My hip banged against it (no worries, the seat was padded), and I nearly fell to my knees on the floor.
I did not because Loren was up after me, his arm sliced around my stomach, he hauled me around and deposited my ass in the seat.
He then sat next to me, nabbed the reins, shouted, “Hee-yah!” while he flicked them, and the horses were so danged ready to not be in the freezing, driving rain, they bolted forward.
I nearly rolled ass over head off the back of the seat and had to grab on to Loren in order not to do that (important aside, his arm felt like it was made of steel).
Either the grooms were making their way to get the carriages or folks were battening down the hatches, because there were people doing things at the stables. When they saw us speeding to them, two of them rushed to the doors and opened them.
We raced in, and Loren pulled back the reins, yelling, “Whoa!”
The horses stopped, the carriage creaked ominously behind us, I nearly went head over ass forward this time, but I didn’t because Loren grabbed hold of me, then he immediately stood.
He dragged me across the seat until I was sitting where he had been. He jumped lithely to the ground (and yikes, that was a shocker, the seat was pretty high up).
He then reached up, caught my waist in his hands and hauled me down to my feet.
At that point he commenced towing me through the stables, ordering, “You get that other carriage inside, you disappear. Am I heard?”
“Yes, milord,” someone said.
I wasn’t paying attention.
Because we weren’t leaving the stables.
He was taking me to a room off where all the horses were (and proof positive this place was scary awesome: the stables didn’t smell like stables—they smelled like fresh cut hay and summer rain, which someone needed to make into a candle).
We got to that room.
I lifted a hand to push back my sodden hair and saw there were a bunch of saddles lying on beams lining the walls (like, a bunch, as in, they could open a store). Pegs that held bridles and reins and such. A couple of benches with some scattered tools where it looked like they did work on the saddles. And a ratty armchair next to a little iron stove in the corner at the back, where one would rest after their weary work on saddles.
The stove was lit, and the room was cozy warm.
Okay then, maybe we were going to wait out the storm here.
Good idea.
Except Loren slammed the door really loudly, whirled me around to face him using my hand, and then shouted, “Have you lost your bloody mind?”
“I—”
“You’re soaking, godsdamned wet,” he declared.
He was too, and one could say that shirt plastered against his wide chest, even with the waistcoat in the way, was something.
Okay, deep breath and…
“That isn’t lost on me, your grace,” I replied.
“Women do not drive carriages,” he proclaimed.
Ummmmmmmm…
“They do not stable them,” he went on. “Or horses.”
I sucked both my lips in.
“Servants deal with the conveyances,” he kept going.
I held my breath in order to hold my tongue.
“And you do not”—he gave my hand he still held a slight jerk—“ever dash into a bloody storm.”
“It’s just some rain,” I pointed out, though we both knew that was a tad bit of an understatement.
“You’re a bloody female,” he stated.
Okay, I needed to hold on to my patience.
I didn’t hold on to my patience.
“I’m glad you noticed,” I retorted sarcastically.
His expression changed and my immediate world changed with it.
He was furious, he wasn’t hiding it, and he was this to such an extent, the heat of it felt like it was singeing my skin.
It was scary AF.
He let my hand go but advanced on me in a way I had no choice but to retreat.
“If this caper was to get my attention, it’s both stupid and cruel,” he said in a dangerous voice as he backed me toward the corner.
Cruel?
“I simply wanted to put the horses away,” I told him something he knew.
“You came with two grooms, and we have at least that many. You wish the horses stalled, you pull the fucking cord to call a servant to tell them to tell the grooms to put the fucking horses away.”
Wow.
He said the f-word.
Twice.
To me.
A lady (as far as he knew).
I knew they had that word in this world because Dad-not-Dad hated me saying it.
But I’d never heard anyone else say it (though, until very recently, I hadn’t been around anyone but Dad-not-Dad).
And somehow, having that be the only time I heard it from someone other than me, it gave it much more gravitas.
I hit something, it was the armchair, so I was forced to stop.
Loren stopped toe-to-toe with me, so close, I could actually feel the hem of my skirt resting on his boots.