Page 6 of The Burning Passion of a Fiery Lady
The next moment, there were hands next to hers, on the horse’s flesh. Large, masculine hands, with long fingers.
She gasped inwardly. She knew those hands belonged to Jasper Stone, the new horse master.
She didn’t stop stroking the horse. His hands commenced stroking, too, and she heard him making soothing noises, deep in his throat. She shivered involuntarily. Just being so close to him, like this, was doing very strange things to her. Very strange things indeed.
Her eyes slid sideways, watching him. She had been struck by how handsome he was the minute she had laid eyes on him. A large man, well over six foot tall, with a sinewy physique, and dark brown hair. But it had been his eyes that had arrested her, causing her heart to beat just a little bit faster. They were deep-set, and icy blue, startling against the swarthiness of his skin.
It had been a most unexpected reaction. She had never thought that she would feel that way towards a man again. An almost instant physical attraction. It had only happened to her once before in her life.
She could still remember the very first time she had laid eyes on Gilbert, at a local dance. The same frisson of awareness shuddering through her, almost in waves.
She watched his stroking hands, now, caressing the horse’s flesh. Suddenly, she was assailed by a vision of those large, dark hands on her own flesh, stroking, over and over …
Instantly, guilt and shame flooded through her, and she stiffened. Her husband was not even in the ground a year – what kind of a woman was she to be looking at another man in such a way?
She had thought that those feelings had died and were buried with her husband; she had resolved to live her life from now on as a good widow, who never entertained such fancies. A respectable, emotionally withdrawn widow, of four and twenty, who would continue in the same way, for the rest of her life.
She was so deep in her reverie that she didn’t even notice until it was too late, that her right hand had strayed dangerously close to his until she felt his skin against her own.
The effect was instant. It was as if a bolt of lightning had forked down from the sky, burning her to her very core.
She jumped back, her heart beating fast. Jasper Stone kept caressing the horse, talking to him in a soft voice, but he stared back at her with narrowed eyes, almost clinically observing her.
He knows, she thought, her heart beating harder still.He knows how I felt when our hands touched.
Her face flooded with colour. The shame of it was almost too much to bear.
The colt was almost totally calm, now. Without another word to her, the horse master started to lead the animal back into the stables. The next moment, rain was pelting down.
She stared at Amy and the horse master’s apprentice. Almost as one, they started running, back into the stables, to escape the rain, laughing.
Jasper Stone had already secured the colt in his stable. He turned to her, gazing at her speculatively.
“He is jittery,” he said, in his calm, deep voice. “It will take a while to train this one. I hope you do not expect too much from him, too soon.” He paused, his ice-blue eyes raking over her. “You hardly need a master of horses, Mrs Drake. You handled that colt very well, out there. Almost better than I could.”
She blushed. “I have always liked horses, Mr Stone. I have always felt an affinity with them.” She hesitated. “But even so, I need you. I need you very much.”
The words hung in the air like droplets of rain. His eyes darkened, as he gazed at her, but he didn’t say a thing.
Suddenly, Amy stepped forward, clearing her throat. “Madam. It is time for luncheon …”
Susannah swivelled around, gazing at her, her heart beating fast. Amy was giving her an excuse to leave; had she intuited how deeply uncomfortable the new master of horses was making her feel? By the look in her steady hazel eyes, it seemed that she had. Her housekeeper wasn’t in the habit of reminding her of meal times.
“Yes, of course,” said Susannah, in a voice she hardly recognised as her own. It sounded somehow squeaky and disjointed, reaching her from far away.
A little fearfully, she turned back to Jasper Stone, who was still gazing at her speculatively. Once again, she was struck by how handsome he was.
This was dangerous. This was very dangerous, indeed.
“If you will excuse me,” she said slowly. “Mrs Lambert will show you to your accommodation.”
She didn’t wait for him to reply. Without another word, she turned away, walking quickly through the stables, back towards the house. It was all that she could do to stop herself from breaking into a run.
***
Jasper stepped out the back door of the servants’ quarters. All the staff at The Willows were busy, barely acknowledging him; the Cook and the kitchen servants were preparing dinner. He gazed around, into the distance, before walking out into the property, towards the rear, where a row of willow trees swayed in the wind.
He would take a walk, beyond the grounds, he thought. Perhaps into the mountainous wilderness for a little while before dinner. Perhaps it would satisfy this stirring restlessness that he was feeling that had been building all afternoon since he and David had been taken to their rooms within the house.
