The Princess's Proposal

He saw her lovely features twist into a grimace. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

She nodded. “When I was fourteen, I broke my ankle when my horse rolled on me. After spending weeks in a cast, I needed physiotherapy to get full movement back and be able to ride again. It was pure hell.”

“I know what you mean. As a kid I had my share of broken bones, too.”

“Was it a horse-riding accident for you, too?”

A shadow darkened his features. “I wasn’t that lucky.”

She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she was left to wonder about the bleak look she glimpsed in his eyes before he turned his head away. At the gala, he had mentioned growing up without a family. Losing her parents had been the worst experience of her life, but at least she had their memory and her brothers’ love. She might chafe against their overprotectiveness, but she couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to have their love and support through thick and thin. Had Hugh suffered from being alone, possibly even physically?

She had a feeling Hugh wouldn’t welcome her sympathy, so she returned her attention to the riders, hoping he would think that her blurred vision was on their account. A little boy was being lifted from a wheelchair onto a horse. As he saw the world from above people’s heads for the first time, his small features glowed with delight.

“In our program we had one who couldn’t see,” Hugh said, a burr in his voice. “Somehow the horse knew to let her touch him from head to toe. He never moved a muscle.”

“They’re amazing that way.”

Amazing was the word she would use for how she felt right now. The Right to Ride movement was her favorite cause, but the sudden heightening of her emotions had little to do with the children and everything to do with the man beside her. With one foot anchored on the bottom railing and both arms looped over the top one, he looked to be in his element. “The children or the horses?” she asked in an attempt to keep her feelings where they belonged.

“Both. Whenever I host sessions for a similar organization in America, I’m awed by the courage of the children who achieve so much against horrendous odds. I’m also struck by how the horses always know to be gentle with them.”

He had summed up her feelings exactly. Somehow she hadn’t expected such empathy from him. It felt wonderful and dangerous, she sensed, as if it brought them closer than was wise. Nevertheless she found herself turning to him to ask, “Would you like to look around?”

“If you have the time.” It was the opening he’d hoped for. Today she wasn’t suffering possible shock, and he wasn’t distracted by a body sculpted in heaven in a dress that was barely there. Or so he told himself, not sure how convincingly.