Free Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas

only flirting with her after all, a dalliance to entertain him for the duration of his holiday in the backwoods.
    “I suppose only you could judge that, my lord,” she said.
    “You should take my horse,” he said.
    An expression of horror crossed his face then, as if he'd openly and loudly declared before his mother and hers that he'd like to get under her petticoats and stay there but good.
    He'd gone out of his way to be considerate of her fear, walking the stallion at a crawling speed and tethering it far away from her. Yet now he'd forgotten all about it. Her heart soared. Beneath his sleek serenity, he'd been as flustered as she, possibly more.
    “I don't ride,” she reminded him.
    He took a deep breath, the audible exhalation as close an admission of mortification as she was likely to get from him.
    “Why don't you?” he asked, once again his cool, collected self. “I can't believe your mother would have omitted equestrian lessons.”
    She shrugged. “She didn't. I choose not to ride.”
    “Tell me why. You seem like you would enjoy riding, enjoy the control and freedom it affords you.”
    Oh she'd enjoyed it, all right. She'd loved riding. Until she'd fallen off for the second time, breaking three ribs and her right arm in two places. “I'm afraid of horses. That's all.”
    “And why are you afraid of horses? They are far milder and more reasonable creatures than dowager duchesses. You are not afraid of the latter, from what I hear.”
    He certainly had ways to loosen her tongue, with his gentle, persistent, and—by all appearances—genuine interest in her. Not her money, because she'd already tried to give it to him. Her.
    “I fell twice. Hurt myself badly the second time.”
    Still he shook his head. “You'd have gotten back up on that horse before the doctors even let you out of bed. What really happened?”
    It was none of his business. None of his concern. At least, not while he considered himself promised to another. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly that, only to hear herself say, “A disappointed fortune hunter. He was infuriated with my mother for keeping him at arm's length and chose to take it out on me. He took what little was left in his wallet and bribed our groom.”
    And when the first fall did her no damage—having just slowed down when the saddle strap snapped, she slid off and landed on something soft—he tried it one more time. “I was lucky. The doctors said I could easily have broken my spine and been bedridden for life rather than just two months.”
    Mr. Henry Hyde, Gigi's would-be maimer, had been arrested two days later on unrelated charges. Apparently he was so desperate for fresh funds that he'd attempted to poison his widowed aunt for the few hundred pounds promised to him in her will. He died while imprisoned.
    Lord Tremaine listened intently. She couldn't tell by his solemn eyes whether he was disgusted or saddened. She regretted her candor already. What good did it do to burden him with all this ugly history?
    “Please wait here,” he said. “I'll be only a minute.”
    He returned, leading his horse behind him. For such a tall man, he moved with an easy grace, his leisurely seeming gait eating up the distance swiftly. His long riding boots reached halfway up his thighs. She had to exercise considerable restraint to not follow the lines of his fawn trousers and stare where she shouldn't.
    “Will you walk a little with me?” he asked, with great solicitude that told her nothing.
    “Certainly.” She didn't understand what he wanted, but it mattered not. She would do almost anything with him, up to and including forfeiting her virginity, if he but asked, with or without a nuptial contract.
    Since meeting him, every morning she woke up with a sweet, wrenching pain in her heart—the joy and overwhelming terror of being in love—not knowing how she would get through the day without him, not knowing how she would ever survive another encounter with him.
    The