An Heiress for All Seasons (The Debutante Files #1.5)(3)

She sucked in a sharp breath when she stepped out into the night and burrowed deeper inside her cloak. She hurried, her feet eating up the ground as she rounded the house and drove a straight line for the stables.

She pushed open the creaking doors and stepped inside. The interior was marginally warmer. The smell of horse, sweet hay, and earthy oats immediately filled her nose. This felt like home to her. A light glowed from the far end of the stable. She could detect the faint sound of masculine voices. Deciding she needn’t alert the stable hands of her presence, she strolled silently before the stalls, peering in at each horse, petting velvety noses and cooing softly.

She reached one stall, larger than the rest and immediately she understood why. Inside stood a monstrous beast of a horse. A black stallion with a white star on its forehead.

He stood back several paces, watching her warily, his liquid-dark eyes seeming to say, I don’t know you.

Violet extended her hand, palm out, for him to sniff. “Come, my beautiful boy, come now. Let’s see you.”

The stallion walked a few steps closer, his hoofs hitting the ground almost reluctantly as he approached.

“There now, my beauty. I’m sorry I have no treat for you. Let me pet you, and next time I promise to bring you a tasty treat. Would you like that?”

Almost as though he understood her, he tossed his head, neighing, his glossy dark mane shaking on the air.

Then he did it. He pushed his velvety nose into her palm. His hot breath puffed against the cup of her hand in greeting. She grinned.

“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

Violet whirled around with a gasp, her hood sliding back from her head. A stable hand stood there glaring at her. He’d discarded his jacket and neck cloth. She gaped at the inappropriate sight of his lean physique on display. His shirt was open at the neck, exposing firm, touchable looking flesh. His trousers fit him like a second skin, concealing nothing of his narrow hips and muscular thighs. Dark boots hugged his calves almost to his knees. He exuded virility—the type of man who spent more time out of doors than indoors.

His face was equally pleasing. Square jaw. Sharp blade of a nose and piercing blue eyes. Eyes that looked her over now, taking in her tumbled hair and cloaked figure. Her hands dove for the edges of her cloak, making certain none of her nightgown peeked out. With consternation, she realized she still had not responded.

Remembering she was a guest here and not someone to be spoken to so rudely—by a stable hand, no less—she drew back her shoulders. “I was merely petting the horse.”

His gaze flicked to the stallion just behind her.

“You’re lucky he did not make a snack of you. I believe he has a fondness for Yanks.”

She bristled, quite certain no servant or employee had ever talked to her in such a manner before. Certainly such ill manners were not tolerated in an earl’s household. Perhaps he thought her a servant, too.

Lifting her chin, she disagreed. “He’s quite friendly.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing her eyes there again—to that impossible broadness. “I know him. And he’s not friendly.”

She crossed her arms, mimicking his pose. “Well, I know horses. And he is. He likes me.”

His eyes flashed, appearing darker in that moment, the blue as deep and stormy as the waters she had crossed to arrive in this country. “Who are you?”

“I’m a guest here.” She motioned in the direction of the house. “My name is V—”

“Are you indeed?” His expression altered then, sliding over her with something bordering belligerence. “No one mentioned that you were an American.”

Before she could process that statement—or why he should be told of anything—she felt a hot puff of breath on her neck.

The insolent man released a shout and lunged. Hard hands grabbed her shoulders. She resisted, struggling and twisting until they both lost their balance.

Then they were falling. She registered this with a sick sense of dread. He grunted, turning slightly so that he took the brunt of the fall. They landed with her body sprawled over his.

Her nose was practically buried in his chest. A pleasant smelling chest. She inhaled leather and horseflesh and the warm saltiness of male skin.

He released a small moan of pain. She lifted her face to observe his grimace and felt a stab of worry. Absolutely misplaced considering this situation was his fault, but there it was nonetheless. “Are you hurt?”

“Crippled. But alive.”

Scowling, she tried to clamber off him, but his hands shot up and seized her arms, holding fast.

“Unhand me! Serves you right if you are hurt. Why did you accost me?”

“Devil was about to take a chunk from that lovely neck of yours.”

Lovely? He thought she was lovely? Or rather her neck was lovely? This bold specimen of a man in front of her, who looked as though he had stepped from the pages of a Radcliffe novel, thought that plain, in-between Violet was lovely?

She shook off the distracting thought. Virile stable hands like him did not look twice at females like her. No. Scholarly bookish types with kind eyes and soft smiles looked at her. Men such as Mr. Weston who saw beyond a woman’s face and other physical attributes.

“I am certain you overreacted.”

He snorted.

She arched, jerking away from him, but still he did not budge. Instead his hands tightened around her. She glared down at him, feeling utterly discombobulated. There was so much of him—all hard male and it was pressed against her in a way that was entirely inappropriate and did strange, fluttery things to her stomach. “Are you planning to let me up any time soon?”