His jaw clenched. “Your teeth are chattering,” he said, and they were. “This is ridiculous.”

His hand went to the top button of his coat, and she froze. So did he, his hand suspended in midair.

The truth of the situation now stood as glaringly loud between them as a circus sign; that saving her from freezing to death was appropriate, but offering chivalry, flirtation, and deep, long gazes was not.

Yes, he thought, his instincts were broken around her, except the most basic ones. It was as though under the clear open skies, all rule books had been ripped to shreds and what remained were a man and a woman, looking eye to eye on the oldest, most lawless playing field of humankind. It might have been over in a second. But it only took a second for a grenade to explode, for the ground to shift, for a life to change. A second was usually nothing, but once in a while, it was the point of no return. Miss Archer had turned from a random shrew with a pretty mouth to an appealing, mystifying woman, wholly unique in a world teeming with people.

However, she was not his woman to protect. She was not his to explore. Normally, he was not even to speak to her. And normal would begin again right now.

He took off his scarf with stiff fingers. “Take this.” His voice was rough. He was on edge, and she seemed to sense it. The scarf was taken without resistance.

He manoeuvred her into position without looking at her and put all the tension he felt into lifting her into the saddle. She appeared unbalanced up there, nervously clutching fistfuls of shiny white mane.

Blimey. A toddler would sit better. He mounted up behind her quickly.

“Allow me.” He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her snug against his chest. A necessary safety measure. He could block out the fact that she felt like a perfect armful to him, and that holding her so close felt… right. Decency alone demanded that he did not think of her in such a way at all, certainly not as long as she was literally in his clutches.

As they set off, he seated himself properly, shifting his left leg to get a proper grip, and he heard her gasp. “Wait, please,” came her muffled voice.

He reined in the horse. “What is it?”

“Please take me to the village, Your Grace, to the inn. It’s a much shorter ride.”

He considered it, he did. He imagined her staying at the inn, alone, and moving on to Oxford, alone.

The truth was, he had no right to keep her from doing exactly that. She was her own woman, and they were barely more than strangers. She shivered in his arms, then; he felt it through layers of clothing because she was leaning into his embrace rather than away from him, and his hold on her tightened mindlessly like a reflex.

Normal would begin again back at Claremont.

“Too late now,” he said. He spurred the horse into a gallop.