Free Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) by Mary Balogh

hand. “Even when they come to apologize and make friends?”
    “No, of course not.” She patted the dog’s head and felt enormously proud of herself. He had always had a dog with him as a boy. She had always cringed from it even though the one she remembered had been a friendly little mutt, which had liked to jump up on her and lick her face.
    Nelson was gazing up at her with intelligent eyes and was nudging at her hand for more petting. She smoothed her hand between his ears. She felt embarrassed and tongue-tied. She wanted to escape. Should she just bid him a good morning and walk on? Or walk back the way she had come? She should have made some observation about the weather, she thought when the silence had stretched a little too long, but doing so now would seem awkward.
Why
had she given in to temptation and come down onto the beach?
    “Why are you walking here alone, Moira?” he asked.
    Indignation wiped away embarrassment. She looked up at him. It was enough that she had Sir Edwin to give her such reminders of her status as a lady. She had been forced to ride down the valley swathed in blankets and hot bricks inside a closed carriage, with a maid for company. “Because I choose to do so,” she said. “Why are you walking here alone, my lord?”
    “Because I have a houseful of guests in need of entertainment,” he said. “And because today the Christmas festivities are beginning in earnest and my educated guess is that I will not have a single moment to myself that is not stolen for the next week or so. Because I remembered that Nelson needed exercise and judged that none of my guests, especially the ladies, would wish to accompany us. They are all terrified of him. Foolish, are they not?”
    Perhaps, she thought, those same lady guests would be wise to be fearful of
him
. Although he spoke with a half smile on his lips, as if he were making a joke, there was something dangerous about him, a certain coldness about his eyes. He had changed, she thought. He was not the Kenneth she had known. This was a man who had faced death and had seen death and had inflicted death and had become, perhaps, indifferent to it. This was a man who had commanded other men and who, she did not doubt, had made himself feared. And yet even as a boy he had liked to go off alone sometimes. Sean would not have met him otherwise.
She
would not have met him. But his eyes had been soft and dreamy in those days.
    She looked back down at Nelson and patted him some more. “I have been busy with Christmas preparations,” she said, “and with receiving callers relative to my betrothal. I have beenaccustoming myself to the presence of a stranger at Penwith—a stranger who is also the owner and master there, and my betrothed. I came to Tawmouth this morning to deliver Christmas baskets. I needed a little time to myself. Do you know how tedious it is always to be trailed by a maid?”
    “I believe,” he said, “it is for your safety.”
    She had an alarming feeling of déjà vu. She had asked him the same question once before. And he had answered with the same words—
before kissing her
. Her eyes widened.
    “Am I not safe with you, then?” she asked.
    His expression was controlled, his eyes cool. But they lowered to focus quite unmistakably on her mouth for a few moments. “You are quite safe,” he said.
    No, she was not. “I must return to Tawmouth,” she said abruptly, “and my maid and carriage.”
    He raised both eyebrows. “I shall not offer to escort you, Miss Hayes,” he said, “but I will swear not to report your little truancy to Sir Edwin Baillie. My guess is that he would be less than pleased.”
    She opened her mouth to make a sharp retort about caring nothing for pleasing her betrothed. But she
was
betrothed to him and owed him her loyalty.
    “Good day to you, my lord,” she said, and turned to make her way back along the beach to the seawall. The Earl of Haverford and Nelson stayed where they were or went back