Page 13 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
The septuagenarian couple had almost shuffled to the relative safety of the cloakroom, but the mother had no chance.
An idea occurred to Alexandra as a crack of thunder spurred the creature on.
Sweat bloomed inside her gloves.
Time slowed as the bay stallion gathered his muscles for the small leap from the ground onto the platform.
The metal of horseshoes clattered like hammers against the planks. He shot past Alexandra and aimed his one-ton body toward the terrified mother and the few panicking passengers beyond.
Alexandra dropped her umbrella and leaped toward one of the long ropes trailing behind the beast.
Seizing it in her gloved hands, she set her feet and leaned her hips back, putting all her weight into yanking the horse’s lead around.
The stallion’s head jerked to the side, and with a recalcitrant neigh, his monstrous body followed.
There was no time to think.
Until the whites disappeared from the stallion’s eyes, she had to keep him off balance. She darted toward him, tucking her body next to his long middle as she tugged his lead forcefully around with her, compelling him to turn in a continuous circle.
Belatedly, she noticed the other lead rope was empty. The stallion’s jump somehow scraped Smythe from his lead.
A quick glance found the young porter in the mud, unmoving.
The beast snorted and tossed his head, but after a few circles, his stamping turned to prancing, which she considered a victory.
It occurred to her with a sense of growing alarm that she hadn’t the slightest idea what to do next. The man with the compelling baritone had mentioned blinders. On the next rotation, she snatched up her open black umbrella, and somehow managed to lower it over both their heads, narrowing their entire scope of the world to that of each other.
Alexandra kept her eyes locked with the breathtaking creature, the vapors of her breath keeping time with the deep pants of his flaring nostrils.
“There you are,” she crooned, maintaining their circles, but slowing the pace. “I’m not fond of thunderstorms either, all told. Or crowds of rowdy men. Is it any great wonder you’ve misbehaved?”
The beast snorted his displeasure.
“I agree. You have every right to be cross,” she commiserated. “You didn’t ask to be dragged here in a cramped and cold train. What you need is a dry paddock, some fresh hay, and warm mash to wait out the storm. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
As pleasant as her one-sided conversation may have appeared, Alexandra wished someone,anyone,would relieve her of the beast. Now that the mother and children were safe, a sudden weakness inherknees threatened an imminent collapse. If she stopped, she’d surely melt into a puddle of quaking nerves.
Both she and the creature tensed when another flash of lightning blinked around them, but the umbrella kept him steady as they continued their haphazard merry-go-round.
She breathed out a sigh, and resumed murmuring nonsensical pleasantries to the stallion. Dim sounds from outside permeated their odd little universe. The chaos of themen below the platform. The crying of an infant. The intensifying patter of rain against the shingled roof.
Heavy boots taking measured steps up the platform stairs.
“Young miss, can you follow the sound of my voice?”
A shiver of chills danced up her spine that had nothing to do with her soaked garments or the sideways rain. Not fear, exactly. Awareness. Every single hair on her body tuned to the direction of that voice.
Young miss? She was neither young nor a miss.
Could she follow him? If Saint Patrick had had a voice like that, he’d not have had to drive the snakes from Ireland. They’d have trailed him willingly.
Followed him to their doom.
Because his was certainly not the voice of a saint, nor anything belonging to the heavenly hosts. The cavernous timbre contained too many shadows. But not the eerie, repellent kind.
The kind that enticed. Tempted. The sort of shadows which shielded criminal deeds and concealed desires.
The most dangerous shadows of all.
