by Elise Noble
“Maybe Hugo was looking for an excuse to let you go?”
“But why? I know my sales weren’t as good as Henrietta’s, but she kept making me run errands to keep me away from the clients.” Alaric’s suggestion sounded more like a conspiracy theory plucked from a dark corner of the internet. Would Hugo really stoop so low? Why hadn’t he given me some warning? I could’ve worked overtime, called around our customer list. “And now I have to find another job, and somewhere to park my car, and I have literally no other work experience and my only qualification is an art history degree and I’m stuck in a stable and it’s raining.”
Add “and I sound like a whiny idiot” to the list. Another sob slipped out, and Chaucer nuzzled closer. Brilliant. Now I had horse slobber on my jacket.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. One thing at a time. You’re stuck in a stable?”
“Not stuck, exactly. Like, I can get out, but I’m wearing leather-soled Manolos and there are puddles.” Could I come across as any more spoiled? “Honestly, it’s fine. I’ll just take them off.”
Alaric muttered something that sounded like, “We’ll see,” then spoke more clearly again. “Why do you need to find somewhere to park your car?”
“Because I live in Kensington and my apartment doesn’t come with parking. Hugo let me leave my car at the gallery.”
“You can ditch it at Emmy’s house for now. Her place is in Belgravia, but it’s only a few stops on the Tube.”
“Shouldn’t you check with her first?”
“No need. I already know what she’ll say. Now, your job. Do you want to work in another art gallery?”
“I want to work anywhere that pays me enough to keep my horse. They’re so expensive, and Chaucer more or less eats money.”
“You say you haven’t worked much since university, but I bet you didn’t sit around doing nothing all day, did you?”
“Well, no. I ran the house. Did the shopping, coordinated the staff, arranged dinner parties, that sort of thing. It took most of my time. Piers liked everything to be just so.”
“So you’re organised, good at talking to people, and used to working to exacting standards. What else?”
That tight knot of tension that had been bouncing around in my stomach for the last three days gradually began to loosen as Alaric translated my life for the last decade into something appropriate for a résumé, as he called it. I realised I’d done more than I thought. All those charity luncheons I’d coordinated. The annual ladies’ golf tournament I’d co-hosted. My volunteer sessions at Riding for the Disabled before circumstances meant I had to quit.
I hadn’t been a layabout, as Piers had accused me of in several of our arguments. I’d done more than shop and go to the bloody hairdresser. Unloading on a virtual stranger, one with no agenda when it came to my personal life, I began to realise that. Isolated from everything I knew after my divorce, I’d struggled to see past the snide comments that still echoed in my ears. The only thing that had been worse was the pity.
I also realised another thing. I liked Alaric. He listened and didn’t judge, and although our first meeting had been a little unorthodox, he was kind.
“Bethany? Are you still there?”
I noticed we’d progressed from Ms. Stafford-Lyons to my actual name, and I couldn’t help smiling like a lunatic. Chaucer gave me a curious look before snatching another mouthful of hay and dropping most of it onto my hair.
“Yes, I’m here.”
A pause, and I heard a car door slam. “Where, exactly?”
A giggle bubbled out of me, which fifteen minutes ago would have been impossible. “In a stable, as I said. I have a horse, Chaucer, and being with him is my happy place. I realise that probably sounds—”
“No, I meant which stable? I can see a clock on a wall, and a bunch of wheelbarrows lined up.”
I froze, then whirled around to look at the clock high up on the end of the hay barn, an oversized decorative thing that hadn’t worked for as long as I’d been there. Truth be told, the whole yard was a bit shabby now, but Chaucer got well cared for, and it had been affordable until this morning.
My gaze dropped slowly, and I saw a familiar figure standing below the clock, looking somewhat lost and most definitely out of place in a pair of dove-grey tailored trousers and a navy-blue sports jacket. What the actual hell?
“What are you doing here?” I managed to utter.
Alaric turned and saw me staring over Chaucer’s door. “I figured somebody should come and save your shoes, and since I was more or less passing…”
Wow, that was… I was about to say gentlemanly, but as I processed his words, I quickly amended it to invasive. Creepy. Slightly alarming. Fear spider-walked up my spine as I realised I was alone at the yard. Pinkey, who ran the place, had passed me in her Land Rover as I trundled down the drive, probably on her way to the feed store, and it was too early for the after-work crowd, too late for the ladies who lunched.
And now Alaric was within touching distance.
“H-h-how did you know I was here?”
He pointed to the phone, still clamped to my ear. “Bad habit, I’m afraid.”
“You…what? You traced my phone?”
“It’s easy when you know the right people.”
“That’s so rude!”
“I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” He glanced down at my feet, smiling. “Nice shoes. If I’d offered to come and help, would you have taken me up on it?”
“Of course not. You’ve got far better things to do with your time, I’m sure.”
“How about you let me be the judge of that? What else do you have to do here?”
“Nothing. Not really.” A pencil skirt and stilettos definitely weren’t suitable for riding, and I hadn’t brought any horsey clothes with me. “I’m not even sure why I came.”
“When times are tough, we turn to the things that comfort us.” He turned away as he spoke, and the sadness in his voice made me wonder whether he spoke from experience.
“What comforts you, Alaric?”
The pause stretched out to the point of discomfort, and I regretted asking the question. The answer was none of my business. I barely knew this man, and hadn’t I just accused him of being invasive?
But he answered, his voice soft. “Freedom. Freedom to think what I like and do what I want. But you can have too much of a good thing. There’s only so much solitude a man can take.” His gaze flickered for a moment as he came back from wherever his head had been, his return no doubt assisted by the crack of thunder overhead. The rain came down again. “Ah, shit.”
I quickly unbolted the stable door and held it open. “Want to join me?”
“Is your horse safe?”
“Chaucer? He’s a sweetheart. Just watch out for his feet because he doesn’t always look where he’s putting them.”
Alaric slipped inside, sticking close to the wall as he eyed up Chaucer. Chaucer, of course, walked straight over and nudged him into a corner. A corner filled with cobwebs.
“Uh…”
“He’s only looking for treats. Chaucer! Get back.” I gave him a prod, and he obliged, grudgingly. “You’re not a horse person?”
“The only other horse I’ve been near is Emmy’s, and he tore the ass out of my pants.”
I started laughing because that was the stuff of cartoons, not real life, but then I made the mistake of picturing the scene. If Alaric’s ass in trousers was any indication, his ass out of them would be very pleasant indeed. My cheeks burned. Dammit, the man was practically a stalker, and I should not have been picturing him naked. I desperately tried to straighten my face.
“Sorry,” I choked out. “So, Emmy has a horse?”
“His name’s Satan, which gives some indication of his charming personality. Mostly it gets shortened to Stan, though.”
“He sounds like the perfect horse for Emmy.” I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Again, I’m sorry.�
� Alaric and Emmy worked together. They were probably friends. “I really ought to think before I speak.”
“No, you’re right. Emmy would get bored with a regular horse.” He gingerly reached out and patted Chaucer’s neck. “This one seems friendlier. How long have you had him?”
“Eleven years. I got him as a three-year-old and broke him in myself.”
“Eleven years? Long time. Do you jump over stuff with him?”
I shook my head, a lump forming in my throat. “Dressage mainly, but I sneak in a few fences on occasion.”
“You don’t enjoy jumping?”
“I used to love it, but everyone says it’s too dangerous.”
“Everyone?”
“Piers. My parents. Before I got Chaucer, I had a bad fall eventing and broke my ankle. My old horse… It wasn’t his fault, he just spooked at a fox, but my parents sold him while I was in the hospital.” I squashed my hands against my eyes to stop myself from crying, then regretted it when my fingers came away covered in mascara splodges. Goodness only knows what my face looked like. “Polo would be seventeen now. They refused to tell me where he’d gone, and I never managed to find out what happened to him.”
I’d never forgiven my parents either. It was the last bloody straw. The final nail in the coffin. With hindsight, my marriage to Piers had been a rebound relationship, me grieving for the loss of my beloved horse as well as a way to escape from my parents. Out of the frying pan and into the damned fire. Piers had bought me Chaucer as a gift soon after we started dating, although he’d sided with my parents over the risks of jumping. Back then, Piers had been so attentive, so complimentary, I hadn’t seen what an arsehole he truly was.
“Want me to take a look?” Alaric asked.
“A look? For Polo?”
“Yeah.”
I choked up again. How did this man I barely knew make all the emotions I’d spent years keeping locked up for appearance’s sake overflow into a mess of smudged make-up and—oh, hell—snot? I tried to sniffle without sounding like a complete peasant.
“Thank you for the offer, but it’s impossible. It’s been so long, and I’m sure Daddy changed the name on his documents.” Because he’d paid for Polo and put himself down as the registered keeper, he’d been able to make amendments without my permission, and worse, data protection rules meant the people who ran the registry refused to tell me any of the details. “I still look at pictures from all the events I can find just in case I spot him somewhere. Although he’s probably retired now, I keep hoping…”
“Just give me whatever information you have.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Call me a sucker for a pretty face.”
I knew I was pretty—my mother always said it was one of the few things I had going for me. Shame the inside doesn’t match the outside, Bethie. If I had a pound for every time I’d heard her say that, Chaucer’s stable would have central heating and a television. But it still made me smile inside to hear the words come out of Alaric’s mouth.
“I have an image of his passport,” I whispered.
“Horses have passports?”
Oh, this wasn’t going to go well, was it? Still, I appreciated the sentiment. “Yes, all horses in the UK and Europe do.”
“Then send me the details.”
He extracted a business card from his inside pocket and passed it to me, navy-blue cardstock with cream print. Alaric McLain. Sirius Consulting. Sloane had been right—he didn’t work for Blackwood—and yet he’d referred to Emmy as a colleague. Did he freelance?
A chink of light shone through the clouds, distracting me. The rain was still coming down, albeit not quite so hard, and vivid colours lit up the sky.
“Look—a rainbow,” I said before I caught myself. Piers had always poo-poohed me when I’d tried to show him nature’s gifts. Called it childish. But Alaric turned and leaned on the stable door beside me, his expression a mix of contentedness and awe.
“The world never ceases to amaze me. That out of darkness, we get such beauty.”
It was a moment. One Chaucer interrupted by pushing his head in between us to see what all the fuss was about.
“Hey, you big oaf!” I ducked under his neck to get back to Alaric, only to find he’d got tangled up in yet more cobwebs. “Uh, you have a little… Actually, a lot… Here, let me…”
As I brushed Alaric down and picked dusty bits of cobweb off his back, head, and trousers, I realised that being on my own at the yard wasn’t so bad after all. If anyone had seen us, I’d have had to answer a million questions, and knowing my luck, word would somehow get back to my mother as well. And I also realised that up close, Alaric’s backside was every bit as nice as I’d suspected.
Be still my dirty mind.
“Okay, all done. The rain’s eased off, so we should probably leave now.”
He didn’t answer, just caught me by surprise when he swept me into his arms, bridal style. Chaucer leapt back at the sound of my shriek.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“The shoes, Bethany. Have you forgotten why I came here in the first place?”
Oh, yes, the shoes. They really were very nice ones. I might have got rid of most of my dresses, but the shoes were a different story. Selling them would be a last resort, and they wouldn’t raise much anyway. Not many people wanted to buy used footwear. Much as I disliked being manhandled, I hated the thought of ruining a pair of Manolos more.
“You can make it the whole way to my car?”
Alaric just looked at me. Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have insulted his masculinity? Men took that sort of thing very seriously, which Mother assured me was the reason Piers felt the need to go out and shoot at things every other weekend. Clay pigeons mainly, but occasionally grouse. Luckily, he missed most of the time.
I reached for Chaucer, and Alaric stepped closer so I could pat my horse on the nose. Then I fumbled with the bolt on the door while Alaric waited patiently. About halfway to the car, I became conscious of two things. Firstly, that Alaric must spend plenty of time in the gym because his hard chest matched his arse perfectly in terms of muscles, and secondly, I didn’t mind being carried after all. Which was perhaps why my left arm found its way around Alaric’s neck and clung on as he picked his way around the puddles in the car park. It struck me as odd that he obviously took care of himself and yet he wasn’t wearing any aftershave. All I could smell was his own musky scent, which wasn’t a bad thing in the slightest.
“Got your car key?” he asked.
“Yes.” I’d zippered it into an inside jacket pocket this time, and my shirt rode up as I tried to tug it free. Yes, it was a very good thing Pinkey wasn’t back yet. “Right here.”
Between the two of us, we got the car door open, and Alaric lowered me gently into the driver’s seat. But he didn’t release me right away. No, he stayed there with one arm around my back and the other under my legs, his lips just inches from mine. Was he… Was he going to kiss me? I held my breath as my heart thudded against my ribs. What would I do if that mouth touched mine? Pull him to me or push him away? Logic said to shove him back and slam the door, but my fingers itched to curl around his lapels. Or tangle in that thick brown hair. Or explore the muscles rippling in his back.
How would he kiss? On a scale of Piers’s sloppy mauling to Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard’s rain-drenched smooch at the end of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I bet Alaric would rate at least as high as a Mr. Darcy.
But I never got to find out. He withdrew his arms and stood, bracing his hands on the car roof as he studied me.
“I’d better give you Emmy’s address,” he said finally.
“What?” It came out as a whisper, and I sucked in air when I realised my lungs had none left.
“To park your car?”
“My car? Yes. Right. Car.”
“Are you okay?”
The lie came automatically. “Of course. Thank you for saving my shoes.”
“Can you dri
ve in those things?”
“I’ve had plenty of practice. Hey, where are you going?”
Rather than answering, Alaric pushed away abruptly and stepped back. Why? What had I done? Was it something I said?
CHAPTER 22 - ALARIC
ALARIC STALKED AROUND Bethany’s car, cursing under his breath. What was he playing at? He’d come to her in an attempt to fix some of the problems he’d caused, not to complicate his life even further.
Those fucking shoes.
Delicate feet, slim calves, strong thighs…
Shit, he’d almost kissed her. That hadn’t been part of the plan.
He took a breath to steady himself, one hand on the passenger door handle. When Bethany told him she’d been fired, he knew at once that Emerald’s curse had struck again. Until he crossed paths with that damn painting, he’d never believed in bad luck or negative energy, but on his travels, he’d met everyone from a Chinese philosopher to a Malaysian shaman, and he’d come to the conclusion that there were forces at work in the world that he didn’t fully understand. That no one understood. Dark and light, day and night, good and evil, yin and yang.
Bethany stared at him as he slid into the passenger seat, her eyes the colour of the lightening sky flecked with the deeper blue of Mogok Valley sapphires. Alaric had visited there on his sabbatical, seen the city and met the locals, all the time wondering whether he’d ever return to his old life or anything like it. Now, he was closer than he’d ever been before, but those stubborn fugitives—love and reputation—still remained out of reach.
Although…
Bethany’s head tilted in confusion, but he wasn’t planning to answer her unasked question about his own stupidity. He busied himself with her satnav instead.
“I’ll be in front of you all the way, but I’ve set the postcode in case we get separated.”
“The postcode. Okay.”
She knew, didn’t she? She knew that his self-control had almost deserted him. What would be next to go? Willpower and any sense of rational thought? Dammit, he needed to keep his faculties.
“The traffic always seems to snarl up close to London. Just call if you get lost, and I’ll find you somehow.”