Numbly, Aaron gave his preferences and accepted the offered cup. Was it really going to be that easy? “I can pay rent for her boarding.”
“Nonsense,” Trent said. “If she’s paying rent, then she’s not a guest, and since we’ve already established her as a guest, rent would make us start over.”
“You won’t win this argument.” Lady Adelaide gave her husband an indulgent grin. “If you push, he’ll only make it worse.”
“What would be worse?” Aaron asked before he could stop himself.
“I’ve an unmarried cousin,” Trent mused. “Should I invite Robert down for a few weeks?”
Lady Adelaide gave Aaron a pointed look and sipped her tea.
“That’s not necessary,” Aaron said hastily. A romantic entanglement was the last ingredient this situation needed. Not to mention the idea of her kissing another unsuspecting man made him irrationally angry.
He pushed the thought aside and moved ahead. “There’s also a horse. I’m moving Oliver’s racers to Hawksworth, so there isn’t room to stable the mare there.” There was room at Trenton Hall, but he had a feeling Sophia would rather the horse be closer.
“That’s not a problem. I don’t have any loose-boxes, but we do have empty stalls. I’m assuming the horse is hers and not Gliddon’s?” Trent bit into a biscuit.
Aaron almost choked on his tea. “How is it possible that you barely participate in society yet always seem to know everything?”
He shrugged one shoulder and grinned. “People tell me things. I must have one of those faces.”
Aaron resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though he made a note to keep Sophia’s brother as far away from Trent as possible. Both men thought themselves a little too funny. “The horse is hers.”
“Of course it is,” Lady Adelaide said. “Where are her things? I’ll send a footman to collect them.”
“Her brother left a few items in my cottage.” Aaron shifted in his chair, realizing he was taking a page from Sophia’s book by stating the truth but implying something different. “Her clothes are still at Meadowland Park.”
“Oh dear,” she murmured. “No matter. I’ll pay Lady Rebecca a call and have my maid retrieve them while we’re there.”
“See? All handled. We’ve space for the brother as well.” Trent turned to his wife with a sudden frown. “I didn’t know about the brother.”
“Er, I don’t think anyone knows about the brother.” Though Trent seemed to eat up local gossip with his morning tea, Aaron had never known the man to spread it. “He’s going to be working with the racehorses at Hawksworth.”
“We’ll have a room made up for him anyway, in case he wants to stay over with his sister. I can have my man wake him at whatever horrible hour he has to rise to get to the stable.” Trent saluted Aaron with his teacup.
Somewhere Aaron had lost control of this conversation, assuming he’d ever actually had it.
Aaron’s head was still spinning when he returned to Hawksworth, only to find Bianca standing in the stable doorway, waiting on him. Aaron did not have it in him to do anything with anyone else today. He shook his head as he handed Shadow’s reins to a groom. “I’m not discussing it with you.”
Bianca fell into step beside him as he walked into the stable. “I only wanted to ask you which thoroughbred you wanted me to exercise tomorrow. Mr. Knight flatly refuses to allow me to do it without a direct order, and Hudson seems to think it important he not go against your wishes on the matter.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I need you to tell them you’ve decided I am perfectly capable of riding the retired racehorses.”
Aaron kept walking. People were annoying. “No.”
“Why not? You let Miss Fitzroy ride in a race.”
Aaron rounded on her. “Perhaps I care more about your well-being than Miss Fitzroy’s.”
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. This was why Aaron didn’t speak without thinking, why he didn’t enter situations without examining all the possible angles. Acting without thought led to error.
Bianca’s gasp wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the squeak from his right.
Knowing whom he’d find, he turned his head.
Sophia had looked like a laundry heap before she’d taken Equinox out. Now she resembled a discarded pile of rags. He wasn’t at fault for that part, but the stark paleness of her face and the wide pain-filled eyes could be laid at his feet.
Guilt and shame kicked him with the force of an angry plow horse. He ran both hands across his face, pressing hard around his eyes, as if that would somehow release the pressure building inside him. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I should hope not,” Bianca scoffed.
“You”—Aaron pointed a finger at Bianca—“stay out of this. Until you marry the owner of this stable or he absolves me of my responsibilities, which horses you ride is up to me, and I say no.” He turned his back on the woman who’d become the annoying younger sister he’d never wanted and faced the woman currently wreaking havoc on his life.
Was there any apology to fix what he just said? Perhaps if he showed her he did indeed care for her well-being. “I have a safe place for both you and Rhiannon to stay. Fitzroy as well, if he’s so inclined.” He looked about the stable. “I’ll take you there when you’re ready to leave.”
Sophia didn’t say anything.
That was all the evidence he needed to prove she hadn’t accepted his apology. Though a little distance between them after the events of yesterday was a good thing, this wasn’t how he’d wanted to achieve it.
He liked Sophia, and that was dangerous. When he let himself stop thinking about everything that could go wrong, he enjoyed their conversations. He told her things he didn’t even tell Graham and Oliver. If he didn’t keep a rein on that, it would run away from him and leave him somewhere he’d never wanted to be.
He’d made promises he needed to keep. Just because he’d made them to himself didn’t make them any less binding, and he couldn’t let the confusion one woman inspired overshadow decisions made over years of sober thinking.
“I’ve finished the tasks you gave me, and Jonas is brushing Equinox down. Unless you’ve something else?” She tipped her chin up, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it quivered slightly.
He couldn’t take her to Trent’s house now. She’d spend the afternoon crying into her pillow. If they did more training, maybe she’d realize he believed in her, or at least in her abilities.
“Let’s get you another horse saddled. We need to make sure you don’t fall off in your next race.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t fall off in the first one.”
“Nor were you secure in the saddle.”
Her lips pressed tightly together, but she didn’t correct him.
He took her and the horse to one of the fenced-off areas of pasture beyond the stable. This training could quite possibly be an utter disaster, and they didn’t need an audience. She knew how to ride but didn’t know racing. He knew racing but not the first thing about riding aside.