Page 47 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

Theodore turned the gelding a little. “We should turn for home. The light goes early off the ridge.”

“That sounds very practical.”

“It is practical.”

“And not at all an attempt to escape the conversation?”

He glanced at her. “Those are often the same thing.”

Her smile returned, faint and unwilling. “I shall remember that, Your Grace.”

They turned the horses down off the high ground and rode along the riverside, the track soft beneath the hooves and the valley dimming by degrees around them. For a while the only sound was the steady rhythm of the horses, but the silence no longer felt like a wall built between them. It had altered into something less hostile, something one might cross if one chose the right moment and did not look too eager.

As the home farm came into view, Ellen gathered the mare more neatly beneath her.

“You need not escort me. I shall not fall off between here and the stable.”

“Escort is too grand a word for two horses traveling the same track.”

“That is the most that can be said for a great many matrimonies, I am given to understand.”

Theodore glanced at her. “You have been talking to my aunt.”

“Constantly,” Ellen said, with a composure that made the admission almost grand. “She is the best company in the house, and I have told her so.”

“That was unwise.”

“Was it?”

“She is the best company in England, and you must on no account tell her that. It is the single circumstance keeping her within the bounds of polite society.”

Ellen laughed.

It came low and surprised out of her, as though she had not meant to give him the sound and could not take it back.

Theodore looked over before he could stop himself.

The laugh faded.

For one awkward heartbeat they simply looked at one another.

Ellen’s cheeks colored first.

Theodore turned back to the track with suspicious promptness.

Neither of them spoke for several moments.

Then Ellen said lightly, “You looked.”

Theodore nearly smiled. “At what?”

“At me laughing.”

“I was ensuring you had not fallen off.”

“While seated on the horse?”

“It seemed prudent to verify.”