you at the circus.”
“Aye, you did.”
Assuming these two made logical choices—a dangerous assumption given his experience thus far with Miss Fitzroy—there had to be a reason this man hadn’t presented himself as the jockey. “You were injured recently.”
“Aye.”
“Does it prevent you from riding?”
Mr. Fitzroy’s eyebrows slid upward as he glanced at his sister.
“Is there any of that rambling you didn’t catch?” Miss Fitzroy mumbled.
“I might have forgotten the last bit, but not the rest of it.” He hadn’t meant to admit that her kiss had wreaked havoc with his mind, but whatever she’d said right before going up on her toes was long forgotten.
A flush flew across her skin, and though there was no additional room in the stall-like space they were in, she pressed closer to the horse, curling herself in order to fit halfway under the animal’s neck.
Now was when she chose to be embarrassed? Not when her brother revealed himself without any indication of how long he’d been standing there? He’d never been able to understand women, but Miss Fitzroy confounded him far more than the rest of them.
A quiet chuckle came from the brother. “You aren’t much of a man about town, are you?”
“Jonas, hush.” Miss Fitzroy wrapped an arm around the horse’s neck and tried to tilt her chin up in a gesture of confidence. The position looked uncomfortable at best as she twisted her neck to look at his right shoulder. “You have nothing to worry about, Mr. Whitworth. I shall not jog your memory by attacking you again.”
Aaron frowned, mentally walking back through the conversation. Goodness, had she assumed he meant he’d forgotten their kiss? He hadn’t exactly been an impassive receiver of her attentions. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She looked at her brother. “What do we do now?”
Mr. Fitzroy blinked. “I don’t even know what we’ve done, but whatever it is, I don’t think what happens next is entirely up to us, Soph.” He nodded to Aaron. “And yes, until my injury heals, riding isn’t an option.”
The man seemed to move well enough. If he was lying about an injury, he’d have made it obvious to support his lie. Walking was different from riding, though. “You were working with the circus horses.”
Another short nod. “Aye.”
The brother was apparently not afflicted with the same loose tongue as his sister.
“I can find you work in a stable. It won’t pay much, but the roof won’t leak and you’ll have an actual bed.”
Mr. Fitzroy cleared his throat. “As wonderful as that sounds, perhaps you two could come out of the stall and tell me what’s going on?”
Aaron’s own face threatened to flush at the reminder that he was still crowding Miss Fitzroy’s space. He moved quickly to the center of the room. Miss Fitzroy followed, moving the piece of wood keeping the horse in the stall and allowing the animal to roam the area and nuzzle a pile of hay scraps. “She won. Not everyone is happy about it.”
Mr. Fitzroy pushed off the wall. “Well, I am.” He wrapped his sister in a hug. “Congratulations, Soph. I knew you could do it.”
She smiled and wiped her hands on her skirt as her brother pulled away. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”
Aaron’s mouth fell slightly agape. Of all the things she could have said, all the day’s moments she could have shared, and she chose her difficulty sleeping?
“Today was so important and I didn’t”—she waved her hands in the air in front of her, as if creating the words by magic—“I was afraid.”
Mr. Fitzroy just nodded.
“I thought a walk might help, and as I went by the stable, one of the horses sounded restless. It looked like colic, so I walked him outside. I was sufficiently tired by the time he was ready to settle, but I didn’t want to leave him before I was certain he was well again, and I fell asleep in the stall.”
She rattled on about her morning, barely taking a breath. Aaron had either been present for or guessed some of it, but other parts—particularly the way Davers’s jockey had pressed in on her even more than he’d realized—were new, and he tucked the information away to think on later.
“And then Lord Gliddon came to the stable. I didn’t think about how my racing would affect other people, Jonas, but Mr. Barley and Mr. Whitworth might lose their jobs over this. But if I don’t work, we won’t have enough money to start over, and you won’t get better