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that horse, Horace should make it.” Fenton showed no great skill as a bareback rider. Kinvarra recognized the wish as unworthy, but he hoped the blackguard ended up on his rump in a hedgerow.
    “Harold,” she said absently, drawing her cloak tight around her slender throat. “You could take me there.”
    This time his laughter was unconstrained. She’d always had nerve, his wife, even when she’d been little more than a girl. “Be damned if you think I’m carting you off to cuckold me in comfort, madam.”
    She sent him a cool look. “I’m thinking purely in terms of shelter, My Lord.”
    “I’m sure,” he said cynically.
    In spite of their lack of communication in recent years, he’d always known what she was up to. Since leaving him, she’d been remarkably chaste, which was one of the reasons he’d allowed the ridiculous separation to continue. Clearly living with him for a year had left her with no taste for bed sport.
    Recent gossip had mentioned Lord Harold Fenton as a persistent suitor, but Kinvarra thought he knew her well enough to consider the second son of the Marquess of Preston poor competition. He should have listened.
    Her taste had deteriorated in the last ten years. The man was a complete nonentity.
    Perhaps one day she’d thank her husband for saving her from a disastrous mistake.
    And the bleak and stony moor around them might suddenly sprout coconut palms.
    “No, my love, your fate is sealed.” He slapped his riding crop against his boot and tilted his hat more securely on his head with an arrogant gesture designed to irritate her. “Horatio travels north. I travel south. Unless you intend to mount the other carriage horse or pursue the clodpole on foot, your direction is mine.”
    “Does that mean you will help me?” This time, she didn’t bother correcting his deliberate misremembering of her lover’s name. She was lucky he didn’t call the blackguard Habakkuk and skewer his kidneys with a rapier. Alicia was his. No other damned rapscallion was going to steal her away. Especially a rapscallion who didn’t have the spine to stand up and fight for her.
    Kinvarra strode across to his mare and snatched up the reins. “If you ask nicely.”
    To his surprise, Alicia laughed. “Devil take you, Kinvarra.”
    He swung into the saddle and urged the horse nearer to his wife. “Indubitably, my dear.”
    Her cavalier attitude made it easier to deal with her, but it puzzled him. Her lover’s desertion hadn’t cast her down. If she didn’t care for the man, why choose him? Yet again, he realized how far he remained from understanding the complicated creature he’d wed with such high hopes eleven years ago.
    He extended one black-gloved hand and noted her hesitation before she accepted his assistance. It was the first time he’d touched her since she’d left him and even through two layers of leather, he felt the shock of contact. She stiffened as though she too felt that sudden surge of attraction.
    He’d always wanted her. That was part of the problem, God help them. He’d often asked himself if time would erode the attraction.
    Just one touch of her hand and he received his unequivocal answer.
    She swung on to the horse behind him and paused before she looped her arms around his waist. He’d always been cursed aware of her reactions and he couldn’t help but note her reluctance to touch him.
    Good God, what was wrong with the woman? She’d been ready enough to do more than just touch that milksop Harold. Surely her husband deserved some warmth after offering assistance. With damned little encouragement too, he might add.
    The mare curvetted under the double weight, but Kinvarra settled her with a word. He never had trouble with horses. It was his wife he couldn’t control.
    “What about my belongings?” she asked, calm as you please. The lady should demonstrate proper shame at being caught with a lover. But, of course, that wasn’t Alicia. She held her head high whatever