Page 24 of The Heir's Fortune
“I have a blanket and a flask of water in my saddlebag, but that is all for provisions as I left in such haste, I’m afraid,” he said. “I shall try to make a fire, but it will be difficult in the dark.”
“No need.”
He shook his head. “There is. Always share the truth with me, Madeline.”
His voice seemed to have lowered an octave, and it caused a strange sensation in Madeline’s stomach. Why was he suddenly appealing to her so?
She had never thought him to be a knight in shining armor, nor had she needed his rescue, and yet… the fact that he had come for her had caused her to see him in a different light.
“Very well. I am slightly cold, but I shall be fine. I still have my cloak.”
She shifted it around her shoulders, realizing as she did so that her skirt was still hiked up around her waist from riding astride, although Gideon likely hadn’t been able to see anything in the dark.
“Where did you learn to ride like that?” he asked as though to prove her wrong.
“My father,” she said. “It was just the two of us in our family, and he was a proficient rider and often took me with him on his journeys. I do usually ride side saddle, but he taught me to ride astride when I was a girl.”
“I’ve heard stories of your father,” Gideon commented, and Madeline listened for judgment in his tone but heard none.
“I’m not surprised,” she intoned. She wasn’t one who usually shared much with others, but she didn’t see any harm in telling Gideon more of her early life. He was not such a gossip.
“His life turned out nothing as he planned,” she continued. “He was a second son who thought he could live as he pleased, and then he inherited a title he didn’t want and lost the wife he loved. He did his best with what he had left.”
“He did well,” Gideon said, and Madeline started.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s the truth. I told you – I always speak the truth.”
A strange warmth ran through her at his words, despite the cold.
As Gideon laid the blanket on the ground and set up camp, Madeline walked around the horses, praising them for their escape and fine running. If she had to guess from their sleek hair, healthy weight, and extravagant saddles, the four of them were a set. They wore English saddles, which meant that they had been taken here on English soil. She doubted they had been purchased and they were too fine of horseflesh to have been hired out.
It made her hate the men more than for capturing her.
A slight crack caught her attention, and she turned to find Gideon sitting back on his haunches, intent on the ground before him.
“You did it!” Madeline said, her jaw dropping open as she came to crouch beside him, watching as the small flame flickered in front of them.
“It’s not much,” he said wryly, “but it is something.”
“It’s damp here,” she said, feeling the ground around them. “It might be hard to find enough dry wood for a larger fire.”
He stood and walked over to a nearby tree, breaking off a few smaller branches.
“This is green so it won’t work well, but it’s dry enough that hopefully it will help,” he said, placing them around the small fire, which grew just enough to light up his face. Madeline wasn’t sure that she had ever noted just how angular his features were, how dark and sensual his eyes could be. He wore so many expressions on that face, but few were ever anything but tense and rigid.
Madeline held her hands out over the fire to encourage warmth back into her fingers, and suddenly his eyes narrowed, one of his hands shooting out and grasping her arm that was no longer covered by her cloak.
“You told me that they didn’t hurt you.”
He was staring at the angry red welts on her arms, and she was caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze.
“I partially did it to myself,” she said, her voice low as she recounted her experience, which she was aware could have been far worse than it had been. “They tied me to the bed, at first quite tightly. They released me to write the note to you, still believing I was Cassandra. The man who retied me was much more sympathetic than the rest of them. When he returned me to the room, I told him the binds were too tight the first time and he agreed to tie them with more slack. I couldn’t quite free myhands right away but had to work them against the wood of the bed until I could loosen them enough to slip them through.”
His eyes were hard, icier than she had ever seen them.
“Perhaps you were right,” he said, surprising her with the growl in his tone.
