Page 52 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

He wasn’t the first good-looking gentleman she’d ever seen.

No, she thought wryly. Only the most good-looking one.

At least, he seemed so to her.

It was a strange alchemy. Something about him that satisfied her sensibilities in every regard. No other gentleman had affected her thus. With most, she was bored to sobs in the first ten minutes.

“Not at all,” she said, collecting herself. “I was only seeing my brother off. He’s, er, gone to call on a neighbor.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie.

Charles caught hold of the door in one large black-gloved hand, relieving her of the weight of it. He held it open for her. “It’s getting colder out.”

“Yes. Isn’t it lovely?” Exiting the house, she made her way down the snow-covered front steps. The frigid air numbed her cheeks, making it hurt to smile. She smiled nonetheless. “I adore this time of year almost as much as I enjoy the spring and summer.”

“Despite the frost and the damp?”

“Despite everything.” She thrust her hands into the long sleeves of her mantle. “The stable is just around the corner. It will be warmer there.”

Charles walked alongside her, his boots crunching on the gravel. “How is your horse?”

“Much improved. Jonas brought him home from Tiverton yesterday. Three nights confined to a loose box at the White Horse, coupled with thrice-daily hoof soakings, have all but cured him. He’s to rest another week here at Beasley before I ride him again.”

“A wise course.”

“Indeed. I daren’t risk laming him. One can’t be too careful with a horse’s hooves. It’s like the proverb says: ‘But for a hoof the kingdom was lost.’ Or something like that.”

A shadow of amusement edged Charles’s mouth, but he didn’t correct her, though she knew she’d misquoted.

Kate liked him all the better for it.

There was nothing so tedious as a gentleman who was always correcting a lady. Men who set themselves up as experts, offering unsolicited advice, opinions, and masculine guidance to women who never asked them for it in the first place.

She led him into the expansive stone stable block where her maternal grandfather, the late Squire Honeywell, had once housed his famous bloodstock. Straw was scattered about the floor, the air warm from the bodies of the lazily dozing horses in the long rows of loose boxes.

“Here,” she said, taking him to Ember’s box. “You can see for yourself.”

The big bay gelding stuck his head out. His dark eyes glimmered with irrepressible curiosity.

Charles stroked Ember’s neck. “He’s a handsome fellow.”

“Yes, he is.” But Kate wasn’t looking at Ember. She was looking at Charles—at the strong line of his profile and the sensitive glint in his somber gaze as he examined her horse.

She moistened her lips to speak. The words wouldn’t come. Not the right ones, anyway. She was reduced to scratching Ember’s velvety nose in uncharacteristic silence.

It wasn’t like her to be reticent with a gentleman. But Charles Heywood wasn’t just any man. He was the fellow she’d chosen all on her own. The one she’d pursued and was very near to catching.

Or so she hoped.

It wouldn’t do to say the wrong thing. One ill-spoken phrase—one clumsy misstep—and she’d ruin everything. And then where would she be? Back on the marriage mart again, amid the same dreary crop of lords and sirs who had paid court to her during her debut.

A dispiriting prospect.

It emboldened her to find her voice.

Charles spoke before she could do so. “By the way,” he said in an offhand manner, “my sister doesn’t eat animal flesh.”

Kate’s brows lifted. It seemed an odd non sequitur. “Doesn’t she?”