With many kisses, their liaison did eventually come to its end. “Even lovers must part,” he told her. Escorting her down to the door by candlelight, he untied the stallion, held out the reins.
She didn’t take them. “But we haven’t a need to part,” she insisted. “Father will give us his blessing, I know it, and then we’ll be married, I’d—”
“Go back to the house.” It’d changed somehow, that expression of contentment on his face. He was angry now. With something like a scowl, he looked away, repeated his request that she take Khali and ride out alone. “Think not about this night,” he said, and before she could argue, he’d boosted her into the saddle, then disappeared through the tower’s door.
She scarcely believed what had happened. In bliss and bewilderment, she caught up the stallion’s reins, pushed the horse hard to a hammering gallop. Think not about it? How could she not? She’d dwell upon this night, relive it a thousand times from beneath her sheets until the maids had broken down her bedroom door! She’d shout the news to the stable boys, to old Scott in the hallway, to anyone who crossed her path—that she’d found her heart’s beating desire, the twin to her emotional soul, and he was not Christian Hallett!