Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(64)

“Is that Beatrix?” Christopher asked, alarm jolting through him.

“Either Beatrix or Rohan—no one else is foolhardy enough to mount him.”

Christopher broke into a run. It wasn’t Beatrix. It couldn’t be. She had promised him that she wouldn’t put herself at physical risk anymore. But as he reached the paddock, he saw her hat fly off and her dark hair come loose, while the infuriated horse bucked with increasing force. Beatrix clung to the animal with astonishing ease, murmuring and trying to soothe him. The horse seemed to subside, responding to Beatrix’s efforts. But in a quicksilver instant he reared impossibly high, his massive bulk balanced on two slender hind legs.

And then the horse twisted and began to fall.

Time itself slowed, while the huge crushing mass toppled, with Beatrix’s fragile form landing beneath.

As so often had happened in battle, Christopher’s instincts took over completely, prompting action at a speed faster than thought. He heard nothing, but he felt his throat vibrate with a hoarse cry, while his body vaulted over the paddock fence.

Beatrix reacted from instinct as well. As the horse began to fall, she yanked her booted feet from the stirrups and pushed away from him in midair. She hit the ground and rolled twice, thrice, while the horse’s body crashed beside her . . . missing her by a matter of inches.

As Beatrix lay still and dazed, the maddened horse struggled to its feet, its hooves pounding the ground beside her with skull-splitting force. Christopher snatched her up and carried her to the side of the paddock, while Leo approached the enraged horse and somehow managed to grab the reins.

Lowering Beatrix to the ground, Christopher searched her for injuries, running his hands over her limbs, feeling her skull. She was panting and wheezing, the breath having been knocked out of her.

She blinked up at him in confusion. “What happened?”

“The horse reared and fell.” Christopher’s voice came out in a rasp. “Tell me your name.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Your name,” he insisted.

“Beatrix Heloise Hathaway.” She looked at him with round blue eyes. “Now that we know who I am . . . who are you?”

Chapter Twenty

At Christopher’s expression, Beatrix snickered and wrinkled her nose impishly. “I’m teasing. Really. I know who you are. I’m perfectly all right.”

Over Christopher’s shoulder, Beatrix caught sight of Leo shaking his head in warning, drawing a finger across his throat.

She realized too late that it probably hadn’t been an appropriate moment for teasing. What to a Hathaway would have been a good chuckle was positively infuriating to Christopher.

He glared at her with incredulous wrath. It was only then that she realized he was shaking in the aftermath of his terror for her.

Definitely not the time for humor.

“I’m sorry—” she began contritely.

“I asked you not to train that horse,” Christopher snapped, “and you agreed.”

Beatrix felt instantly defensive. She was accustomed to doing as she pleased. This was certainly not the first time she’d ever fallen from a horse, nor the last.

“You didn’t ask that specifically,” she said reasonably, “you asked me not to do anything dangerous. And in my opinion, it wasn’t.”

Instead of calming Christopher, that seemed to enrage him even further. “In light of the fact that you were nearly flattened like a pikelet just now, I’d say you were wrong.”

Beatrix was intent on winning the argument. “Well, it doesn’t matter in any case, because the promise I made was for after we married. And we’re not married yet.”

Leo covered his eyes with his hand, shook his head, and retreated from her vision.

Christopher gave her an incinerating glare, opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again. Without another word, he lifted himself away from her and went to the stable in a long, ground-eating stride.

Sitting up, Beatrix stared after him in perplexed annoyance. “He’s leaving.”

“It would appear so.” Leo came to her, extended a hand down, and pulled her up.

“Why did he leave right in the middle of a quarrel?” Beatrix demanded, dusting off her breeches with short, aggravated whacks. “One can’t just leave, one has to finish it.”

“If he had stayed, sweetheart,” Leo said, “there’s every chance I would have had to pry his hands from around your neck.”

Their conversation paused as they saw Christopher riding from the stables, his form straight as a blade as he spurred his horse into a swift graceful canter.

Beatrix sighed. “I was trying to score points rather than consider how he was feeling,” she admitted. “He was probably frightened for me, seeing the horse topple over like that.”

“Probably?” Leo repeated. “He looked like he had just seen Death. I believe it may have touched off one of his bad spells, or whatever it is you call them.”

“I must go to him.”

“Not dressed like that.”

“For heaven’s sake, Leo, just this one time—”

“No exceptions, darling. I know my sisters. Give any one of you an inch, and you’ll take a mile.” He reached out and pushed back her tumbling hair. “Also . . . don’t go without a chaperone.”