She finished pulling the skirt and trouser up her leg, exposing her thigh and the scattering of red welts forming on it. “There are some on my lower right leg as well, but these were—”
“What happened?”
The animalistic growl had Sophia snapping her head up and dropping her skirt. Jonas stepped immediately in front of her. Even Equinox skittered sideways.
Aaron stood in the opening of the box stall, staring at her now-covered leg.
“Aaron, I—” Sophia glanced to her brother, realizing she’d just slipped up and called Aaron by name in front of another person, but Jonas wasn’t paying her any attention. He was watching Aaron.
“I don’t think I want to ride racehorses anymore.” Sophia was quite proud of the calmness in her voice. Considering the tension of the moment, calm and steady was a necessity.
Aaron said nothing. Sophia pushed on.
“I might stay in the area, though? Some people must be sympathetic. Maybe they need a maid. Dusting can’t be that different from brushing down a horse.” The energy building in her needed somewhere to go, so she busied her hands by pulling off her riding gloves and balling them into her fists. “It’s realistic, don’t you think? Not everyone is meant for grandeur, right? What would the world be—”
The twisted pain Aaron wasn’t bothering to hide from his features had Sophia stuffing one of her gloves into her mouth to stop the talking. She was hurting him with every word, exactly the opposite of what she’d intended.
Once she was back in control, she spit the glove to the ground and took a step toward Aaron, hand outstretched.
He spun and stomped from the stable.
Sophia stared at the empty doorway for a long time. A stool appeared at her side and firm hands urged her onto it. Hay rustled and buckles clinked as Jonas saw to Equinox. Still Sophia stared.
Wheels and hooves rattled on the drive outside, and soon people spilled into the stable. Miss Snowley and Lord Stildon were first, with Miss Hancock, Lord Farnsworth, and Lady Rebecca immediately behind them. A man and a woman Sophia didn’t recognize entered last, but the man circled the group to join Lord Farnsworth at the front, looked about the stable, and then moved to the stall where Sophia still sat.
“Where is he?” the unknown man asked. His tone wasn’t unkind, but Sophia was still reeling from the expression on Aaron’s face as he’d departed.
“I . . . I don’t know.” Sophia’s voice barely managed to scrape past the shock clogging her throat.
He’d left her. Was it for good? Was he waiting for her to leave before he came back? She would. She would leave the stable, leave Newmarket, leave the entire county if she had to. He had a life here. Friends, a home, a job he loved.
Jonas’s quiet voice slowly broke through her mental ramblings. He was telling the others that Aaron had been here but departed several minutes ago.
The new man pressed his lips into a thin line and turned to Lord Farnsworth. “If he’s not here, where would he go?”
Lord Farnsworth frowned. “There’s more races. He’ll likely be on the Heath.”
A throat clearing pulled everyone’s attention to the stable door, where Mr. Knight, the wiry head groom of Hawksworth, stood. “Considering he just asked me to see to the start of the rest of his races, I wouldn’t count on that.”
Thirty-One
Aaron would never get the image of Sophia’s leg out of his head no matter how long he lived.
Even though he’d never seen a woman’s leg before, he couldn’t imagine all of them were that shapely. If it weren’t for the welts, he’d have stood there, mesmerized, for ages.
But there had been welts.
A lot of them.
And then her words had slashed him just as effectively.
They’d broken her. He’d broken her.
Nothing was more important than making that right, and he couldn’t let anyone convince him otherwise. They would tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he shouldn’t blame himself.
But he’d known something like that was a possibility, and he’d let her race anyway because she’d have been hurt if he hadn’t. And those words? The ones she’d said as she tossed her dreams aside? They’d been his words. He’d put them in her head.
A plan he didn’t realize he’d been forming fell into place as he strode away from Hawksworth. He’d ignored it because it meant sending her away and it meant asking for favors. Lots of favors.
She was worth it.
He’d failed her today. And if he stayed in her life, he’d fail her over and over again. Because while he’d never allow anyone to horsewhip her again and would do everything in his power to make sure the men who had done it this time paid for it, there would be nothing he could do about the verbal attacks. The social attacks.
How would she feel when Lady Adelaide had to leave her off the guest list for her larger parties because she was associated with a man like him? When she had her own household and had to carefully time her trips into town so she could shop without derision?
He could give her more money than any of those shopkeepers made in a year, but they would still consider her beneath them because he was beneath them. And yet he wasn’t. It was a delicate social balance he’d learned to navigate, but how could he ever entertain bringing a wife into it? And what was the point of staying connected to her if he would never let it get to marriage?
He had to move forward alone.
They’d be looking for him soon. When Mr. Knight told them what he’d done, they’d form a search party.
The head groom would do fine for the rest of the meeting. Aaron had given him his notebook with race times, jockeys, horses, and preparation details. The truth was, if the horses and jockeys weren’t ready at this point, there was little Aaron could do for them. He’d tried to tell the man it was no different from readying a horse for Lord Stildon.
The groom had coughed. “I’d say it’s remarkably different.”
“Only if you let it be. I need your help, Mr. Knight.”
The words had been difficult to say and, apparently, difficult to hear, because Mr. Knight’s eyes had widened and he’d responded with a silent nod.
Aaron hadn’t waited around for more questions. He didn’t have any answers anyway.
He checked his pocket watch. The mail coach would leave for London in four hours. That was enough time. Possibly too much time, but he could avoid his friends.
None of them would expect him to run off to London, but he would.
None of them would expect him to call in every favor he could, but he was going to do that too. He would give Sophia something as close to her dream as he could, and he wouldn’t allow himself to see her again until it was complete.
If he did, he might convince himself that a life with him wouldn’t be so bad.
He scoffed. Look what had happened with that logic this morning. He had no doubt she’d have hidden her leg from him if she could. He didn’t want to have to wonder if she was hiding wounds on her soul.
Best to step out of her life now.
He bought a ticket for the mail coach, then a stack of paper from the innkeeper. He methodically worked through all the necessary steps as he wrote note after note, marking each one with a time and date to be delivered.