As she stroked his hair, pulling it out across her legs, she began to think more about her family, and where she was, and the fact that she didn’t know where she was going or what was going to happen. All her life had been well planned, and she’d always known what she wanted to do with her life. She could have drawn pictures of herself at thirty. She would have two boys and a girl by then. All she had to do was decide which man was to be her husband. Now she wondered if one of her prospects would even want her after her time of running from the law.
Suddenly, tears began to form, and one of them dropped on Alex’s forehead.
He had his eyes closed, his m
ind and body given over to the first comfort he’d felt in a very long time, but he knew what she was feeling. He didn’t like to think that he’d made a girl cry, especially such a sweet and innocent one as she was. “Did you know that I came here to this country to race horses?” he asked, his voice so soft she could barely hear him.
“No. I . . .” She hiccuped and sniffed as she drew back her tears. “Actually, I know very little about you.”
“Except what you read in the papers,” he said, and she felt his body stiffen.
“Actually, I didn’t read them. All I know is what Hope told me.” When her words had no effect on him, she did what she would have with one of her brothers and began to stroke his hair in a way that she knew would calm him. “Do you like any other animals besides racehorses?”
“I like all of them,” he said. “Birds, horses, raccoons, I like them.”
“What about spiders?”
He smiled. “Less so, but yes. I did a very bad thing back in Scotland. I did it twice.”
She continued combing. His hair was spread out over her lap and it was coated with the fragrant oil. “My brothers have done some things that my father didn’t like. One time, I’m not sure what Nate did, but my father was angry at him for an entire week.”
Alex couldn’t help grinning. He knew exactly what Nate had done, why he’d done it, and what his father had thought his son had done. But he wasn’t going to tell Cay that. “I secretly mated my mare to Lord Brockinghurst’s great stallion. Twice.”
Cay laughed. “Did you?”
“Aye, I did. I had a lovely little mare, as feisty as can be. A bit like you, really. And I took her down south to England and waited until the man’s fastest stallion was put in the pasture at night. He charged a lot to mate a mare with the great beast, but I couldn’t afford it.”
“So you stole what didn’t belong to you.”
“I like to think that I gave the horse the pleasure of my pretty mare for the night.”
“So you were a philanthropist.”
“More or less.” He was smiling.
“And what was the result of your generosity?”
“The first colt was female, and as you know, mares can’t run as fast as males.”
“Maybe they don’t want to,” Cay said. “Maybe they want to stay in one place and be with their families.”
Alex opened one eye to look up at her. “I’ll get you home, lass, don’t worry about it.”
“Looking like a boy? Maybe I should take up chewing tobacco.”
He was still looking at her. “Mayhaps you should, lass, for you don’t look like a boy now. Your hair is—”
When he started to reach up to touch it, she pushed his hand away. “We were talking about horses.”
“Ah, yes.” Turning back around, he closed his eyes. He well knew that whatever had been in his hair had long since been combed out, but he was glad she wasn’t pushing him away. “The second colt was a beauty, perfect in every way.”
“Meaning that it was male.”
“Of course. What else could be perfect?” When she started to push his head out of her lap, he laughed and caught her hand. “I’m only teasing, lass. Do you not know that?”
She relented and continued combing. “So what did you do?”
“I had a plan, you see.”