Read Online Axel by Grace Burrowes - Free Book Online

buttered scones at his command and not even dare to colic thereafter.
    “Sir Dewey dwells alone,” Abby said, “though with a regiment of servants from his days in India. He and Gregory always enjoyed one another’s company. They could tell stories on each other for hours.”
    The same stories, though. Over and over, which must have been tedious for Sir Dewey.
    This outing was not tedious. The sun shone blindingly bright on the snow, and Mr. Belmont sat with the ease of a cavalryman upon his horse, a great, black beast given to admonitory snorts at nothing.
    “Do you ever wished you’d served?” Abby asked, as one of the mares took exception to a dark patch of ground.
    “My brother and I were both left with children to raise while the Corsican was wreaking his mischief. I could not see taking up arms to save the world while depriving my offspring of the company of their only surviving parent.
Settle now, you two
.”
    The mares settled while Abby’s mount tripped on a frozen rut. “Easy, Pumpkin.”
    “Pumpkin?”
    “Why not Pumpkin? She’s chestnut, Gregory named her, and she knows that’s her name. Upon whose back do you sit?”
    “Ivan the Terrible.” Mr. Belmont looked a bit sheepish at this disclosure. “He’s not terrible, but as a lad, he was a handful. I must confess that today’s excursion serves an ulterior motive, Mrs. Stoneleigh.”
    “Confession is said to be good for the soul.” Though Abby did not want to hear
his
confession, nor did she want to return to Stoneleigh Manor, particularly.
    “I’m kidnapping you,” Mr. Belmont said, in the same tone he might have predicted more snow, or an early lambing season. “You will be my guest for the nonce, until I can make progress determining who killed your husband.”
    Abby hadn’t seen this coming, but then, in her present state, she could hardly see the coming of the next dawn.
    “I am in your custody?” The notion should have been foul rather than reassuring. The sight of Candlewick, a quarter mile ahead at the end of the drive, was very reassuring indeed.
    “You are certainly not in
my
custody. You’re enjoying a repairing lease at the home of a concerned neighbor.”
    The horses clopped along, while Abby tried to locate anger, indignation, or even some mild dismay.
    “I would rather you had consulted me.” Not that Abby would have had anything sensible to say. Now that she was on Belmont land, this kidnapping all but a fait accompli, she was… more relieved than anything else.
    How telling—and pathetic—was that?
    Mr. Belmont wanted for tact and charm, he had no finesse with social niceties, and his neighboring over the years had been casual at best, and yet, Abby would feel safer under his roof than her own.
    She would
be
safer under his roof. “If you think I am in danger, Mr. Belmont, then I suppose a short visit might be for the best. I trust you have a housekeeper in residence to put a patina of propriety on this repairing lease?”
    Their horses came to a halt in the stable yard, and along the eaves of the coach house, icicles hung like so many glistening sabers.
    “Mrs. Turnbull quotes her Scripture better than Mr. Weekes cites his, she’s been known to emasculate presuming footmen at a glance, and my boys fear her setdowns worse than they fear my own. She’d chide me sorely for using the word emasculate in a lady’s hearing too.”
    Abby liked unusual words, a relic of her days growing up in a bookshop. She hadn’t heard
that
one spoken aloud before though.
    Mr. Belmont remained in the saddle as the eaves dripped and Abby’s chin grew numb.
    “No ‘To blazes with you, Mr. Belmont’?” he said. “Or ‘This is an outrage,’ and ‘How dare you? Of all the nerve.’” A list—Mr. Belmont apparently favored lists and organization.
    “You aren’t doing this to upset me,” Abby replied, “and I’ve already told you I wish you had consulted me. Regarding future decisions that affect my welfare, please see