Winning the Gentleman (Hearts on the Heath #2) - Kristi Ann Hunter Page 0,53

it by choice. If he surrounded himself with the trappings of a successful gentleman, it would hurt all the more when his true destiny ripped it all away.

Forgetting where he’d come from would be a crushing emotional error.

“I’m assuming, since you left the circus, that isn’t how you want to support yourself. You mentioned making a name in the race?”

She nodded, a splash of color riding in her cheeks and stirring his own blood once more. “I want to rebuild my father’s school. Not on the same scale, but the essence of it. Training riders to work as one with their horses. Training horses to be exquisite equine athletes. It’s all I know, really—all I ever wanted, even as a child.”

How was he supposed to find her a different job given that information? “You’ve no other skills?”

She tilted her head and looked at him. “Not really. Why do you ask?”

The gentle way her eyes looked at him and the clearness of her gaze punched through him. They both needed to remember what was really going on here. “The race is tomorrow,” he said gruffly, shifting in his saddle. “We need to determine where you’re going to go after you lose.”

Seventeen

Sophia wanted to fume over Mr. Whitworth’s assumption, but the flash of anger quickly cooled into a core of determination. Everything she knew about horses, riding, and life was going into that saddle with her, and she would win that race.

Mr. Whitworth dragged his hand across his face. “Racing isn’t really what you want to do. You just said as much.”

That feeling of camaraderie she’d been relishing moments before crept back in, softening the edge of her frustration. “No, it isn’t.”

“It is, however, what I want to do.” He sighed, and the next words crackled as he spoke them, as if the truth were clawing its way out whether he wanted it to or not. “The longer you race for me, the harder my job becomes.”

Sophia bit her lip. She didn’t want to make his life harder. But if she didn’t do something to prove she was more than capable when it came to horses, she’d never be trusted as a trainer. Was she willing to ruin someone else’s life to make her own better?

Mr. Whitworth’s circumstances might not be as simple and easy as they appeared. Did she just want that to be true because the alternative would prove he wasn’t the gentleman she thought he was? “Is this ride about lulling me into lowering my guard? Are you hoping I’ll give up my dreams because I feel sorry for you?”

If her words cut him, it didn’t show. He merely glanced her way with lifted eyebrows. “You think me a far more devious man than I am.”

“I think you want me to believe we have similarities that don’t exist.”

He coughed. “I beg your pardon?”

“What have you truly told me today? That you want to race horses and have since you were in school. You’ve left plenty of gaps for me to fill in as I wish, and I did.” Sophia snapped her teeth shut with a click. Her tongue had run away with her all her life, but not until she’d met this man had it constantly said things that left her vulnerable and embarrassed.

Mr. Whitworth cleared his throat. “Are you complaining that I revealed too much or too little?”

Her mouth dropped open. How could he even pretend to have said too much? He’d barely said anything. She needed to take a page from his book and speak as few words as humanly possible. “My apologies.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

Apparently, economy of words was a talent she didn’t yet possess. “I am apologizing for hearing things you didn’t say.”

He stared at her, incredulous. She winced at how ridiculous that sounded.

“So, your ears run away with you like your mouth does?”

She wanted to be angry at the question until she realized it was somewhat true. “I believe,” she said, unwilling to leave him with whatever interpretation had boiled down to that impression, “that I don’t possess any great ability to interpret unspoken communication. My life has been full of strangers for the past two years. I could make any assumptions I wished, and they were never challenged. I’m afraid it’s become a habit.”

She fidgeted in the saddle and had to grab for the mane to avoid taking a tumble. Falling off a pleasure horse that was going only slightly faster than a plod would make this the worst embarrassment of her