But to Kate, evenings with Julien were a trial. Each time Mrs. Crayton helped her to dress in one of her elegant gowns, she felt a sense of wariness descend upon her. No, it was more than that. It was something menacing and black and chill with foreboding. And yet, she felt it was Julien who was different. Dressed in his severely cut black evening clothes, he became a stranger to her, a threatening personage with frightening claims on her. If only their days could have ended after riding. She came to dread the hours passed in the soft candlelight, sensing in him a growing frustration, a barely restrained urgency. She would feel his gray eyes sweep over her, hungrily resting upon her mouth, then moving lower, to her breasts, devouring her. She cursed herself for showing fear, but she couldn’t help the disjointed and hasty excuse of tiredness she made every night even as she backed away from him, backed out of the room.
As she lay in bed each night waiting for sleep to come, she would try to shut him out of her mind. But she couldn’t. He was there, stark and real within her thoughts, waiting. With him came that coldness, and strange, unexplained images that swept through her, leaving her confused and frightened. She would stare into the darkness and whisper a simple Scottish prayer her mother had taught her.
One day over luncheon, Julien told her that he had business concerns that afternoon in the village and would be unable to accompany her on their daily riding expedition. Her face fell.
“It’s very likely I’ll be late returning this evening. Do go riding. You know the countryside quite well, and I believe Gabriella could outdistance the peasant if you happened to be so unfortunate as to cross paths with him again.”
She was frankly surprised that he didn’t order her to stray no further than the front doors, but she wasn’t about to say anything about that. “So, then, my lord, you won’t be here for dinner?”
“Were I not to be here, Kate, would you miss me?” He looked at her steadily, and although she answered him calmly enough, she wouldn’t look at him. “Of course I would miss you. If you aren’t back I’ll content myself with a tray. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, and I promise to be careful.”
He fiddled a moment with his fork, then looked at her straightly. “How could I ever doubt that you would miss me at night?”
She tried to look at him, but she couldn’t. Even when he was on the point of leaving, she knew she was withdrawing from him, relieved, really, that he wouldn’t be here in the evening, to frighten her, to bring that blackness to her.
Before he mounted, he turned to her and gently touched his hand to her cheek. Startled, she drew back. She watched in numb silence as his gray eyes hardened and turned cold, so very cold, a cold she’d never seen in his eyes before when he’d looked at her. He turned quickly away from her, and without another word between them, he mounted, wheeled his horse about, and was gone. He did not look back.
She was still pondering his words and his abrupt departure as she carefully guided Gabriella through the thick woods to the long, open meadow beyond. Freed from the restraint she felt at his nearness, she could not but feel now that his measured words, so calmly spoken, had been meant to taunt her. But how could that be? Ah, but she saw him again in her mind’s eye, the coldness in him. Even a week ago she would have known only relief that he would be gone from her, but now, today, she felt confused and uncertain. She shook her head at herself. Nothing seemed to make much sense to her anymore. Nothing.
The wind tugged at her riding hat when she gave Gabriella her head across the long expanse of meadowland. She had always thought it strange that nature had carved this open land, so at variance with the dense forest that surrounded it. She gave Gabriella a flick of the reins and the horse tossed her head, easing into a steady gallop. Kate was a good deal surprised when suddenly her horse pulled up short and reared back on her hind legs. She grabbed at the pommel to steady herself and wheeled around in the saddle in panic, expecting to see the peasant rushing at her. It wasn’t the peasant, but rather a man on horseback, enveloped in a long greatcoat, riding purposefully toward her. She drew Gabriella up, thinking that he was perhaps lost and in need of directions. She felt merely curiosity until he drew near and she saw that his face was masked. Kate dug her heels into Gabriella’s sides, her mouth suddenly gone dry with fear. The horse needed no further encouragement and shot forward. Too soon the meadow blended back into forest, and after a moment’s hesitation Kate realized that she couldn’t escape through the thick underbrush. She jerked Gabriella about, driving her in a wide circle, skirting the edge of the trees as closely as she dared. But the man was fast gaining on her, and she realized with a tingling fear up her spine that in a moment he would cut her off. The horse’s hooves pounded in her ears, and even as her mind refused to believe that this could possibly be happening to her, a man’s arms pulled her out of the saddle and she screamed in blind panic. She found herself held tightly, unable to struggle, so close to the man that she could hear his low, steady breathing.
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