Leath must feel exactly the same. Her suggestion that he should stay in Yorkshire seemed even more inane than ever, now she’d seen him exercising his political skills at full stretch. Instead of using his remarkable qualities to guide the kingdom to greatness, he was stuck here teaching a servant how to ride at a sedate trot. If she was his lordship, she’d feel like punching something.
These morning rides had become a fixture. It seemed silly to look back and remember how old Snowflake had intimidated her. His lordship must have thought her a lily-livered creature.
He’d been a patient, kind, effective teacher. If the marquess had delibera
tely set out to prove he wasn’t a villain, he couldn’t have done a better job. She wasn’t sure how Dorothy had come to accuse him, but Nell found it increasingly impossible to ignore the evidence of her eyes. And heart. She couldn’t believe that the man who put up with her clumsiness as a beginner rider could so callously ruin a young girl. Somewhere someone had made a mistake. She didn’t yet understand how, but she was convinced that in time she would.
No rapacious seducer would miss an opportunity to work his wiles. Yet while Leath had touched her a hundred times to set her right in the saddle, he’d never exceeded proprieties.
The shameful, inescapable truth was that she wished he had.
He drew his horse to a halt and turned to study her with a somber expression. She stopped Adela and spoke impulsively. “My lord, something’s worrying you. Can I help?”
“Now there’s a question.” After a bristling silence, rarer over the last days, he spoke as though raising a matter of cosmic importance. “Yes, Miss Trim, you can. Whether you will or not is another issue.”
Baffled, she watched him dismount with the powerful smoothness that invested all his movements. He crossed to help her from her horse. Today, for the first time, his hands lingered at her waist, and he only released her when she stepped away. Her skin tingled from his touch. When she bumped nervously into her horse, Adela whickered in protest and shifted.
Nell waited for Leath to retreat. Since he’d kissed her, he’d been careful not to frighten her. But he stood breathing unsteadily, staring at her as if wrestling with some massive dilemma. Her misgivings grew. He usually concealed his inner demons.
His great height and heavily muscled body trapped her against her horse. She was close enough to catch his masculine sandalwood scent, always evocative.
She stared into Leath’s face and wondered with a mixture of trepidation and wicked excitement whether this turmoil meant he might kiss her. Something had stirred him up. His eyes glittered. His hands opened and closed at his sides.
“My lord?” Her chin tilted with reckless defiance. She ached for more kisses, whatever that said about her morals or her brains.
To her chagrin, he stepped away to gather the horses’ reins. He led them to the edge of the clearing where they began to nose at the grass.
Turning back to Nell, he folded his arms across his impressive chest. “I have a proposition, Miss Trim.”
Ah. She could guess what this was about. More disappointment soured her belly. Stupidly, briefly, she wished that he was a heartless seducer. At least a heartless seducer wouldn’t leave her yearning. “You want me to continue as your secretary until Mr. Crane returns.”
He looked surprised and a little put out. She couldn’t imagine why when he’d given her the position because he thought she was clever. Even if now, with her heart only slowly resuming its rhythm, she didn’t feel clever. She felt like just another silly girl in thrall to a man who would do her no good.
“Well, yes.”
She perched on a convenient tree stump, resting her hat on her lap. “You haven’t done anything about finding a replacement, have you?”
“No.” He approached her with that long stride that claimed ownership of the earth beneath his feet. Of course, here on the vast Alloway Chase estate, he did own the earth beneath his feet. A timely reminder of the vast gulf in status separating them.
“If her ladyship agrees, of course I’ll help.” She chanced a smile. “Especially after you’ve taken all this trouble to teach me to ride.”
Without smiling, he stopped a few feet away. “You were a good pupil. And I enjoy our morning rides.”
“So do I,” she admitted. “There’s no need to train someone else when it’s only for another month or so. Mr. Crane tells me that the doctor is pleased with his progress.”
Leath’s brows lowered in the ferocious frown that had once terrified her. “You’ve seen him?”
“Of course.”
Leath flicked his crop against one long muscular thigh. Snap. Snap. Snap. “In his rooms?”
She’d had some odd conversations with the marquess, but this one verged on the bizarre. “He’s not supposed to wander around the house.”
“I don’t want you there.”
She stiffened. “You imagine I make a habit of invading men’s chambers to molest them?”
His jaw set at her reference to the night he’d kissed her. “I don’t want you alone with Crane.”