“Yours?”
Now was the time to take back his words. To explain he meant something else. “You heard me.” The notion of Malcolm—or any man—laying a finger on her filled him with a deadly rage.
He did not regret the words and yet he should not have said them. Should not feel them.
With a tight nod, he bade good night and left the room, before he said anything else he could not retract.
Chapter Eleven
A misty dawn peeked through the parted drapes as Grier hurriedly dressed in her riding habit, a fashionable burgundy velvet ensemble trimmed in violet fur. She paused long enough to roll her eyes at her reflection.
The sight of her attired thusly was ridiculous when she thought about herself a month ago in her small, thatched-roof cottage. A pang of longing for that simple abode and simple life consumed her. She quickly squashed the sentiment, reminding herself she had left because that life had suddenly ceased to be so simple.
No use longing for her trousers. She’d left them behind . . . along with everything else she used to be.
Lifting her chin at a determined angle, she coiled her plaited hair atop her head and hastily pinned the unruly mass in place, not caring if the wind made short work of her efforts. From the way it howled against the mullioned panes of glass, likely nothing she did would keep her hair tidy. She wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop her. The prospect of a solitary ride through the countryside was too great. Her efforts would have to suffice. She certainly wasn’t going to call a maid to attend to her hair at this early hour.
Even as she hurried to slip from the house before anyone else woke, her lips twisted in a smile at the unlikelihood. She’d learned that the aristocracy didn’t rouse before noon.
The prince flashed across her mind, an image of him wrapped in luxurious bedding, sheets tangled around his legs. Legs she had noticed appeared strikingly muscular in his trousers. Not what she would have imagined for a dandified prince.
She cringed and banished the too frequent image of him from her head. He would not cloud her thoughts this morning, casting a pall over her much-anticipated ride. He’d done that enough last night.
Rising from her dressing stool, she slipped quietly from the room.
Sev rode hard across the countryside. He lost track of time as the wind churned around him, tugging through his hair and chafing his cheeks. A soft predawn gray tinged the air, so he knew it was still early. The world breathed its quiet breath around him, and he reveled in it.
He felt alive, which was something unique considering that a little over a year ago he was on a battlefield soaked in his brother’s blood, certain that he, too, would be the next one cut down.
He shook off the bleak memory of that day when his world spun forever off course, when he no longer became the “spare” but the heir to a kingdom.
He was here for Gregor, so that his death was not in vain. Even more than that, he was here for every single one of his countrymen who died on a battlefield. He owed it to them to stick it out and bring home a bride who would help inject life back into Maldania. His own personal preferences mattered not at all.
For some reason, the image of Miss Hadley floated before him. Scowling, he bent low and kicked the horse faster, until both he and the stallion were winded and panting hard. When his mount became lathered, he pulled back on the reins.
At the crest of a hill, he pulled the beast to a halt, rubbing his neck. “Good lad,” he murmured. “Got you sweating even in this cold.”
Sitting back, he stared down at the picturesque landscape. Snow draped the forest-thick valley. Winter-withered greens and browns peeked out at him from the veil of white.
After sleeping in tents for several past winters now, he was quite immune to the cold. This time of year, one could see nothing save a blinding white blanket surrounding the palace. Even the bark of the trees was difficult to detect.
His thoughts drifted to his grandfather. At his age, he was not so unaffected by the elements, even snug in his bed within the palace. The winters were always the hardest. Gave him aches and pains that only worsened with every passing year. The old man had hung on this long, lasting through the war, but Sev could not expect him to last much longer.
Leaving Maldania, he’d determined to give his grandfather peace. To reassure him that not only was the war over and the country on the mend, but that the Maksimi line was secure upon the throne for a generation more.
That being the case, he needed to get the matter of finding an acceptable bride over and done. He’d hoped to return home before spring with a wife already increasing with his future heir.
And yet he had not approached the matter of finding a bride with the haste needed for that to happen. He released a pent-up breath as he faced the bitter truth. He was dragging his feet. It was time to tackle matrimony with all due speed. With fresh resolve, he turned his mount around, hesitating when he caught a flash of movement in the distance. Pausing, he squinted into the distance. A horse and rider streaked across a snow-dappled rise.
For a moment he marveled that anyone else should be up this early, but then his breath seized in his chest.
The rider was female. Even from his vantage he recognized the wild mane of auburn hair flowing loose in the wind. As he stared down at the distant figure riding hell-bent across the landscape, he knew no other female would take it upon herself to ride so early for a solitary ride.
It took him a moment to realize she rode too fast. He sucked in a breath. Evidently she’d lost control of the beast she rode, a stallion she had no business riding in the first place. Senseless female!
He pushed aside his questions of her intelligence. Now wasn’t the time to consider the ill-bred female’s reckless ways.
With a deep cry, he dug in his heels and sent his mount soaring down the hillside, snow and mud kicking up around him in great wet clods.
Bloody hell, she was fast. And she had a lengthy lead on him. He lost sight of her as she dove into thick trees. He followed, cringing inwardly, imagining he was going to have to peel her off one of the ancient oaks and carry her corpse back to the house. The thought spurred him on to a dangerous, breakneck pace, and he soon caught sight of her again. She flashed in and out of the trees ahead, a rich burgundy blur.
Her hair whipped in the air like a wild banner.
He shouted for her, but the sound was swallowed in the wind. The fierce air tore at his face and eyes, blurring his vision.
Icy wind stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly and hunkered low over his mount’s neck. The hooves of his stallion pounded the earth, and he felt the wet spray of snow and earth all the way up to his thighs as he careened down an incline, at last drawing abreast with her.
That’s when she saw him.
Her eyes flared wide in her expressive face. In that split instant he noted that the freckles on her nose seemed darker against her pale skin. She opened her mouth and shouted something indecipherable over the screech of wind and thundering of hooves.
She clutched her reins in her gloved hands and he quickly surmised that he wouldn’t be able to wrestle them from her grasp. She was undoubtedly too panicked to release that lifeline.
He could do only one thing, rash as it seemed. There was no other choice.
Releasing his own reins, he dove from his mount and across the air separating them. He snatched her up, mindful to wrap his arms around her. He managed to twist in the air, turning to take the brunt of the fall.
He hit the snow-covered earth with a jar. Stunned, he lay there for a moment, registering little beyond the thundering hooves vibrating the ground and fading away into the distance.
A sharp jab to the shoulder forced him to peel his head off the ground and look up—stare into the flushed face of a furious Miss Hadley.
“Holy hellfire!” She blew at several strands of auburn hair dangling riotously befo
re her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Are you mad? Is it your custom to go about tackling women down from their mounts?”
He gawked at her as she pushed back the wild fall of hair from her face and glared down at him, abruptly, achingly aware that every soft inch of her was draped over him. His mouth suddenly grew dry.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck—my neck!” she hotly corrected.
With a groan, he dropped his head back down on the earth, mindless of the icy-wet. The hat he wore was lost in his frenzied ride. “Is this the thanks I get for saving you?”
“Saving me? From what?”
Was she dim-witted? Had the fall knocked something loose in her head? “Your horse ran away with you.”
“What on earth makes you think that?”
He lifted his head back up to stare at her. “I saw you racing out of control—”
She made a disgusted sound and scrambled off him as if he were somehow contagious. “Don’t tell me you’re so antiquated you’ve never seen a woman ride before?”
He propped himself up on his elbows. “Indeed, I’ve not seen a woman ride sidesaddle at such a foolish speed.”
She smirked down at him, propped her hands on her hips. “You should see me ride astride then. I daresay you would be quiet impressed.”
Arrogant chit. He tried not to smile at her utter gall, reminding himself that he had nearly broken their necks while under a misapprehension, however reasonable a misapprehension it might have been.
Her smile slipped a bit when he unfolded himself to loom over her.
“You . . . ride astride?” No proper lady would do such a thing. It was too incredible.
At her nod, he blew out a deep breath. Was there no end to her astoundingly unseemly ways?
“I loathe the constraints of a riding habit,” she returned blithely. “When I ride, it’s usually astride. I only conceded this time having no wish to offend the duchess’s sensibilities.” She gestured at her figure to illustrate her very proper riding habit. He deliberately tried not to focus on how her riding habit hugged her curves. The mere notion of her in trousers sent a surge of heat in his blood. He scowled. As he couldn’t bed her and he most certainly couldn’t wed her, his attraction to such an unacceptable female was really becoming a nuisance.
“You’re quite the hoyden.”
Color flooded her already windburned cheeks. “Because I eschew the constraints imposed by men on ladies of Society?” She gave a small stamp of her booted foot, as if this were a sore subject with her. “Because I enjoy living and not being stuck indoors browsing fashion plates and working on needlepoint?” With a growl of what he assumed was frustration, she whirled in a circle, scanning the countryside. “Holy hellfire! Thanks to you our mounts are probably already back in the stables.”
“Again, I’m struggling to see how this is my fault.”
Without another word or glance for him, she started marching away with long, sure strides.
He stood still for some moments, amazed as he watched her retreat. She was without a doubt the most singular female he had ever encountered. She wasn’t impressed by him or daunted. Most females tittered in his presence, in awe of either his title or his form. He towered over most gentlemen with their lily-white hands and soft, fleshy bodies. Years of combat had given him a muscled physique. He was accustomed to inspiring admiration or at the very least deference in the fairer sex.
With a sigh, he followed after the termagant. In moments he caught up with her. His boots crunched softly over the snow, alerting her to his presence.
She slid him a wary glance as they marched. “You really thought you were saving me?”
He grunted. “A wasted effort on you, it seems. I’m gathering you’re not the type of female ever in need of rescuing.”
A smile twitched her mouth. “No, I’m not. I’ve been on my own now for years.”
He frowned. “And how is that? You are not without family. Your father—”
“He is scarcely a father to me,” she quickly inserted. “We’ve only just recently reunited. My mother passed away when I was very young. I have no memory of her. My . . . stepfather raised me.”
He sensed the sorrow in her as she uttered this, the difficulty she’d had in saying the word stepfather, and knew that this man had been a true father to her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I know the pain of losing someone you care about. I lost my brother in the war. He was everything to me. To our people.” He swallowed against a rising tightness in his throat. “He would have made a much better king than I ever shall.”
She slowed her pace and sent him a peculiar look before continuing her strides. She shook her head.
“What?” he prompted, touching her arm and making her face him again.
She angled her head, tossing her tangle of auburn hair. She tried to capture the tendrils that blew across her wind-chapped face. “I did not expect humility from you.” She tugged a strand from her lips.
“Oh.” He squared his shoulders, the wind whipping his face not nearly as icy as the inexplicable surge of cold he felt at hearing she thought he was some unfeeling monster. “Well, you do not really know me.”
“I suppose not.” She nodded once. “Just as you know nothing of me.”
He couldn’t resist. He reached out and pulled several strands of hair free that clung to one wind-chafed cheek. “I think I’m beginning to know you.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed? A few brief encounters where we spar words constitutes familiarity?” She crossed her arms in front of her. Trying to erect a barrier, he supposed. Her voice was withering as she asked, “You mean you didn’t know me when you said I was common? When you said I was fit for a mistress but not a wife?”
He winced. “That was badly done of me.”
She snorted. “But nothing you disagree with. And yet I suppose that’s the closest I’ll ever get to an apology.” If possible her eyebrow winged higher. “You’re sorry I overheard you, not that you actually said unpleasant things about me. To me. As far as you’re concerned I’m still some lowly serf unfit for your estimable company.”
With a huff, she stalked ahead of him, kicking snow up around her hem as she marched.
With several long strides, he caught up with her. Grabbing her by the arm, he whirled her around. “Why must you be so combative? I’m trying to make amends.” The words astonished him the instant he said them. He was trying to make amends? With a woman who should be beneath his notice.
“Why?” She tried to twist her arm free from him, but still he clung. “Why should you care—”
“Because—” He stopped at the sound of his voice, loud and jarring. “Because,” he repeated, his voice level, “I suspect you are one of the most singular women I’ll ever know.” His face heated at the declaration. It was as if the words spilled forth with no volition.
She eyed him suspiciously as if unsure whether he complimented her or not. “Singular?”
Truth be told, he wasn’t certain whether he complimented her or not either. He only knew he spoke the truth. “Singular,” he repeated. “And I should hate for you to . . .” He hesitated, searching for the word. “Dislike me because of the way I conducted myself on our first encounter.”
She moistened her lips. His gut tightened as he followed the movement of her pink tongue. “You care whether I like you or not?”
He gave a single nod, wondering how he’d gotten into such dangerous territory. He was actually trying to convince the female that he liked her. Why? To what end? Did he expect for them to be friends? That did not seem realistic. He’d never been friends with a woman before.
“Why?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Why should you care whether I like you?”
The only thing he could think about just then was his ominous warning to his cousin. When he’d staked a claim on Miss Hadle
y and called her his.
With that single thought burning through him, he inched his head toward hers, moving in slow degrees, as a hunter might close in on his prey. “I fear if you did not like me, I would never be able to do this.”
Chapter Twelve
Grier watched with wide eyes as the prince’s head descended toward her, certain she was dreaming. He slanted his lips over hers. She didn’t draw breath as the cool dryness of his mouth pressed to hers.
This was no dream.
She didn’t move, not even a stir. Much too shocked, too afraid that should she move it would be to toss her arms around his neck and drag him tighter against her. It had been too long since she had this. Since anyone felt inclined to reach out and touch her. She didn’t trust herself. Last night proved she shouldn’t.
He pulled back to look at her and her chest tightened at the sight of his handsome face. This close she could see that the tips of his lashes were far lighter than the rest of his hair.
His lips curved in a slow, seductive smile that pulled at her belly. “And I’m so glad that I can.”
“Can . . . what?” Her head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton.
“Kiss you.”
The words rolled over her, thick as syrup. And just as decadent.
“Oh.” She blinked, murmuring rather dreamily, “Yes. Kissing. You can do that . . . some more.”
“Excellent. Although you should know that this sort of thing generally works better when you move your mouth.” His head inched back toward her, his breath fanning her lips. “When you part your lips. Just a little. Remember?”
Her eyes drifted shut, lulled by that deep velvet voice, by the brush of his lips on hers. His breath was warm and sweet and she sighed.
She moved her lips tentatively at first, her thoughts racing, jumbled, trying to remember why this was wrong . . . why she shouldn’t be doing this. She’d known why last night.
All thoughts fled as he deepened the kiss, parting her lips wider for him. She shuddered at the first stroke of his tongue against hers and lifted her hands to his shoulders. She curled her fingers into the hard shape of him beneath his great cape and surrendered to his mouth, kissing him back. Their lips fused hotly, the perfect fit, like two long-lost pieces of a puzzle.