What desire could he feel for a female who insulted him and the country he’d spent half his life fighting for? She was not the sort of female he liked at all. Too impertinent. Too tall—sun-browned and freckled as any field hand.

Suddenly her bright eyes, seductive and heavy-lidded as they had been in that shadowy music room, filled his memory, and his throat went dry. Naturally he’d responded to her. She was a warm, willing female, and he was merely a hot-blooded man. Certainly there was nothing he found appealing about the female. Nothing at all.

Still, the image of Miss Hadley swam through his mind and the taste of her burned on his lips.

He set his unfinished drink down. Malcolm blinked up at him. “I believe I’ll retire for the night. I should like to rise early for a morning ride.”

“In this weather?”

Sev snorted, recalling spending many nights in tents with arctic winds raging outside and distant cannon fire lulling him to sleep. “An English winter is no match for Maldania in winter. You should remember that.”

Malcolm’s eyes clouded over. “Perhaps. I was just a boy when we were banished.”

Sev nodded and squeezed his cousin’s shoulder, regretting reminding Malcolm of the sore subject. “You know you are free to return home. Grandfather does not blame you for your father’s transgressions.”

“It fails to signify. Mother shall never set foot on Maldanian soil again, and I cannot leave her here. It’s all water under the bridge at any rate. I’m an Englishman now. Thank God they love titles. I may be destitute, but I have no dearth of invitations to the finest homes and parties. I’ll not starve.”

Sev clapped his cousin on the back. “There is that.”

“Maybe I’ll wed an heiress myself. Mother says it’s about time.” Malcolm scanned the room with a judicious eye, his gaze stopping on Jack Hadley. “One of the Hadley chits could be ideal. That fiery one with the freckles who tossed her drink on you.” He chuckled. “Bet she’d be a fine ride between the sheets. No boring romp there.”

Sev’s hands fisted at his sides. “Leave her be,” he commanded.

Malcolm looked sharply at him. “What? She might be unsuitable for you, but not me. She’d probably be grateful for my regard. She hasn’t had an easy time of it.”

“She’s mine.” He didn’t anticipate the words. Did not know he felt so possessive toward her until he uttered them.

Yet staring at his cousin’s shocked face, he found he did not regret them.

“Yours?”

Now was the time to take back his words. To explain he meant something else. “You heard me.” The notion of Malcolm—or any man—laying a finger on her filled him with a deadly rage.

He did not regret the words and yet he should not have said them. Should not feel them.

With a tight nod, he bade good night and left the room, before he said anything else he could not retract.

Chapter Eleven

A misty dawn peeked through the parted drapes as Grier hurriedly dressed in her riding habit, a fashionable burgundy velvet ensemble trimmed in violet fur. She paused long enough to roll her eyes at her reflection.

The sight of her attired thusly was ridiculous when she thought about herself a month ago in her small, thatched-roof cottage. A pang of longing for that simple abode and simple life consumed her. She quickly squashed the sentiment, reminding herself she had left because that life had suddenly ceased to be so simple.

No use longing for her trousers. She’d left them behind . . . along with everything else she used to be.

Lifting her chin at a determined angle, she coiled her plaited hair atop her head and hastily pinned the unruly mass in place, not caring if the wind made short work of her efforts. From the way it howled against the mullioned panes of glass, likely nothing she did would keep her hair tidy. She wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop her. The prospect of a solitary ride through the countryside was too great. Her efforts would have to suffice. She certainly wasn’t going to call a maid to attend to her hair at this early hour.

Even as she hurried to slip from the house before anyone else woke, her lips twisted in a smile at the unlikelihood. She’d learned that the aristocracy didn’t rouse before noon.

The prince flashed across her mind, an image of him wrapped in luxurious bedding, sheets tangled around his legs. Legs she had noticed appeared strikingly muscular in his trousers. Not what she would have imagined for a dandified prince.

She cringed and banished the too frequent image of him from her head. He would not cloud her thoughts this morning, casting a pall over her much-anticipated ride. He’d done that enough last night.

Rising from her dressing stool, she slipped quietly from the room.

S ev rode hard across the countryside. He lost track of time as the wind churned around him, tugging through his hair and chafing his cheeks. A soft predawn gray tinged the air, so he knew it was still early. The world breathed its quiet breath around him, and he reveled in it.

He felt alive, which was something unique considering that a little over a year ago he was on a battlefield soaked in his brother’s blood, certain that he, too, would be the next one cut down.

He shook off the bleak memory of that day when his world spun forever off course, when he no longer became the “spare” but the heir to a kingdom.

He was here for Gregor, so that his death was not in vain. Even more than that, he was here for every single one of his countrymen who died on a battlefield. He owed it to them to stick it out and bring home a bride who would help inject life back into Maldania. His own personal preferences mattered not at all.

For some reason, the image of Miss Hadley floated before him. Scowling, he bent low and kicked the horse faster, until both he and the stallion were winded and panting hard. When his mount became lathered, he pulled back on the reins.

At the crest of a hill, he pulled the beast to a halt, rubbing his neck. “Good lad,” he murmured. “Got you sweating even in this cold.”

Sitting back, he stared down at the picturesque landscape. Snow draped the forest-thick valley. Winter-withered greens and browns peeked out at him from the veil of white.

After sleeping in tents for several past winters now, he was quite immune to the cold. This time of year, one could see nothing save a blinding white blanket surrounding the palace. Even the bark of the trees was difficult to detect.

His thoughts drifted to his grandfather. At his age, he was not so unaffected by the elements, even snug in his bed within the palace. The winters were always the hardest. Gave him aches and pains that only worsened with every passing year. The old man had hung on this long, lasting through the war, but Sev could not expect him to last much longer.

Leaving Maldania, he’d determined to give his grandfather peace. To reassure him that not only was the war over and the country on the mend, but that the Maksimi line was secure upon the throne for a generation more.

That being the case, he needed to get the matter of finding an acceptable bride over and done. He’d hoped to return home before spring with a wife already increasing with his future heir.

And yet he had not approached the matter of finding a bride with the haste needed for that to happen. He released a pent-up breath as he faced the bitter truth. He was dragging his feet. It was time to tackle matrimony with all due speed. With fresh resolve, he turned his mount around, hesitating when he caught a flash of movement in the distance. Pausing, he squinted into the distance. A horse and rider streaked across a snow-dappled rise.

For a moment he marveled that anyone else should be up this early, but then his breath seized in his chest.

The rider was female. Even from his vantage he recognized the wild mane of auburn hair flowing loose in the wind. As he stared down at the distant figure riding hell-bent across the landscape, he knew no other female would take it upon herself to ride so early for a solitary ride.

It took him a moment to realize she rode too fast. He sucked in a breath. Evidently she’d lost control of the beast she rode, a stallion she had no business riding in the first place. Senseless female!

He pushed aside his questions of her intelligence. Now wasn’t the time to consider the ill-bred female’s reckless ways.

With a deep cry, he dug in his heels and sent his mount soaring down the hillside, snow and mud kicking up around him in great wet clods.

Bloody hell, she was fast. And she had a lengthy lead on him. He lost sight of her as she dove into thick trees. He followed, cringing inwardly, imagining he was going to have to peel her off one of the ancient oaks and carry her corpse back to the house. The thought spurred him on to a dangerous, breakneck pace, and he soon caught sight of her again. She flashed in and out of the trees ahead, a rich burgundy blur.

Her hair whipped in the air like a wild banner.

He shouted for her, but the sound was swallowed in the wind. The fierce air tore at his face and eyes, blurring his vision.

Icy wind stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly and hunkered low over his mount’s neck. The hooves of his stallion pounded the earth, and he felt the wet spray of snow and earth all the way up to his thighs as he careened down an incline, at last drawing abreast with her.

That’s when she saw him.

Her eyes flared wide in her expressive face. In that split instant he noted that the freckles on her nose seemed darker against her pale skin. She opened her mouth and shouted something indecipherable over the screech of wind and thundering of hooves.

She clutched her reins in her gloved hands and he quickly surmised that he wouldn’t be able to wrestle them from her grasp. She was undoubtedly too panicked to release that lifeline.

He could do only one thing, rash as it seemed. There was no other choice.

Releasing his own reins, he dove from his mount and across the air separating them. He snatched her up, mindful to wrap his arms around her. He managed to twist in the air, turning to take the brunt of the fall.

He hit the snow-covered earth with a jar. Stunned, he lay there for a moment, registering little beyond the thundering hooves vibrating the ground and fading away into the distance.

A sharp jab to the shoulder forced him to peel his head off the ground and look up—stare into the flushed face of a furious Miss Hadley.

“Holy hellfire!” She blew at several strands of auburn hair dangling riotously before her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Are you mad? Is it your custom to go about tackling women down from their mounts?”

He gawked at her as she pushed back the wild fall of hair from her face and glared down at him, abruptly, achingly aware that every soft inch of her was draped over him. His mouth suddenly grew dry.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck— my neck!” she hotly corrected.

With a groan, he dropped his head back down on the earth, mindless of the icy-wet. The hat he wore was lost in his frenzied ride. “Is this the thanks I get for saving you?”

“Saving me? From what?”

Was she dim-witted? Had the fall knocked something loose in her head? “Your horse ran away with you.”

“What on earth makes you think that?”

He lifted his head back up to stare at her. “I saw you racing out of control—”

She made a disgusted sound and scrambled off him as if he were somehow contagious. “Don’t tell me you’re so antiquated you’ve never seen a woman ride before?”

He propped himself up on his elbows. “Indeed, I’ve not seen a woman ride sidesaddle at such a foolish speed.”

She smirked down at him, propped her hands on her hips. “You should see me ride astride then. I daresay you would be quiet impressed.”

Arrogant chit. He tried not to smile at her utter gall, reminding himself that he had nearly broken their necks while under a misapprehension, however reasonable a misapprehension it might have been.

Her smile slipped a bit when he unfolded himself to loom over her.

“You . . . ride astride?” No proper lady would do such a thing. It was too incredible.