Silver Hollow (21 page)
Bean cocked his head to the side to better meet her eye as though trying to tell her he understood better than she thought. Amie couldn’t help
but
press her cheek against his and savor the rare physical affection. Her nerves were still rattled from the ghost she caught watching her in the woods.
Enough nonsense
,
girlfriend, you’re already crazy. Let’s not make it worse
.
She opened her eyes regretfully and realized the black stallion was penned in the stall next to her. The powerful muscled animal was nearly as tall as her Clydesdale, its rippling black mane falling into its eyes as it tossed its head and tested its new barracks. Amie stepped back as the stallion whinnied roughly and as if seeing her for the first time, lifted its head and stamped its hoo
ve
s into the packed earth. Hands held out in front of her, Amie approached the door. She couldn’t explain why, but there was something ethereally beautiful about this horse, tempting almost. Sh
e wanted to touch the gleaming coat
even now beneath its layer of half
-
brushed mud and see if it were soft as velvet.
The beast shuffled again once her hand moved past the stall door, its eye never leaving hers. Inexplicably drawn, the stallion cocked its head and came to meet her open palm. Amie smiled when the soft nose slid into her hand and
,
daring to take a step closer, scratched what she could reach of its tall neck and whispered, “There, you aren’t so rough and rowdy as you seem
.
” The stallion’s eye bore into hers and beneath her touch
he
calmed at last, nipped at her cloak. Amie followed his motion. “I know, sad
,
isn’t it? I could have made one of these out of a curtain.”
She laughed at her favorite movie reference
. “I’m Amie.”
And from the shadows behind the stallion a deep voice answered, “Well met, Jessamiene Wenderdowne.”
Amie jumped back and clutched the ring hidden beneath her dress with a shout, shaking her head at the beast.
Amie pointed
an accusing finger at the black horse
and
her
eyes darted madly to the nearby stalls. “Okay, please tell me that didn’t come from you!”
The voice chuckled, “Now
that
would be something miraculous
,
wouldn’t it? A talking horse?”
“Ha, you’re hilarious! Better show yourself before I get Mr. Cutterworthy back here and you find some real trouble.” Crossing her arms over her chest
,
she gasped when a very tall man edged his way from the back end of the stallion, brush in hand. The lamplight could not illuminate this end of the stable so well, so the dark figure could have stayed concealed if he chose.
Once Amie realized this she refused to forgive him for his obvious excuse. “You could have let me know you were here. How long were you watching me?” She took a step forward. He took another back, rested his arms on the shoulder of his steed and continued to draw the brush through its netted hair. Yet his eyes, dark as the creature he tended, burned like hot coals when she came closer.
“I didn’t want to frighten you.” Once more, the amusement was strong in his locally tainted voice.
Again s
omething tingled in the back of her mind, something familiar.
Why am I getting a sense of déjà vu?
Amie rested her hands on the short door. “Is
this
your horse?”
He refused to meet her eye
s
again, yet each covert glance he gave when she wasn’t looking spoke volumes. “Yes.”
“What’s his name?” Her irritation was fading, replaced by nagging curiosity. His voice and those dark eyes were so familiar.
After a tense pause he tilted his head to consider her. “Ambrose.”
Amie smiled when Ambrose turned his head to nip at her cloak again. “I wondered if Uncle had come home first.” His eyes had not left hers yet and were brewing storms so bleak and terrible Amie had to look away. Frowning into Ambrose’s mane, she asked, “So how long are you staying? Sorry Uncle isn’t home. He shouldn’t be gone long, a day or two more, Slaine said.” She thought she saw the trace of a grin on his hidden features but then his chin tucked and his gaze faltered.
Drawing the brush slowly, he confessed, “Your uncle
Henry
called in a favor when he sent me.”
Digging her fingers into the wood, Amie couldn’t help her childish slap at the hollow boards. “Sent you? To do what, babysit me?” She received a hidden smirk from their strange guest for her troubles. The end of her rant might have sounded like desperation.
The lamplight caught the stranger’s eyes then, unveiling pits of endless black bleeding into his iris
es
and drawing her helplessly in. She clenched her fists to fight it when his voice followed roughly yet softly
.
“You might have thought by now his absence puts you at an advantage, aye?” When she blinked numbly up at him he chuckled and shook his head. “Without the watchful eyes of your guardian you are free to go snooping around for a
nswers.
’
T
is what you’ve been doing, is it not?”
Heat flooded into Amie’s cheeks. She hated the fair skin and naturally rosy cheeks that made her blush apparent. “Well
,
if no one’s going to tell me anything then I have to find my answers somehow.”
“Yes, and once you think you’ve found the answers, something happens
which
changes everything you thought you believed, leaving ye to make sense of it all.”
“Yeah
.
” She shivered as the damp air seeped through her clothes, the scar on her chest pulsing painfully.
He turned to face her, standing on the other side of the door
.
“I am sorry for the loss you have known
,
Jessamiene. Too many wounds can rip apart the shell we’re made of. After you’ve been beaten enough times what is left over?”
It was a random, strange conversation Amie Wenderdowne was having with a stranger
,
and yet she knew he understood more about her with one glance than most could in a lifetime. The feeling this left her with made her uncomfortable and desperate to run away.
So why do I already crave more?
After a silence that seemed to last for days he offered a large weather
-
worn hand stretched into her vision, palm up. “I’m Emrys.”
She stared
at
the man’s hand, too rugged to belong to a gentleman like Uncle Henry. Yet there was something noble about him
which
made her reach back and
cringe
at the jolt of pain
surging
up her arm from the juncture of their skins. At his
gasp
her eyes were drawn to his face.
I can’t believe I’m that oblivious!
Jumping back she shouted,
“You
!
”
His lips drew up into a wicked smirk. “Aye, me.” When he began to laugh Amie regretted ever being kind to him.
“Just what is so funny about this? Huh? I’d like to know!”
He shook his head, gathering his wits again. “Wouldn’t you though?”
“You’re the one who’s been stalking me!”
He grimaced and held up a finger with his long arm and said, “Correction,
protecting
my charge. Stalking sounds like too many sixty
-
minute specials.”
“Great! Finally someone in Deliverance watches television!” Amie rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the rate her heart was pounding, ignore the ache in her chest.
Rage
seemed the best way to go.
The smirk was instantly wiped off his face and what replaced it made Amie regret her jab. He took a step forward. “Even if I’m aware of the outside, those of the Vale have no need to waste their time in
your
world with mindless entertainment
.
”
“Sounds like you’re no more of the Vale than me
.
” She tilted up her chin to meet his dark eye
s
.
Wasn’t he over there a second ago?
Acid on the edge of his words, he hissed back, “You might want to know the superiority of your enemy before throwing mindless insults around.”
“Are you threatening me?” Amie was silently wondering if his warning had been for her sake after all, especially when
fury
lit his eyes a bloody red.
“T
hat is
exactly what I
a
m doing. And if you stop
ped
looking with your eyes and listened here.” He jabbed her in the chest, directly over the knife wound he
had
somehow healed. “Then you wouldn’t need to rely on
anger
to rationalize your thinking and we wouldn’t be in this muddle!” Throwing up his hands
,
he turned around and gave a cursory glance at his horse when Ambrose whickered disapprovingly. “Save your breath
,
Ambrose, I don’t want to hear it…slashed for a
bogwren
and twice as nixed
,
she is…”
Amie crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey! I’m right here. Any
mindless
insults you want to throw my way
,
feel free.”
He paused and turned to eye her obvious comeback with a wry grin. “I shall collect them for later. Now I’m hungry as a wolf and want to see what horrors Alastair has
slipped
into my
soup this time. The fool still hasn’t forgiven me and forgets I’m more than willing to do something about our troubled history.”
A tug of a smile pulled her cheeks and Amie fought the urge. The man had called her stupid in
the
indirect British way Amie so loved after all. Remembering her resolve and the fact this was the stalker who had saved her life the night Amie lost it
,
she tried civility. “You have a lot of questions to answer, you know.”
His grin transformed his otherwise unremarkable face into something akin to Slaine’s troubling scowl. “Keep digging for your answers
,
lass
,
and let me keep mine.”
Amie turned at the nip on her cloak. She had stumbled back against Jellybean’s stall during their fight and wanted to scream her frustrations into his thick coat. Instead she patted his nose and grumbled
,
“I take it back. You obviously belong here. You’re as crazy as the rest of them.”
Ambrose answered her comment with a whicker that nearly sounded
like
laughter. Amie narrowed her eyes at the black beauty and realized she was alone again in the manor stables. Her watcher had disappeared and Amie sensed something shift in the winds
smelling of
change.
Dinner was well on its way by the time they entered the kitchens.
Underhill
flew past them
in
a flurry of skirts. Amie was less than pleased Emrys had followed her inside, perturbed when he sat across from her wearing
his
ridiculous superior grin.
Emrys made no reply to their comments, but his eyes flashed a score of different colors and Amie was starting to lose her mind. She was pleased to see at least Cook was displeased to see him as she was, judging from the way he shoved the stew bowl in front of the stranger so bits fell onto his lap, and muttered, “
F
eatherbrains.”
Underhill
skipped from Reggie the Butler’s side to lean over her shoulder.
She hissed
low so only Amie could hear her, “Shame on you for disappearing all day in such a faerie fashion, Lady Wenderdowne. We were hoping to show you the Ballroom today. Sweet salamanders but we have enough mouths to feed without worrying over the Lady of the House.”
Cook piped up as if he had been part of their conspiracy the whole time. “Thanks for allowing me to spend the day alone with me beloved, milady.”
He winked and
Underhill
called after him. “Alastair! Make certain she is properly fed! Milady, I’m leaving you in Slaine’s care for the moment. Too much to do with so little time to prepare for all our guests! Don’t make me regret it
,
Mr. Cutterworthy!” And just like that, she marched Amie over to the table and practically ran out of the kitchen to fulfill her duties. But not without one nasty glare for the stranger no one had yet mentioned.
“Guests?” Amie muttered, half listening to
Underhill
’s mad musings. She was still trying to grasp the fact her stalker was sitting right across from her, with a cup of tea in his hands no less.