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if he had physically anchored her to the spot. She didn’t want to risk looking back at him, but she did anyway.
    He was standing by the window, his arms crossed over his chest. With his back to the light, his eyes were shadowed and all she could see were the sharp planes of his cheeks, the strong jaw and the powerful neck. Her heart hammered within her chest.
    “Don’t wear your corset tomorrow,” he instructed.
    The low words raised the hairs on her skin. Wordlessly, she turned and hurried from the library, back down the wide gallery to the cold marble floor of the foyer. By the time she reached the spiral stairway, she was running and gasping with the release of belated fear and relief at her close escape.
    She reached her bed and burrowed beneath the covers, trembling.
    She would not go riding on the morrow. I will not go riding with Vaughn tomorrow.   It is unthinkable.

Chapter Three
     
    Vaughn had been up for hours when Elisa finally made her way downstairs.
    He spent the time brooding and kicking himself over his behavior in the library the night before. What on earth had possessed him? He’d been sitting there, having decided that the sane thing would be to go back to London and fight with his father over Kirkaldy via lawyers, until she walked in—and it was as if he’d made no such decision at all. He’d acted without thought, without sense.
    Even this horse ride was madness. A moth did not hover around the flame once he’d discovered it had the power to pull him in and burn him. So why was he, Vaughn, hovering around Elisa?
    He did know the answer to that one. In the moment he had offered to take her riding, there had been a softening in her face that had stopped his heart. He would not depart for London now and take that pleasure from her.
    One short ride, then he should leave and never come back. The forbidden flame was far too perilous.   Rufus was extraordinarily skilled at exacting retribution. He was a fool to even consider staying here and risk being overtaken by the madness that had possessed him last night.
    As he wandered about the shining marble floor, Maud, the oldest maid in the hall came through from the kitchen carrying a heavy silver tray laid with breakfast dishes, her old, deformed fingers clenched around the handles as she hunched over the load. She had not changed from what Vaughn remembered of her. It seemed she had always been old. He took the tray from her despite her protests and carried it to the door of his father’s suite after asking her who it was intended for. At the door Vaughn paused and waited for her to catch up with him and open the door. Before she took the tray back she reached up to pat his cheek. She smiled fondly.
    “You used to open doors for me, too, young master.”
    “I did?”
    “Whenever your father couldn’t see you do it. It’s good to have you home, Master Vaughn.”
    He descended the stairs back down to the ground floor, thoughtful. Who else in the hall thought he was here to stay? That this was home for him? He rested against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, frowning. He was here to retrieve Kirkaldy and that was all.
    Then Elisa came down the stairs and he straightened, abruptly and foolishly glad to see her. Dressed in a demure riding habit of dark blue velvet that made her eyes sparkle, she was not quite the temptation she had been last night when her golden curls had swung loose and brushed her waist.
    Personally, he preferred women in riding habits. They couldn’t wear so many petticoats and disguise the true line of their legs. He had noticed last night that Elisa had long legs and today he could enjoy their length yet again, as they were not disguised by flounces.
    Obviously she was not going to make excuses as to why she could not ride, as he’d expected her to do. Unwillingly, he felt a touch of admiration for her courage. She was going to abide by their agreement, regardless of the duress she’d been under when she’d made