“Isobel.” Jane only dropped the formality when she was genuinely worried. “It’s nae a mornin’ ride kind of sky. It’s a stay inside and find somethin’ to do with yer hands kind of sky.”
“I have found something to do with my hands,” Isobel said. “I am going riding.”
Jane looked at her for a moment. Then she said, “I’ll just go and check on somethin’,” and left at a pace that was quicker than her usual pace in the other direction.
Isobel looked at the mare. “I wonder what she’s up to,” she told the horse.
The mare offered no opinion.
She was in the saddle and gathering the reins when Alasdair walked in.
He was already dressed, coat on, hair tied back, and he looked at her on the horse with an expression that showed he had already made up his mind and was not interested in discussing it. “Get down,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said.
“There is a storm comin’.” His jaw tightened. He stepped forward and put his hand on the mare’s bridle, and the horse dropped her head agreeably, traitor that she was. “Ye’ll get down and go inside.”
“I will not.”
“It’s nae a request.”
“I know it isn’t.” She looked down at him from the saddle. “I am going for a ride. The storm is not here yet, and I will be back before it is.”
“Ye daenae ken these glens.”
“I know enough to turn a horse around when the sky changes.”
“Ye daenae.” He stopped. His hand on the bridle had tightened. She watched the effort it took him to find the next sentence and thought, with a clarity that surprised her, that he was not angry.
“If you are so concerned, you could always ride with me.” She looked at him steadily. “Unless you fear I will outride you.”
The stable went quiet. Even the mare seemed to be waiting.
Something moved through Alasdair’s face; a rapid sequence of expressions that settled finally into something she could only describe as cornered. His eyes narrowed.
“Saddle Rionnag,” he said to the stable hand. “Me Lady and I are goin’ for a ride.”
* * *
He had told himself it was practical.
The storm was approaching, and she did not know the glens. If the mare spooked on the open ground with no one beside her, that was a clan problem, not a personal one. He had repeated this to himself with some conviction all the way from the stable gate to the first rise, and it held up fairly well until she let the mare out into a full canter. He watched her go and felt something shift in his chest that had nothing practical about it at all.
He held the Rionnag level with Isobel’s mare and said nothing.
She had kissed him last night. He had kissed her, technically, but she had kissed him back, and the distinction had been occupying a significant part of his mind ever since he had closed the study door and stood in the corridor outside it with his hand still on the doorframe and his blood still pounding in his ears.
He had not looked at her since the stable gate. He was aware of this. He was aware of her anyway, the way a man was aware of a fire in a room he was pretending not to stand near, a peripheral warmth that registered whether he attended to it or not.
They crested a low rise, and the full force of the wind hit them. The mare tossed her head and skittered sideways two steps. She brought her back smoothly, steady, her body relaxed in the saddle. He watched her do it and looked away before she could catch him watching.
“She doesnae like the wind,” he said.
“She doesn’t,” Isobel agreed. “But I’m sure she’ll settle.”
“Ye rode her this easily on yer first try.”
“I told you I grew up with horses.”