt.
“There,” he said quietly. “You are safe.”
Fiona’s throat tightened.
This was something intimate. Unobserved. Unperformed.
This man—who named himself beast, who believed himself unfit for companionship—stood before a frightened creature and offered only gentleness.
The stallion’s breathing steadied. Its ears lowered. When Christian produced an apple and held it flat upon his palm, the animal accepted it with surprising delicacy.
“Good lad,” he murmured. “We shall restore your manners yet.”
“I suspect he has a promising tutor.”
Christian turned sharply.
Fiona smiled from the stable entrance, though her pulse had quickened at the sight of him—sleeves rolled, hair wild, that unguarded tenderness still lingering in his expression.
“Miss Hart.” He straightened instinctively, as though recalling himself. “I did not hear you approach.”
“You were engaged.” She stepped inside, inhaling the mingled scents of hay and leather. “Who is he?”
“Prometheus.” Christian ran a hand along the stallion’s neck. “He belonged to a neighbour who believes discipline is best delivered through force. I relieved him of the animal last month.”
“Relieved?”
“Purchased,” he amended dryly. “For more than my steward believes sensible.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “I appear to have a weakness for damaged creatures.”
“I had observed as much.”
His gaze flickered to hers.
“You… You should not be resting.”
“I should be many things,” she replied lightly. “Resting. Returning to Whitby. Preparing to resume my former life. And yet, here I am.”
He opened his mouth to reply—
Prometheus reared.
The movement was explosive. A crash of hooves, a scream of equine panic.
Fiona stumbled backwards, but not quickly enough.
Those massive hooves sliced through the air toward her, and she had time for one breathless thought—this is going to hurt—before a wall of muscle slammed into her from the side.
Christian.
He seized her around the waist and spun, placing himself squarely between her and the flailing hooves. She felt the impact jolt through him as one struck his shoulder. He grunted—and then they were falling, tumbling into an empty stall in a scattering of straw.
For a moment, there was only breath and impact and the echo of hooves.
Then stillness.
Fiona became aware, all at once, of the rapid thunder of her heart—and of Christian’s body shielding hers.
He had braced himself on his forearms to avoid crushing her, but their bodies aligned from chest to hip. His legs tangled with hers. His hair fell forward, half-veiling them from the world.
His breath was warm against her cheek.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was rough with urgency. “Fiona—”
“I am fine.” She wasn’t sure that was true—her heart was doing something extremely concerning, and her ability to think had apparently abandoned her entirely—but she seemed to have all her limbs, which was the important thing. “You—your shoulder—”
“A graze. Nothing more.” He started to push himself up, and she did something utterly unforgivable.
She grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down.
“Fiona.” Her name was warning and plea intertwined. His arms trembled with restraint. “We cannot.”
“You told me you wished to offer me more. That you would wait for the proper moment.”
“Yes.”
She slid her hands from his collar to his chest, feeling the solid heat of him beneath linen. “And when will that moment arrive? When the roads clear and I depart? When I am safely married to someone who has never once made my pulse falter?”
“Do not—”
“I am not asking for recklessness.” Her voice softened. “I am asking you to stop enduring me as though I am a temptation to be survived. Be with me, Christian. Here. Now. Without apology.”
He stared down at her, eyes dark in the dim stable light.
“You deserve—”
“I deserve the man who just threw himself between me and a rearing horse.” Her voice trembled despite her resolve. “I deserve the man who speaks to frightened creatures as though they are worth saving. I deserve you—if you will only allow it.”
Something shifted behind his gaze—something fragile yielding.
He lowered his head and kissed her—slowly this time, tenderly, as though she were something precious he feared to mishandle. His lips moved against hers with aching gentleness, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, for this was somehow more devastating than passion.
This was not hunger.
This was a man daring to hope.
She kissed him back with equal care, one hand rising to cup his jaw while the other remained splayed against his heart.
She felt the moment he softened into her—the tension easing from his shoulders, his weight settling more fully against her—and she welcomed it.
Welcomed him. Opened herself to whatever he was brave enough to offer.
His mouth traced a path along her jaw, down the slender column of her throat, pressing lingering kisses against the rapid beat of her pulse. She gasped softly, arching beneath him. His hands cradled her head, fingers threading through her hair, and the sweetness of it nearly undid her.
“I do not know how to do this,” he murmured against her skin. “I do not know how to be what you require.”
“You already are.”
“I am broken. Damaged. I have lived too long in solitude—”
“Then let me teach you.” She drew his face upward, compelling him to meet her gaze. “Let me show you what it is to be wanted. To be touched without fear. To be—”
She faltered. The word hovered between them, too large, too unguarded.
Christian’s breath caught.
“Fiona.” Her name left him ragged. “If you—if we—”
The stable door flew open with a crash.
“Your Grace! Your Grace—there’s word from the village—”
Christian moved so fast that Fiona barely registered the transition. One moment, he was pressed against her in the straw; the next, he was on his feet, positioning himself between her and the doorway, his expression thunderous.
Thomas, the footman, stood frozen in the entrance, his eyes wide.
“I—I beg your pardon, Your Grace, I did not realise—that is to say—”
“What word?” Christian’s voice was cold enough to cut.
“The bridge, Your Grace. They’ve finished the repairs. The road to Whitby is passable again.”
Silence fell heavily.
Fiona pushed herself upright, brushing straw from her hair with fingers that felt oddly numb. The road was open. She could leave. She ought to leave—return to her aunt, to the sensible shape of her former life.
She looked at Christian.
He stood rigid, back to her, hands clenched at his sides.
“Thank you, Thomas,” he said evenly. “That will be all.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I’m sorry, Your Grace. I didn’t mean to—”
“Leave.”
Thomas fled.
The stable quieted. Prometheus shifted in his stall. A pigeon stirred in the rafters.
“The roads are clear,” Christian said at last, without turning.
“So it would seem.”
“You may return to your aunt. Resume your life.”
“I may.” She rose slowly, smoothing her skirts. “Is that what you wish?”
A long pause.
When he turned, his face was composed—but she saw the fracture lines beneath it. Fear. Longing. The fragile edge of hope.
“What I wish,” he said carefully, “has never mattered.”
“It matters to me.”
He closed his eyes. She watched the struggle move across his features—habit and hope contending in silence, the old instinct to withdraw battling something far braver.
When he opened them again, there was a shift in his expression. Something that looked like resolve.
“Stay.”
The word was barely a whisper.
“What?”
“Stay.” He crossed to her and took her hands, his grip warm and steady. “Not indefinitely—I have no right to ask that. But a few days more. Long enough for us to understand what this is. What we might be.”
Her heart pounded so fiercely she wondered that he did not feel it through her gloves.
“And if we discover it is something… more?”
“Then we shall confront it honestly.” His thumbs traced slow circles over her knuckles. “I promise nothing grand. Only that I will not retreat. That I will not hide from you. That I will allow you to see me as I am—and decide whether you can endure it.”
“I already know I can.”
“You have seen only fragments,” he said quietly. “Not my silences. Not the days I withdraw into myself. Not the less agreeable parts of my temperament.”
“I have been here a fortnight.”
“You have been a guest.”
“Then allow me to be something more.”
She rose slightly and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Let me choose you, Christian.”
He exhaled—a long, unsteady breath, as though releasing years of practised solitude.
“Very well.” His voice was rough with feeling. “Stay. Choose me. And we shall see where it leads.”
She smiled against his lips.
“I believe,” she murmured, “it is already leading us somewhere rather extraordinary.”