Haunted by the Earl's Touch - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,22
no right to keep me here.’
‘I have every right. I am your guardian.’
‘Only in your mind,’ she muttered.
He stiffened. ‘You need a keeper if you think it is safe to walk along that cliff top.’
Now he was pretending he minded if she fell. Why? So she wouldn’t guess his intentions? It certainly wasn’t because he cared about what happened to her. The cold in her stomach spread to her chest. She readied herself to jump down and run for her life.
He hissed in a breath, as if in some sort of pain. ‘In heaven’s name, stop wriggling.’
‘Then put me down.’
‘I’ll put you down when I am good and ready.’
The big horse pranced and kicked up his back legs. She instinctively grabbed for his lordship’s solid shoulders. He tensed and she heard him curse softly under his breath. He pulled the horse to a stop and, putting an arm around her waist, lowered her to the ground. He dismounted beside her.
‘No need to interrupt your ride,’ she said brightly. ‘I can find my own way.’
He grasped her upper arm in an iron grip. Not hard enough to hurt, but there was no mistaking she could not break free. ‘How did you get out of the house without anyone seeing you?’
She gasped. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I left orders that you were not to leave.’
‘Orders you have no right to give?’
‘Don’t test my patience, Miss Wilding. I will have no hesitation in dealing with you as you deserve.’
She swallowed hard. ‘Killing me off, you mean?’ Oh, no. She couldn’t believe she had just blurted that out.
He released her as if she was hot to the touch. His eyes flashed with an emotion she could not read—pain, perhaps? More likely disgust given the hard set to his jaw. ‘I assure you, when I want your death, it will not occur in front of witnesses.’
So he had seen the shepherd and thought better of it. She tried not to shiver at the chill in his voice. ‘I will keep that in mind, my lord. Thank you for the forewarning.’
He stared at her, his lips twitching, his eyes gleaming as if he found something she had said amusing. ‘You are welcome, Miss Wilding. Come along, I will escort you back to the house.’
So now they were to pretend nothing had happened? That he hadn’t seriously thought about pushing her off a cliff? Perhaps she should pretend she was joking about thinking he wanted her dead. She quelled a shiver. She hated this feeling of fear. Anger at her weakness rose up in her throat, making it hard to breathe or think, when she should be finding a way to beat him at his own game. She gave him a look of disdain. ‘Did no one tell you it isn’t polite to creep up on a person?’
‘I was riding a very large stallion over rocky terrain. That hardly counts as creeping.’
‘I didn’t hear you over the noise of the sea. Surely you could tell?’
He gave her a look designed to strike terror into the heart of the most intrepid individual. ‘I had other things on my mind.’
Such as pushing her over the edge. She began striding down hill. Unlike most men of her acquaintance, he easily kept pace, the horse following docilely, while the dog bounded around them. Surprisingly, his steps matched hers perfectly. On the rare occasion when she’d walked alongside a gentleman—well, back from the village with the young man who delivered the mail—she’d had to shorten her stride considerably because the young man was a good head shorter than she. The earl, on the other hand, towered above her. A rather unnerving sensation.
All her sensations with regard to this man were unnerving. The fluttery ones when he kissed her, the shivery ones when she felt fear and the one she was feeling now, a strange kind of appreciation for his handsome face and athletic build when she should be absolutely terrified. It seemed that whereas her mind was as sharp as a needle, her body was behaving like a fool.
It was this silence between them making her react this way. It needed filling to distract her from these wayward thoughts and feelings.
‘The Abbey is an extraordinary house, isn’t it?’ She gestured towards the sprawling mish-mash of wings and turrets.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Highly impractical. Ridiculously expensive to run. It should be torn down.’
Aghast, she stopped, staring up at his implacable face. ‘But think of all the history that would be lost.’