Heir Untamed - By Danielle Bourdon Page 0,41

statement is true. You know which half.”

“I do. Now then. Can we go? I'll tell you what you want to know later.”

He stroked his hand down the nose of the mare, like he was considering it.

“Come on, Sander. What's done is done. Why waste a perfectly good canoe trip?” Chey couldn't believe she was cajoling him like this. The longer she sat there, however, the more time she wanted to spend in his company.

“I want every detail,” he said, turning away to issue a quiet whistle into the woods.

His horse threaded through the trees and went right to him.

“I don't make promises lightly. I'll tell you everything.” Chey wondered what he would do about it. As head of security, it was his job, probably, to interrogate people if there had been an attack. It made her nervous and she was thankful to put the confession off until later.

“You bet your ass you will.” He swung up into the saddle with little effort.

Chey laughed. “Did you ever think that maybe I just don't want to talk about it?”

He reined his steed around. “That goes without saying. If you'd wanted to talk about it, the entire castle would already know the details. You've tried to brush this under the rug for reasons I can only guess at.”

“Stop being so astute.” Chey chose to combat her nerves with light humor. Once she confessed, there was no going back. She didn't know exactly what Sander might do, but she suspected he was the type of man who wouldn't rest on his laurels. He was a man of action and conviction. Sander would, eventually, get to the bottom of it.

Maybe that was a good thing.

The mare picked her way along the trail behind his horse, shaking her head and mane out.

“It's my job.”

“So? You could pretend indifference.”

“What kind of a man would that make me?” he asked, ducking a branch.

Chey ducked it, too. “An indulgent one.”

“But that's not what you really want.”

“How do you know what I really want?” Chey stared at the back of his head. He'd pulled the top half of his hair into a small ponytail again. The rest hung loose around his neck.

“If you didn't want someone to know the truth, you wouldn't have shown your face in public. You would have claimed the flu and stayed in your room to heal as much as possible.”

“I can't do that. I have to work.”

“Mm, not a good enough excuse. Everyone gets sick. You could have made a plausible argument until the bruise faded. Instead, you lied.”

“Everyone else bought it but you,” she pointed out.

He twisted his shoulders to glance back. A brief moment of eye contact before facing front. “Really.”

She wasn't sure she liked the implication. “You don't sound like you believe that.”

“Because I don't. Even Ingel wouldn't buy that load of crap.”

Chey scoffed. “She didn't say otherwise.”

“She's head of the house staff. What do you think she's going to say?”

“Mattias didn't say anything, either.” Which wasn't exactly true. He'd seemed suspicious of her 'cabinet' story.

“He knows better. Trust me. A five year old child would know better.”

In the face of Sander's conviction that someone had hit her, Chey decided maybe she shouldn't have fabricated a tale about the bruise after all. Now they were all going to think she lied on a regular basis.

“If it makes any difference, I respect that you're attempting to either protect who did it, or spare someone the humiliation of discovery. It's just not the right choice if whoever it is needs reprimanding.”

She couldn't decide if it was the words or his tone that prompted the sudden confession.

“They showed up in the night. While I was sleeping. Pinned my head down with a blindfold and stuck a knee in my chest. Made it hard to breathe.” At some point, she became aware that the mare stopped walking and that his steed had, too. He turned in his seat, staring back at her.

“I tried to fight back, but each time they applied more pressure with their knee. He, or she—I'm not sure which—told me that I had to stop taking late walks through the castle. That I shouldn't spend any more time with Mattias. They said there are eyes everywhere, and if I didn't do as they said, that they would plant false evidence in my room. Some Ahtissari artifact and blame the theft on me. Or,” she paused to swallow and meet his eyes. “That a long fall down the stairs was a common occurrence in