mind on contemplated acts of mayhem, she broke free of the trees, stepping onto the gravel drive that twisted and turned on its way through the well-landscaped park.
The horse and rider appeared out of nowhere, heading for her at a vigorous canter.
Charlotte slid to a halt on the stones even as she threw up her hands and gave a quick, faintly terrified cry.
The horse, either in response to her unexpected appearance, or in reaction to his rider’s immediate sharp tug on the reins, gave a rather frightened cry of its own. It then reared onto its hind legs, pawing at the air as if attempting to climb an invisible ladder.
The hapless rider was immediately deposited on his back on the hard-packed gravel.
No fainthearted miss, Charlotte had already collected herself. She bravely grabbed at the horse’s now-dangling reins to keep it from bolting off down the lane, which, she readily saw, it appeared to have no intention of doing. She then walked toward the man she had unhorsed, hoping he’d get to his feet without assistance, which he would most probably do if he hadn’t cracked his skull, or worse.
“Are you all right, sir?” she asked rather cautiously, keeping her distance even as she leaned over the man, whose many-caped brown traveling cloak was twisted up and around his head. “I’m most terribly sorry. I am entirely at fault for your misfortune, I know, but I believe it would be extremely considerate and gentlemanly of you to pretend that you hadn’t noticed.”
The man mumbled something Charlotte couldn’t quite make out, which was understandable, what with him still all but strangled by his extremely fashionable cloak. She was, however, fairly certain that his response to her hadn’t been quite as forgiving as she might have hoped.
“Excuse me? Perhaps if you were to loose the fastenings of your cloak you’d be able to free yourself from its grasp?” She rolled her eyes, knowing that she was most probably only making things worse. “Shall I…shall I fetch help?”
“God’s teeth, no,” the man said, struggling to sit up while fighting his way out of the cloak. “I feel bloody well embarrassed enough, thank you. I’ve no need of an audience.” At last his head emerged from the tangle of cloth, his healthy crop of nearly black hair falling over his eyes. “Where’s my bloody hat?”
“I’ve got it,” Charlotte said, holding it out to him. “It’s barely dented, and I’m confident that it will clean up quite nicely once the mud is dry and can be brushed off.”
He still hadn’t looked at her, instead busying himself attempting to rearrange his many-caped collars so that they lay flat over his shoulders once more. She counted four capes, graduated in size—very impressive. More would have classified him as a dandy, and less wouldn’t be half so fashionable. Upside-down and over a man’s head, however, all that fine London fashion was probably little more than a nuisance.
“Next, madam, I suppose you’ll say I should be delighted with that piece of information. How fortunate I am. My cloak is only torn—ah, in two places—and my new hat is barely dented. Lucky, lucky me. Perhaps you believe I should be thanking you.”
“There’s no need for rudeness, sir,” Charlotte told him, knowing that there was probably every need. She’d unhorsed the man, for goodness’ sakes, ruining his fine clothes, which were apparently very dear to him. She probably also shouldn’t point out that if he hadn’t sawed so on the reins, his mount, which seemed a placid sort, may not have reared at all. No, she probably shouldn’t mention that, either. “I didn’t mean to unhorse you, you know. It was an accident.”
“An accident, of course. I believe the fool who touched off the Great London Fire attempted the same sorry excuse. You ran into the roadway, madam. Next you’ll probably say it was all my fault for having been on the drive in the first place.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlotte said tartly, beginning to lose patience with the man. “You had every right to be here.” Then she frowned. “And why are you here?”
The hat was all but ripped from her hand as the man finally got to his feet. But when he slammed the thing back on his head he uttered a quick curse and quickly removed it once more; it dropped, unnoticed, onto the drive.
She went up on her tiptoes. Goodness, he was a large man. Quite imposing. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it your head? I don’t see anything.” But, then, how could she? He was very tall. Charlotte was rather impressed; she’d known few men who stood a full head and shoulders above her not inconsiderable height. He actually made her feel small.
“Damn,” he said, touching the back of his head and then bringing his hand forward once more, looking at the blood on his fingers. “Six years of war all but unscathed, and I take a head wound not a mile from home. Inflicted by a woman, no less.”
Home. He’d said that. She’d heard him. He’d said home. Charlotte’s eyes went so wide she was amazed they didn’t pop straight out of her head.
While he fished in his pocket for a handkerchief to press against his wound, Charlotte eyed Rafael Daughtry, whom she’d last seen in the flesh the day he rode off to war, and only in her foolish, maidenly dreams in the intervening years.
He didn’t look at all as she remembered him.
This man seemed to be twice the Rafe she remembered, or perhaps that was only because he weighed a good three stone more than the gangly youth whose wide, unaffected smile had always had the ability to make her knees buckle. The hair?Yes, that was the same coal-dark hair she remembered, if longer than she remembered.
But his features seemed sharper, more mature, and his skin was tanned from the sun in the way that the farm laborers were tanned…years and years of exposure to the elements that toughened the skin, made for small crinkles around the edges of his eyes.
She looked at him again, examining him.
These weren’t Rafe’s eyes. They were the same color, a warm, rich brown, almost sherry. But they were hard eyes, centuries-old eyes, not the laughing eyes of the boy she’d known. These eyes had seen things she could never imagine.
Charlotte suppressed a small shiver, one born of vague nervousness coupled with a definite curiosity. Why had she never realized that he would be changed by war, changed by his six long years away from Ashurst Hall?
“Rafe?”
He still held the handkerchief pressed to the back of his head. “Pardon me?” he asked, looking at her. Finally looking at her. Was that interest in his eyes? “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, madam.”
“If I do, Your Grace, it would be the first time,” Charlotte said, dropping into a fairly mocking curtsy. But she couldn’t seem to curb her tongue. “Perhaps I should have thought to unhorse you six years ago. Perhaps on the day you and George and Harold saw nothing out of the ordinary in speaking freely around me about the charms of the new barmaid in the village, just as if I wasn’t there at all.”
“Again, madam, I don’t believe I—” Rafe blinked and leaned closer, looking intensely into her face. “Charlie? By God, it is you. And still wreaking havoc all over Ashurst Hall, I see. I should have realized at once. Maybe you should have thrown another apple at my head. I would have remembered then. You always were a bit of a menace.”
Charlotte fought down the urge to
