cooler heads prevailed, including his.
Dusk was in its final throes when he swung up on Sheikh. He could still make dinner at Dursley Park, but he wasn’t ready to go home. More to the point, he wasn’t ready to go to Peyton’s home. He couldn’t expect Peyton to keep silent about the manor forever. But Crispin wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, at least not with his brother. He could only think of one place that might suit his needs. In the fading light of day, Crispin turned Sheikh towards Aurora’s stables.
The stable lanterns threw a welcoming light into the yard and the fresh smell of evening hay assailed his senses the moment Crispin led Sheikh through the stable doors. Horses neighed, acknowledging Sheikh’s presence among them as they passed stall doors. Crispin stopped outside Sheikh’s stall and removed the saddle. With one hand, he stroked Sheikh’s long neck, soothing the horse. With the other, Crispin groped for the kit holding the brushes. The kit should have been right behind him on the nail hook outside the stall where he’d left it that morning.
‘Are you looking for this?’ The voice startled him. Crispin whirled around; releasing a breath when he saw the voice belonged to Aurora.
She held the kit out to him. ‘I didn’t mean to give you a start,’ she apologised, taking one of the brushes and moving around to Sheikh’s other side. She began to curry the horse.
‘You’ve had a long day. I noticed Sheikh was gone when I came back this morning. You must have been here early and now it’s dinner time,’ Aurora commented.
‘Peyton and I rode over to see some property,’ Crispin said, surprising himself with the truth. He could have answered the question just as easily by saying he’d waited until lessons were done. Such an answer would not have given away any particular information about his whereabouts and it certainly wouldn’t have invited any further conversation. His chosen answer, on the other hand, invited all nature of possible comment, none of which Aurora opted for.
‘Your brother is eager to see you settled,’ she said, meeting his eyes for an instance over Sheikh’s back.
Of all the things she could have said, he’d not expected that. He’d expected the usual; ‘Do you mean to settle here?’ ‘Where is the property?’ ‘What do you plan to do with it?’
‘I suppose he is,’ Crispin replied, bending over and clicking to Sheikh to lift his hoof.
‘How do you feel about that?’
Crispin answered honestly. ‘The property is enticing, but I’m not the right man for that kind of life. I’ll sell the property outright and then I’ll be on my way.’ He finished picking the hoof and stood up, stretching his back. Aurora was nearly finished brushing Sheikh’s opposite flank.
‘I know what you mean,’ she said casually. ‘I’ve been here longer than I’ve been anywhere else. I’d always taught on a property owned by someone else. But Tessa talked me into leasing this one. Actually, in all truth, Tessa wanted me to buy it, but I couldn’t go that far. A lease was as permanent a commitment as I could make.’ Aurora stopped brushing and shook back her hair, which had fallen forwards over her shoulders as she worked. An awkward silence fell between them as if they both suddenly recognised they’d said too much to someone they didn’t know.
Crispin met her eyes over the back of Sheikh and nodded in the awkward quiet; a wealth of understanding passing between them in that single look. He could well imagine all the trappings of permanence to which she referred, trappings that went beyond owning the actual structure.
Buying the property would have meant applying for a loan. She wouldn’t have had any money of her own. She would have had to have relied on Peyton’s support. Support Peyton would have provided based on the comments Peyton had made at dinner, but she would have been indebted to him. She couldn’t have left until that obligation was fulfilled. Once again Crispin’s hypothesis proved true. Permanence bred obligation. It was odd to think how much this stranger’s situation paralleled his own in spite of its own unique circumstances. It begged several questions.
How had a strikingly beautiful woman come to own a riding academy in the unlikely middle of sheep country? How was it that a stranger he’d never met until yesterday could sum up in a sentence his precise feelings over the property? She could empathise with him on this issue while his brother, who knew him better than anyone, could not.
Aurora cleared her throat in the silence. ‘It’s late and I’m sure you haven’t eaten yet.’
Ah, the audacious woman was dismissing him. Of course. She’d want to get to her own meal. It had been a long day for her as well. She’d been up jumping before he’d even arrived that morning. It had been a long time since a woman had dismissed him.
‘I’m sorry to keep you. I’ll just see to Sheikh and be going.’ Crispin piled the brushes into the kit, disappointment unexpectedly swamping him. He hadn’t been ready to leave the stables. Or perhaps he hadn’t been ready to leave her. They’d got off on the wrong foot yesterday. This brief exchange had been a pleasant contrast, but perhaps that was too much to hope for. Perhaps she was merely being nice.
‘No, don’t go.’ Her words rushed out. ‘I was going to suggest, before you interrupted me, that you stay for dinner.’
There was that sharp tongue he remembered. Crispin stifled a laugh on behalf of the truce they seemed to have struck. But he noticed she couldn’t help sneaking that small rebuke in—‘before you interrupted’. What might have been an invitation had now been turned into a suggestion, which everyone knew was just a step below a command. He was very familiar with ‘suggestions’. Peyton made a lot of them.
But she wasn’t Peyton and Crispin found he’d like nothing more than to have dinner with the intriguing Aurora Calhoun, who was less like his brother and perhaps more like him; a wanderer, a straddler of worlds. A kindred spirit? It was far too early in their acquaintance to draw that conclusion. There was too much unknown about her for him to make such leaps of logic. Still, it couldn’t hurt to find out and Crispin intended to explore the potential.
Chapter Four
What was she thinking to invite the earl’s brother to dinner? Because that’s what he was, when all was said and done. Men with that kind of power were dangerous to her freedom. One word from him and Dursley could shut her down with a single sentence dropped at a dinner party.
She needed Crispin Ramsden to keep his distance. But, no, she’d invited a potential danger right to her dinner table. It didn’t matter that he wore plain clothes and didn’t put on aristocratic airs. It didn’t matter that she wanted to see if he was worthy of riding Kildare. He was still brother to the earl.
In retrospect, she was amazed she hadn’t seen the resemblance instantly. He had the earl’s raven-black hair, the earl’s dark-blue eyes, but not the earl’s urbane demeanour and that made all the difference, distinguishing them from one another in spite of their inherited physical similarities.
Dursley carried his confidence like one born to it. Everything Dursley did was done with a polished veneer of sophistication. Not Crispin. He exuded a rough worldliness. She was certain his blue eyes had seen things that would render most men cynical about the world they lived in. The tanned skin of his face and hands suggested he was a man who knew how to work. The rugged planes of his face and the breadth of his shoulders affirmed this was a man used to hard living. He was no pampered prince of the ton regardless of who his brother was.
That
