A/N: This chapter, you all would like. That much I'm sure!

Disclaimer: I believe there's a hero in all of us. (Spider-Man 2)

Altered Memory

Chapter 7 Part III: Riding Attraction

In spite of sleeping so heavily, Kaoru was awake very early the next morning and unable to lie in bed, she showered and dressed. There was no mist portending another hot day, only gray skies and a wind that tossed tendrils of honeysuckle against her windowpane. Shivering, she pulled on her cotton jacket and wished that she had bought something warmer in Framlingham.

She was brushing her hair, believing herself to be the only one stirring in the house when she was surprised by a brief knock on her door before it opened. While she still stared at him openmouthed, Kenshin, fully dressed in dark trousers and a thick sweater, said casually, "Oh good, you're ready, I see."

Her temper spurted. For all he'd known or cared, she might have been half-naked when he'd burst in! "I'm dressed, luckily," she responded tartly. "but what I'm supposed to be ready for, I'm afraid I can't guess."

His eyes gleamed but the mockery in them was softened as his mouth curved in a heart-stopping grin. "Why, to go riding, of course. Didn't we arrange it yesterday."

He knew damn well they'd arranged nothing after he'd thrown out his terse offer, but the thought of being on horseback again was enough to subdue her angry retort. "Riding? You really meant it then?" Unknowingly, her face lit up with eagerness.

"Of course I meant it." His eyes raked over her as she stood up and came towards him. "You'll need something warmer to wear than that though."

"Oh I'm sure I'll be all right when I get going, "She claimed, seeing her treat being withdrawn when she had to admit to his implacable expression, "I don't have anything else."

"Nonsense, you must have." Impatiently, he strode to her wardrobe and snatched open the door, his mouth tightening when his disbelieving gaze took in the few shabby garments hanging there. "Is this all?" As he riffled through them, he came to a silk caftan. "And how did this exotic garment stray in here?"

His voice hardened as if all his earlier suspicion of her was back, and yet why? she wondered, hurt, when his fiancée's wardrobe must have dozens more expensive and elaborate dresses.

She lifted her chin. "Impractical, isn't it? But it was generously meant. I found it in the luggage that was sent back from Beirut, a get well present from my colleagues."

A trace of color stained Kenshin's cheeks as he put the caftan back wordlessly, making no attempt to apologize for the nasty thoughts she knew had been crossing his mind. "You don't even have a sweater?" he asked, closing the wardrobe door.

"You've seen everything I own," she snapped, still annoyed with him, "unless you wish to examine my underwear."

"Is that an invitation, Kaoru?" He advanced towards her, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and she backed away, disconcerted by his sudden change of mood.

"In the drawer, I meant," she amended hastily, and swallowed hard as, still advancing on her he began to peel off his sweater. Surely he didn't mean to– His devilish grin told her he had read her thoughts.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but far from undressing you I was going to suggest you borrow this."

"I-I didn't – I wasn't–" she choked helplessly, her cheeks flaming. She had seen him in many moods, hostile, accusing, pitying, and this sudden switch to flirtatiousness threw her into utter confusion.

The soft wool of his sweater brushed against her hands, dropping it himself over her head, smiling as it was a little big on her. Though he couldn't know what it was doing to her, feeling it still warm from the heat of his body, smelling his intoxicating smell on it. She stood like a puppet as he adjusted the length of the sleeves, turned down the turtleneck to free her chin, and the sudden descent of his mouth on hers took her utterly by surprise, too stunned by the sheer unexpectedness of it to either respond or reject him.

He drew back, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. "Anyone would think you'd never been kissed since the last time I kissed you ten years ago," he said harshly, no lightness in his mood now.

Still too stunned to move, the expression on her suddenly burning face gave her away.

"My god! I don't believe you have! Kaoru–"

He was coming too close to discovering her true feelings and convulsively, she pulled away from him. "I told you before," she said flatly. "There's been no more in my life for such things."

For one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to drag her back into his arms and prove her a liar, but he only grabbed her wrist and fairly dragged her out of the room.

She could still feel his anger when they reached the stables where the two horses were already saddled and waiting for them, but somehow she felt that his anger was directed at himself.

And so it should be, she told herself, her own anger rising at his unprincipled behavior. He had no right to flirt with her, much less kiss her, when he was engaged to marry Tomoe.

But she found she couldn't sustain her anger with the horse moving rhythmically beneath her and the cool wind in her hair. They skirted the perimeter of the vineyard, Kenshin explaining the intricacies of managing the vineyard. Kaoru listened with interest, prompting him with questions of her own.

"I don't suppose you spend a lot of time at Merrifields then."

"No. My father and my uncle are semi-retired now and one of my cousins look after the operation there. You find it changed much, though."

He spoke as if he could see into her mind Kenshin reached over and took her reins, forcing her to a stop. "Kaoru, for God's sake, what happened that night?" His voice was strained; something in his eyes as they searched her face seemed almost like pain. "I wouldn't believe them at first when they told me – thought there must be some confusion over names. Damn it, I'd never known you to drink, apart from the odd glass of sherry or wine, and I know Misao was only serving up an innocuous punch that night. And in any case, you weren't the sort to let someone lead you into that kind of reckless stupidity as Misao might have been led. So what happened to make you hit the bottle? Something must have occurred to bring about such an uncharacteristic change."

She was all too aware of the clasp of his hands, of his leg pressed up against hers as she sat rigid with tension. It was little comfort that he believed that one catastrophic bout of drunkenness was uncharacteristic, when the only explanation she had ever been able to come up with for her behavior that night of Misao's party had been her misery at his rejection of her in the summerhouse.

Kaoru shuddered. How could she tell him that? Everything in her revolted against allowing him to know just how deeply that long-ago rejection had hurt her. Besides, he might think she was trying to excuse herself, shift the blame.