"I don't suppose you've a penchant for underdrawers?"
Stifling a gasp, Honoria glanced over her shoulder, but her devilish rescuer was still facing in the opposite direction. When she didn't immediately answer, he went on: "It would give us even more bulk."
Honoria's petticoat slithered down her bare legs. "Unfortunately not," she replied repressively. Stepping free, she swiped up her offering and stalked back across the lane.
He shrugged. "Ah, well-I can't say I'm a fan of them myself."
The vision his words conjured up was ridiculous. Then Honoria's wits clicked into place. The look she cast him as she dropped to her knees should have blistered him; it was wasted-his gaze was trained on the wounded man's face. Inwardly humphing, Honoria ascribed the salacious comment to ingrained habit.
Folding the petticoat, she combined it with the shirt; he removed his hand, and she applied the thick pad over her earlier insignificant one.
"Leave the sleeves hanging. I'll lift him-then you can reach under and tie them tight."
Honoria, wondered how even he would cope with the long, heavy weight of their unconscious charge. Amazingly well was the answer; he hefted the body and straightened in one fluid movement. She scrambled to her feet. He held the youth against his chest; with one sleeve in her hand she ducked and felt about for the other. Her searching fingertips brushed warm skin; muscles rippled in response. She pretended not to notice. Locating the wayward sleeve, she pulled it taut, tying the ends in a flat knot.
Her rescuer expelled a long breath through his teeth. For one instant, his strange eyes glittered. "Let's go. You'll have to lead Sulieman." With his head, he indicated the black monster cropping grass beside the lane.
Honoria stared at the stallion. "Sulieman was a treacherous Turk."
"Indeed."
She transferred her gaze back to the man. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"We can't leave him here. If he gets loose, panicked by the storm, he could damage something. Or someone."
Unconvinced, Honoria retrieved his jacket from the branch. She studied the stallion. "Are you sure he won't bite?" When no answer came, she turned to stare, open-mouthed, at her rescuer. "You expect me to-?"
"Just take the reins-he'll behave himself."
His tone held enough irritated masculine impatience to have her crossing the lane, albeit with no good grace. She glared at the stallion; he stared levelly back. Refusing to be intimidated-by a horse-Honoria crammed the jacket under the saddle, then tugged the reins free. Holding them firmly, she started along the lane. And came to an abrupt halt when the stallion didn't budge. "Sulieman-walk."
At the command, the huge horse started forward. Honoria scurried ahead, trying to keep beyond the range of the monster's teeth. Her rescuer, after one comprehensive glance, turned and strode on.
They were deep within the densest part of the wood, thickly leaved canopies interwoven overhead. As if flexing its muscles, the wind gusted, riffling the leaves and flinging a shower of raindrops upon them.
Honoria watched as her rescuer angled his awkward burden through a tight curve. As he straightened, the muscles in his back shifted, smoothly rippling under taut skin. A single raindrop fell to tremble, glistening, on one tanned shoulder, then slowly slid down his back. Honoria tracked it all the way; when it disappeared beneath his waistband, she swallowed.
Why the sight affected her so, she couldn't understand-men's bare torsos, viewed from childhood in the fields and forge, had never before made it difficult to breathe. Then again, she couldn't recall seeing a chest quite like her rescuer's before.
He glanced back. "How did you come to be in the lane alone?" He paused, shifted the youth in his arms, then strode on.
"I wasn't exactly alone," Honoria explained to his back. "I was returning from the village in the gig. I saw the storm coming and thought to take a shortcut."
"The gig?"
"When I saw the body I went to investigate. At the first thunderclap, the horse bolted."
"Ah."
Honoria narrowed her eyes. She hadn't seen him glance heavenward, but she knew he had. "It wasn't my knot that came undone. The branch I tied the reins to broke."
He glanced her way; while his face was expressionless, his lips were no longer perfectly straight. "I see."
The most noncommittal two words she had ever heard. Honoria scowled at his infuriating back, and trudged on in awful silence. Despite his burden, he was forging ahead; in her kid half boots, not designed for rough walking, she slipped and slid trying to keep up. Unfortunately, with the storm building by the second, she couldn't hold the pace he was setting against him.
The disgruntled thought brought her mentally up short. From the instant of encountering her rescuer, she'd been conscious of irritation, a ruffling of her sensibilities. He'd been abrupt, distinctly arrogant-quite impossible in some ill-defined way. Yet he was doing what needed to be done, quickly and efficiently. She ought to be grateful.
Negotiating a tangle of exposed tree roots, she decided it was his assumption of command that most irked-she had not before met anyone with his degree of authority, as if it was his unquestionable right to lead, to order, and to be obeyed. Naturally,