“Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but never took time to do,” she said quietly. What were things she’d wanted in her life? Aside from a loving husband. It had been so long since she’d considered herself. Why, it would have been when she was a small girl longing to ride a horse, but her overprotective papa had been dead set against allowing it. That it was a fashionable pursuit for ladies hadn’t mattered. That he himself had ridden hadn’t mattered.
“It’s not as though I’ve any horses about where I might go about making that…”
Francesca froze. “Of course,” she whispered.
She jumped off the bed and broke out into a sprint, flying across the room.
She rubbed her palm over the frosted windowpane, leaving a blurry patch on the leaded glass. Giving up on the effort to wipe it clean, Francesca unhooked the clasp and let the panels fall open.
The winter’s cold poured in, the crisp air invading her nostrils and lungs, so very purifying and welcome. Catching the ledge, Francesca leaned over and peered into the distance to the stable yard with its white-washed stable at the very center.
A slow smile pulled her lips up into a pleased grin.
Francesca rushed off to collect her gloves and cloak.
It was time to begin crossing items off of her list.
When overseeing his clerical responsibilities at the Home Office, Lathan hadn’t been one given to distractions.
In fact, his superiors had oft jested that the corps of drums and flutes could have assembled at the Home Office, and Lathan wouldn’t have missed the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t on his day’s works while that boisterous band played.
Which was why, removed to the country in an empty cottage as he was, with only the hum of quiet for company while he worked, it was so singularly odd he should have heard it, faint and distant as it was. And not so very unexpected either.
The whinny of a horse carried from outside.
Glancing up from his morning work, Lathan frowned at the window.
And he knew, even as he stood and made his way over to the window, the source of his distraction.
Because there was only one who’d managed that feat in the whole of his twenty-seven years.
Pushing aside the curtains, Lathan peered at the frosted glass in a bid to bring the blurred image in the distance into focus.
His eyes had never been great. He’d been in spectacles since he was a boy of six. It was one of the deficits that had likely kept him a clerk, rather than being sent into the field, at the Home Office, and yet, poor as his vision was, there was no mistaking the sight before him now.
Why…
Why…
“The damned chit is stealing my horse.” He exhaled those words on a long breath.
And she must be some damned horsewoman, because she hadn’t even bothered with a saddle.
Shielding a hand over his eyes, he peered into the distance.
Except… for someone skilled enough to sneak his mount out from under him, Francesca Cornworthy wasn’t the most conventional rider.
The horse danced and pawed, and as it did, Francesca wiggled and squirmed about, proving once more that Lathan wasn’t as dead as he’d taken himself to be. His gaze went to her tantalizing form. Lust, a familiar sentiment where this woman was concerned, jolted through him, and he stood there, simply admiring her as she moved. With Honor near the riding block, Francesca hiked her skirts up, revealing a gorgeous expanse of leg. Those thick, luscious thighs he ached to sink his fingers into—again. The generous curve of her buttocks as she… as she…
He squinted.
She was trying to pull herself up stomach first onto the enormous mare.
Then it hit Lathan with the same weight of the bullet he’d taken in the Marquess of Tennyson’s townhouse that fateful night. “She doesn’t have a damned clue what she’s doing,” he muttered. Swift on the heels of that realization came another.
She was going to get herself killed.
His heart kicked up its beat and compelled Lathan into movement.
Muttering a long litany of black curses, he took off running, increasing his pace and stride. Or, rather, he managed to run the best he could.
He gritted his teeth, his left leg dragging slightly behind him.
Never before had he despised the injury he’d sustained. The one that had left him faltering and that now saw him slow to reach Francesca.
That frustration, coupled with the absolute terror hammering at his senses, sent him exploding through the doors leading out to the stable yards. Lathan opened his mouth to bellow the chit into oblivion.
What are you doing?
What was it about her that drove away all logic and turned him into this volatile stranger he didn’t recognize?
Tamping down the fear lest he spook Honor any more than the skittish creature already was, Lathan hastened over. Even without the benefit of a cloak or gloves, he barely felt the cold. The only emotion he knew, the one holding him in its grip, was stark fear.
He kept his eyes on the lady and the enormous black mare.
“I’ve tried to play it nice, but you are as stubborn and as pigheaded as your master, you know.”
If he hadn’t been one moment away from dissolving into panic at the danger she was in, he’d have managed a real smile at her inventive curses, at her disparaging him to his own horse.
“Stand down, love,” he said quietly as he approached.
Francesca stole a glance back. As soon as she caught sight of him, she straightened. Her auburn strands hung down in a tangled mess about her shoulders. Those red-kissed tresses shimmered in the sunlight. “Hullo,” she greeted him with a smile.
A smile? And a carefree one at that, as if she weren’t one quick misstep from breaking her fool neck.
Lathan whistled once.
Honor instantly trotted over.
Her chest rising and fall from the quick breaths she drew, Francesca dropped her hands on her hips and looked on with enormous eyes. “You’ve taught her to come to a whistle. That is splendid.”
“Do not move,” he said evenly, keeping his voice calm so as to not spook his horse any further.
“Me?” Francesca asked, already starting down from the mounting block.
“No, my horse. Of course you, Francesca.” This time, she wisely stayed silent.
Whistling softly, Lathan continued to lead his mount back to the stalls. When he had her safely in her stall, he scratched Honor between the eyes. “You deserve a bucket of carrots for the patience you’ve shown this day, my dear.”
The black mount tossed her head back and whinnied her equine agreement.
Lathan turned and found Francesca framed in the doorway. The sun gleaming through formed a halo about her head, giving her the look of an angel. With the danger now receded, the world returned to what it had been at their last exchange. When he’d offended her and sent her rushing off. And had him regretting not what he’d said, but the end of the camaraderie and ease he’d enjoyed with her.
Even if it had been false camaraderie that had come only because she didn’t know who he was.
The lady stopped fiddling with her skirts when she caught his eyes on that nervous gesture. She glided forward, paused before him, and cleared her throat. “It occurs to me I owe you an apology.”
“For stealing my horse?”
She looked to the mount, who was munching quite contentedly on the oats in her stall. “I wasn’t stealing her.” She paused. “I was borrowing her.”
“Attempting to leave?” His muscles coiled as soon as the query slipped out.
Francesca scoffed. “Of course not.” The incredulity laced within that denial sent the most unexpected warmth to his heart.
“Oh,” he said weakly, incapable of anything but the inexplicable joy that came at her words.
She held his gaze. “I thought long about what you said. About my father.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Francesca waved off his apo
logy, preventing him from completing it. “Please, let me finish. I like you, Lathan,” she said softly.
His heart paused and then resumed a rapid beat.
She liked him.
No one liked him.
He didn’t even much like himself. He didn’t like himself at all. But this precocious, spirited, brave woman… liked him. His hands curled into reflexive fists. For she wouldn’t if she knew about his past. But who he was now? She liked his surly, miserable self.
“You’re wondering why,” she murmured with her usual knowing. Francesca drifted closer, and it took a physical effort to not retreat under the directness of her gaze. “I like you because you’re real. You don’t stand on ceremony.”
“I’m rude,” he said flatly.
Her plump lips twitched in a little smile. “Yes, but only if one considers raw honesty rude, and I don’t. I quite like it.” A somberness fell over her features as she glanced down at the stable floor. “You said things yesterday about my father, or that is what I thought in the immediacy of it all. But then I realized I wasn’t angry you were calling my father out.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I was upset because you were calling me out.”
He began to shake his head, but she glared at him until he stopped. “You’ve been honest with me before, don’t stop doing so.”
Guilt twisted within. For he hadn’t been honest about his past. Granted, they’d not spoken of their pasts or their futures, only their presents, and yet, why did that feel as though he were giving himself excuses to believe in?
“I haven’t lived for myself and my list,” Francesca went on to say. “That wasn’t my list. Just as you said.” She fished a paper from her pocket and held it out to him. “This one is.” She pressed it into his gloveless palm.
Lathan read the neat, looping handwriting that was Francesca’s.
He read through the ten items she’d written there, each line providing him a deeper look and closer connection to the ever-unconventional Francesca Cornworthy.
1. Learn to ride.
2. Read a book I enjoy twice.
3. Frolic in the snow.
4. Watch the sun come up over the Serpentine.
5. Bake… something.
6. Swim in a clear stream.
Lathan paused. Number six ushered in thoughts of Francesca… naked, her skin exposed to the hot summer sun as she floated… A wave of desire went through him, and he forced himself to continue reading.
7. Blindfolded, guess a flower by its smell.
8. Sample every flavor of ice at Gunter’s.
9. Compose a song and play it upon a pianoforte.
10. Learn to play hazard and whist.
“That’s why you were with Honor,” he murmured. Not because she wished to leave, but because she wanted to stay and see to the first item she’d penned on her page. “You were attempting to ride.”
She nodded. “I trust you’re thinking I should have begun with a different item upon my list. I can’t very well go swimming.”
“Indeed, not.”
“Even if I had cards, I couldn’t very well teach myself to play hazard or whist,” she went on.
“That is true.” She could have asked him, and he would have happily sat across from her. Wait… that wasn’t right. He’d not wanted or needed any distractions, and that would have been a distraction. Why did that feel like a halfhearted protest?
“And you don’t have my favorite book.”
“Which is?” he asked out of a genuine need to know about Francesca Cornworthy and her reading preferences.
“The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties by Fanny Burney.”
The story of a mysterious woman concealing her identity? Her choice suited her perfectly.
“And I don’t have access to the Serpentine, and flowers are hardly in bloom this time of year, Lathan.”
He suppressed a smile. “Fair enough. However”—he glanced back at the list—“perhaps the frolicking in the snow would have been a safer choice,” he allowed. “Some snow is fine for horses, but when it’s ice covered, as it is now, it isn’t. Not for you, a new rider, and not for the mounts, who can suffer lacerations to their lower legs.”
She blanched. “I could have hurt your horse.”
“Honor likely would have been fine, but it is better to not risk an injury.”
Francesca wandered past Lathan and headed for the stall. “Oh, you lovely dear. How very angry you must have been with me. And here I was calling you all manner of names…”
Honor hung her head over the side of the stall. Without hesitation, Francesca stretched her hand out and rubbed Honor in a manner similar to how Lathan had a short while ago.
“I know it likely doesn’t seem like much,” she said, directing her quiet words at Honor. “My list, that is. There’s nothing even really grand, and yet…”
Lathan limped over and touched a finger to her lips, quelling the rest of whatever disparagement she might level at herself. “It’s a fine list, because it is yours.”
She lifted perfectly round eyes up to his. “Do you think so?”
Her mouth moved against his finger as she spoke, and he couldn’t make himself move, couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her.
Lathan nodded, and forcing his arm back to his side, he skimmed her list. She still didn’t get it. “What does it matter what anyone else feels about it anyway? Me or anyone. It is how you feel, Francesca,” he said with a quiet insistence.
He made himself return the sheet, and she accepted it. Not taking her eyes from his, she returned that precious list to the pocket of her cloak. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Lathan Holman,” she said, her voice a cross of wonderment and wistfulness.
There was nothing dark in her pronouncement. Nothing that said she found him wanting, as the world did.
Because she didn’t know.
And she deserved to.
He couldn’t keep her here under false pretenses. How ironic that he’d wished her gone, and yet, he now feared telling her the truth of his circumstances, lest she’d want to then leave.
Lathan took a deep breath and, before his courage deserted him, forced the words out. “I’m a traitor.”
Chapter 11
Of anything Lathan might have said, that would have been the last one she’d have ever imagined him uttering.
I’m a traitor.
She cocked her head.
Why… it didn’t even make sense.
He stared at her through dark, hooded lashes.
If he was expecting a response, he was to be disappointed, as she’d no idea what he was even saying. “I don’t understand, Lathan.”
He rolled his shoulders. “Circa 1200. The word traitor refers to ‘one who betrays a trust or duty,’ from Old French traitre, ‘villain, deceiver.’” He spoke evenly, so very pragmatic that he might as well have been any tutor discussing the etymology of the word.
“Oh, hush, you know I wasn’t looking for a definition of the word, but rather, I want to know why you, Lathan…” Her words trailed off.
Only, it wasn’t the second part of his name that she now turned over that lingered in her mind.
It was the first name, more of a surname, and yet, wholly unconventional, that had stuck in her thoughts at first meeting.
“Lathan Holman,” she whispered.
He flashed a cold smile. “At your service, madam.” He sketched a faintly mocking bow.
Something trickled in, a story she’d read in one newspaper or another. And she froze. When her father had been ill, she’d been so consumed with his dying and her misery that nothing had mattered. Only to now find that Lathan, the man before her now, was someone whose name she’d stumbled upon a lifetime ago. A man who’d done work for the Home Office. Of course, it all made sense now… “That is why you were studying codes. Not because you were solving puzzles for pleasure, but…” For work. Except, that he was working for the Home Office didn’t make sense either.
His broad shoulders tens
ed, those heavy muscles tightening the fabric of his fine wool garment. “So you have heard of me.” His tones were so very deadened, similar to the ones he’d used at their first meeting in his kitchen.
He drew back. Limping over to the rake resting against a nearby pen, he grabbed the tool and walked off.
And her heart twisted and pulled.
Odd, that she, Francesca Cornworthy, known prattler and one to fill any void of silence, now found herself hopelessly without any words for this man.
Because you care about him, and he’s hurting.
Fear sapped the moisture from her mouth.
Care about him? That was preposterous. Yes, she cared about him, but only as she would any person she’d met who’d shown her every kindness.
Liar.
Francesca slipped into his path, blocking him from entering Honor’s stall. “Despite what you think, I don’t really know, Lathan, what happened with you or to you. All I heard was your name.” And some vague details about a trial and his work at the Home Office.
Grabbing a set of reins, he limped over to his horse’s stall. “Everyone knows my name.” His words emerged as an angry lash. For a moment, she thought he intended to saddle up and ride out, ending their exchange before she could find out anything more than he’d already shared. Except, he merely fastened Honor’s reins and guided the beautiful creature to an empty stall.
“I didn’t,” she said as he returned. “That is… technically, I know your name, but I don’t know it know it. Not in the way you’re thinking.”
He peered sharply at her, and she made herself remain still through that piercing scrutiny. Did he search for a lie on her part? If so, he was destined to be disappointed. “You expect me to believe you’ve heard of me, but you don’t know all the details of my story?”
She shrugged. “I know nothing.”
“Impossible.” Lathan grabbed a wheelbarrow and parked it near the stall door.
The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel (The Brethren Book 5) Page 10