Page 28 of A Portrait of Love

“You leaned over a cliff.” She didn’t even recognize her own voice, which was high and shrill.

He gave a dismissive shrug that made her hands ache to hit him. “You’re a bit too dramatic, Miss Keyes. But I suppose that is all part of the artistic temperament—drama and such.”

“No,” she snapped, the staccato sharpness making him jolt. “I am not at all dramatic. You could ask anyone who knows me. I am the calmest person I know. I am staid, collected, some have even called me phlegmatic”

“You?” His disbelieving gaze flickered back to where he’d taken her sketchbook and she’d behaved like a lunatic.

Her cheeks blazed at the memory and Honey snatched the feather from his outstretched hand and spun around. “I’m leaving.” She grabbed her satchel without stopping and marched toward where the horses stood grazing.

She was fumbling with the straps that held her bag to her saddle when he stopped beside her and lifted it from her hands.

“Here, let me. You are not doing it properly. And you’re squashing your fetching feather. Would you like me to—”

“No.” She flinched away and jammed the feather into her satchel before thrusting the bag into his hands, tapping her toe while he secured it.

When he’d finished, he turned to her, his face so expressionless it was an expression: that of a man forced to deal with an irrational female. She felt a growl building deep in her chest.

“Ready?”

She lifted a foot, preparing to put it in his cupped hands. Instead, his hands slid around her waist and he picked her up. Yes, he lifted eleven stone as though it were nothing.

He didn’t toss her or drop her like a sack of oats, he placed her gently on the saddle like one set a delicate object on a high shelf; it was a demonstration of physical power that left her breathless.

He also held her waist a bit too long before releasing her, the heat and strength of his fingers burning through the layers of cloth and sending more distracting messages to her already raddled brain.

The Simon of fourteen years ago would never have touched her so casually or intimately. This Simon was not the kind, sweet gentleman from her past. Honey questioned whether he was a gentleman, at all.

Rather than leading the horse toward one of the rocks to mount he held the reins lightly in one hand along with the pommel and then flung himself into his saddle in a graceful motion.

She was still staring when he looked over at her, his eyebrows arched. “What is it?”

“I’ve never seen anyone mount that way.”

He gave a careless shrug. “It’s amazing how dodging bullets can motivate one to acquire such skills.” He gestured for her to precede him and they rode the entire journey back to Whitcomb without exchanging a single word.

Chapter Eight

Her grace was not available when Honey presented herself at her chambers at precisely three o’clock.

“She is not feeling well today,” a diminutive, openly hostile servant told her, keeping Honey standing in the hallway while she did so.

“I see.” She hesitated, wondering whether to ask when the duchess would be ready.

“The duchess will send word when she is ready for you.”

The woman did not wait for a response before closing the door in her face.

“Miss Keyes?”

Honey turned to find Lady Rebecca hovering in front of another door down the long corridor, dressed as if she had just come in.

“Good afternoon, Lady Rebecca.”

“Did you just finish your sitting with Mama?” the girl asked, pulling off a pair of canary-yellow kid gloves.

“Her grace was not feeling well today.”

Lady Rebecca gave her a knowing look that made her appear older than her years. No doubt the girl was accustomed to her mother’s ways.