Chapter 9

The September sun was warm and the sky cloudless. The insects chirped, and the sound eased away the silence. It was a fine day for riding, for living. Away from the stuffy drawing rooms and evening engagements, Emily breathed again. She belonged here in the country with its green sloping hills and endless blue skies.

A light breeze tumbled along her skin and riding habit as the trio trotted along the edge of Godric's lands. Emily looked back and saw just how far they'd ridden. The manor was a stone dot in the distance. Godric caught her admiring the view, and she smiled.

"Your lands are extensive, my lord." She sighed at the enchanting sight of the English countryside.

"That's not the only thing that's extens" Cedric began.

Godric smacked the butt of his riding crop on Cedric's horse's flank. The beast shot off at a mad gallop with Cedric shouting curses, leaving Emily wondering what he had been about to say.

Fifty feet ahead of them, Cedric slowed down and glowered childishly in their direction. He stayed a good ways ahead, leaving Emily and Godric alone.

"How long have you lived with your uncle, Miss Parr?"

"II don't think I would mind so much if you called me Emily, Your Grace. I dislike being called Miss Parr." It was improper, of course but with everything between them, propriety was the least of her worries.

"If you wish, Emily, but then I must insist you stop 'Your Gracing' me." The sun paled against the bright shine of his eyes and Emily's heartbeat fluttered in response.

"I moved in with Uncle Albert a year ago, after my parents died."

"I heard they were deceased. May I ask how?" Godric guided his black gelding closer to her. Her mount playfully nipped at his horse's front flank.

"They were lost at sea. My father was headed to New York to see his shipping company there. My mother insisted on accompanying him." The pain of her parents' loss was deep, one she'd buried only a short time ago. "I had been staying with family friends when I received word. The next day my uncle came to collect me."

"What were their names?"

Emily's throat constricted. "Clara and Robert."

"And you have no other siblings?"

She shook her head. "None. My mother miscarried twice after me. They stopped trying after that. Too much pain." Why she was sharing such intimate details with a man she barely knew was beyond her.

Godric looked away from her. "My mother died in childbirth when I was a boy. The babe died with her."

There were no words that could ease the hurt of losing a loved one, especially a parent. One felt lost, with no chance of salvation. Nothing could replace the sheltering warmth and security of a parent. To be robbed of that was akin to losing one's innocence.

Godric spoke again. "You have not really grieved, have you?"

It was less a question and more an observation. How odd that talking to Godric about her tragedy should be so easy. He was a stranger, yet already few barriers stood between them.

"No, I haven't." They stopped their horses. She let her reins loosen in her fingers as her horse ducked his head to steal a bite of grass.

"I think that a part of me will never really accept that they're gone. It is as though I expect them to roll up in a carriage at Uncle Albert's any day now to take me home." Emily's voice wavered a little.

Godric's eyes darkened. Emily noticed the faint shadows beneath his eyes. Out here, beneath the sun, without the pace of the day, he looked bone weary. "You must have loved your mother very much."

"I loved her the way I've never loved anyone else." He spoke so softly, it passed as more of a shared thought.

A desire flipped in Emily's heart. Before, she'd wanted to hurt him the way she'd been hurt by his cold, calculated kidnapping. But nownow she saw a man who life had wounded deeply and she wanted to erase the worries that creased his brow. It reminded her of an injured badger she and her father had found in the garden a few years before. It had broken its leg and when they'd tried to help it, it had bitten him, drawing blood. Godric was very much like that animal. Hurt and blindly striking out in his own defense.

"I imagine she loved you just as much."

"Thank you, Emily. I'm sure wherever they are, your family must be missing you just the same."

He meant it. His sincerity manifested in the glimmer of his eyes and the lift of his lips into a grim smile. A man weighed down by countless sins, believed in heaven and an afterlife. For the briefest second she couldn't help but wonder perhaps if rogues could be redeemed?

Godric reached over the small space between them and slipped his hand around hers. Neither had bothered to wear riding gloves. His bare hand enveloped hers. The warmth of his hand, so much larger than her own, offered a comfort she didn't expecta state of peace she recalled from evenings with her parents before the fire, settled on the floor as they laughed at the humor columns in the paper. Godric's thumb stroked the sensitive plane of her palm, yet the seemingly innocent contact teased her body with a desire for something she did not understand. With that simple truth, all thoughts of her uncle and her parents evaporated. His touch made her want to follow him to the ends of the earth to see where it might lead.

But she couldn't let him win this game by wooing her into submission with tender words and caresses. Emily couldn't afford to fall for this man. They were worlds apart. He was unlikely to marry for love and she wanted someone who could love as strongly as she did. She couldn't stay, couldn't take the risk of falling for him. Her parents would've wanted her to survive, and that required escaping the duke and finding someone to marry.

Emily studied the surrounding lands. A low stone wall, about five feet in height, rose from the ground a few hundred yards off.

"What is beyond that wall?" she asked casually.

"A pond and a meadow or two, beyond that the village of Blackbriar."

A village? The fool might as well have drawn her a map to escape.

Godric kept his attention on Cedric, who raced his horse back and forth in the field, stretching the horse's stride into a beautiful gallop.

Emily's hand was still locked firmly in Godric's grasp, complicating matters. Carefully, she extricated her hand from his, and he turned to see the reason she tugged free. Emily leaned forward to pat her horse's neck.

"He's a lovely creature." She threaded her fingers through the thick mane of her gelding. She didn't even have to look up to know that Godric smiled at her.

"Are you finding that you like horses?"

"Oh, yes. They are a bit frightening, but this one is ever so sweet." She resisted the urge to laugh. She'd never been scared of horses in her lifethe occasional goat, maybe, when the awful things nipped at the hems of her skirtsbut never horses. Godric was in for quite a surprise.

She raised her head as though to follow Cedric's progress across the field. She waited for the moment at which Cedric swung to the right, back toward the home.

She painted a look of shock and alarm on her face and pointed frantically in Cedric's direction.

"Godric, look out! Highwaymen!"

Godric tensed, bracing for trouble and reared his horse around.

Emily dug her heels into her horse's flanks and took off at a breakneck speed, straight for the wall, praying her horse could clear it. Blackbriar lay beyond the wall. She would seek help or hide until she found her way to London.

It took Godric several seconds to realize what had happened. Highwaymen, indeed.

Emily flew across the golden field, a warrior maiden at the apex of battle. Her lowered posture and natural control over the horse were evident. The girl was cleverer than he'd thought and he had been a fool by telling her about Blackbriar.

"Emily!" he roared.

She headed right for the wall and if she didn't stop, the horse would throw her. She'd land in the lake on the other side, break her neck or drown.

He dug his boots into his horse's sides, forcing it into action.

Moments later Godric was close on her heels, only twenty feet behind, his black gelding the fastest in the stables. He nearly shut his eyes as her horse reached the wall.

In one graceful arc, she cleared it, and a few seconds later, so did he.

Emily controlled her horse better than he expected, which had landed in perfect balance. She'd jerked her mount to the side, narrowly escaping a messy end in the shallows of the lake.

Godric was not so lucky. His horse panicked as its hooves landed in the soft muddy grass of the lake's edge, and it balked, sending him head first into the water.