Montgomery’s hands wrapped around her waist with a firm grip next thing she was perching atop the nervously shifting stallion, half on its neck, half on the saddle, clutching fistfuls of shiny white mane. She slung the scarf around her neck and tried to ignore the scent of cedar soap and man that wafted from the soft wool. “Take this.” He sounded sterner than ever before. While he might consider it his duty to keep her from perishing on his land, wrapping her in his coat like a fine lady would go too far.

His face was almost comically blank as he looked at her, and she knew his impulse to keep her warm had taken them both by surprise. So did the duke, his hand suspended in midair. His hand went to the top button of his coat, a gesture old as instinct, and she froze. She watched as his attention dropped to her lips. Perhaps it was the contrasts that drew her in, pale clearness, dark rims flashes of guarded intensity in cold depths. She couldn’t help it her gaze became strangely anarchic around him as if it quite forgot that not all gazes were created equal. “You must be feeling the cold after all.” “Near instant compliance, Miss Archer?” he murmured, his gaze intent on her face. She smelled sweat and leather and wool the wool had to be him, for he again stood too close, trapping her between the stallion and his chest. Unbelievably, she took a step toward him, as if he had tugged at her bodily, and he didn’t miss a beat-he took her elbow and turned her, crowding her back against the warm body of the horse. She could still step around him and continue walking toward the village, as far away from this man as possible. To clear his hands to lift her, she assumed.Ī shiver ran through her, she was not sure whether hot or cold. “I’m a good horseman,” he said, and wedged the crop beneath the stirrup. Her every feminine instinct cried no, and he must have guessed as much, for his expression hardened. So she was to sit on the horse with him, clutching him like a damsel in a lurid novel? “I don’t jest,” he said, sounding faintly appalled.

Read bringing down the duke