“Well, there’s no need to frown over it,” Annabel said, starting up the stairs. Lady Griselda was already whisking around the corner toward her chamber. “A gentlemanly attitude, of course, will make my task all the easier. I have always thought that men hidebound by propriety were extremely easy to lead by the nose.”
Tess found that her frown was deepening and that she was apparently developing a headache.
Chapter
13
The Courtyard
Holbrook Court
Being an only child, and that of parents who saw no reason to encounter their son and heir more than a few times a year, Lucius had never had to accustom himself to waiting for a familial group to assemble. Having remained unmarried, he was also unfamiliar with the length of time that it apparently took young ladies to prepare themselves for something as harrowing as a brief riding excursion to the village of Silchester.
Yet the tedium and the wait was something he would have expected. These were the very reasons that he had long eschewed family groups, and the reasons that he had adroitly avoided anything that resembled a house party.
No, what was shocking him to the marrow of his bones had nothing to do with time. Ladies, as anyone in their right mind knew, rode plodding mounts, suitable for those of a gender plagued by delicate nerves and even more delicate limbs. Lucius doubted very much that his own mother had ever mounted a horse, but if she had, the horse would have needed a back as wide as a backgammon board, and a constitution mild enough to ignore a full-blown fit of hysteria taking place on his back.
Not so the Essex sisters, at least the three Essex sisters who were riding, Josie having decided to remain at home with her new governess.
To all appearances, these particular ladies rode polished Thoroughbreds that spent their free time irritably flattening their ears at each other, when they weren’t throwing their heads into the air and bucking at the clouds. Three exquisite, gleaming horses awaited the elder Essexes, each of which seemed to think that stamping would make their mistresses appear with more speed. The scene was all the more remarkable because Rafe’s courtyard was paved in large rounded stones that caught the horses’ shoes and sent showers of sparks into the air.
Miss Imogen was the first to appear from the house. “We are extremely good horsewomen,” she said, catching Lucius’s dubious gaze as she tucked a short crop into the waist of her riding costume. “My Posy was considered a likely shot at the Derby until she suffered a severe strain two years ago. I’ve been riding her ever since she recovered.”
Her Posy was skittering sideways as if she were being bitten by midges and looked nervous enough to leap the huge gate around the courtyard. “She seems to have an inappropriately flowery name,” Lucius said, moving to the side to avoid being struck by Posy’s enormous, muscled haunches.
“I gave her the name because she’s a poseur,” Imogen said, pulling on well-worn riding gloves. “Posy is a faker, a fraud. She likes to pretend to racehorse status, but in fact she’s a lovely mount. And quite polite, although, as I said, she pretends to be fiercely difficult.”
“A beautiful horse,” Rafe said, appearing at Lucius’s shoulder. “I saw her run in the Ascot, the year before she was lamed. Lovely mount.”
Lucius frowned; Rafe was hardly showing a proper guardian’s concern for the safety of his wards.
Annabel had walked into the courtyard and was greeting a gelding whose ears were flat to his head. She looked up and smiled at Lucius. “This is Sweetpea,” she said. “He’s a bit cross this morning; I think he might be homesick.” Sweetpea bared his teeth and shook himself all over, like a steed preparing to enter a battle.
“My mount is nothing to Tess’s,” Imogen was telling Rafe. “Well, here she comes; she can tell you herself.”
Lucius turned.
Miss Essex was walking through a patch of sunshine in the courtyard, looking slender, fragile, and suited for only the sweetest mount in the stables.
“Tess is the bravest of us all,” Imogen was saying. “She rides Midnight Blossom, out of Belworthy, you know.”
“Midnight Blossom,” Lucius said sharply. “The gelding who threw a man at the Newmarket three years ago?”
“The same,” Imogen said. “Do you think that the Maitlands will arrive soon? I’m afraid that Posy is a wee bit restless.”
That was an understatement; Posy was like a fiend in a horse’s body, prancing and stamping. Lucius reached out a hand, and Posy calmed.
“She likes you,” Imogen said, with some surprise.
“Horses do,” Lucius said. He was watching as a groomsman threw Tess up onto the back of a monstrously large horse, a horse the color of midnight. Unlike Posy, Midnight Blossom didn’t bother with prancing or fidgets. All he did was arch his neck once, blowing his nostrils as if sighing for the moment when he would run free. Midnight Blossom was no poseur, pretending to be a racehorse. He was built for speed.
Yet Tess seemed unmoved by the fact she was perched precariously, sidesaddle, on the back of such an animal.
“You shouldn’t allow your ward to ride on that horse!” Lucius said to Rafe. “Midnight Blossom threw a man a few years ago.”
Imogen cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you worried about Tess, Mr. Felton? You shouldn’t be. She’s the best of us. Papa said she has a bone-deep understanding of horses.”
“I would assume that my wards have more than enough ability to handle their cattle,” Rafe observed. “They are grown women, and none of them seems unused to her mount.”
“A guardian should take a more active role than that,” Lucius snarled. Midnight Blossom had lapsed into a stand now, and the only motion he made was the flicking back and forth of his ears as Tess spoke to him, a much-darned glove patting his muscled neck.
In a silent storm of fury, Lucius went to his own horse and swung up onto his great polished back. At least he could keep pace with Miss Essex when her horse ran away from her.
At that moment Draven Maitland came through the great rounded gates of Holbrook Court at a near gallop and stopped his horse by pulling it straight into the air. Lucius had just reached Tess’s side and was allowing their two horses to exchange friendly puffs of air.
“That foolish boy!” she said, in a low voice.
Lucius looked over his shoulder. Maitland had flung himself off his horse and was standing at Posy’s head, making a great show of admiring Imogen’s horse.
“His foolishness lies in reckless riding?” Lucius asked. “Could one not accuse you of calling the kettle black?”
“I suppose you think that Midnight is too much for me.”
“Probably for me as well,” Lucius replied calmly.
“I doubt it. Your mount is no tame youngster, is he?” She reached over and scratched Lucius’s horse on the neck.
“Pantaloon,” Lucius said, “out of Hautboy.”
“He’s a beauty.”
Pantaloon stilled his massive head and snorted with pleasure as she scratched him behind the ear.
There was a clatter as the rest of the Maitland party entered the courtyard. Lady Clarice was riding a velvety little mare, who looked capable of going a mile or two with pleasure, and then would drag her hocks all the way home. Not that it mattered, as Lady Clarice was currently explaining that her carriage would apparently follow them every step of the way, in case the ladies tired.
“For one does!” she shrilled. “And exhaustion simply does not enhance one’s complexion. Miss Pythian-Adams is already in the carriage. She doesn’t care for the sensation of horseflesh beneath her.”
Maitland walked over to Tess, his eyes on her horse. One could fault the man for many things, but he certainly knew the racetrack inside out. “Haven’t seen Midnight Blossom in a year or so,” he said, grinning. “I almost won him from your father in a bet, you know. That was just after Midnight won the trial at Banstead Downs and before he had to be retired. I could have taken him to the Ascot.”
Lucius watched as Miss Ess
ex’s cheeks turned a little pink. “I am very glad that you did not win that particular wager,” she said.
“Oh, I did win,” Maitland said genially. “Essex thought that roosters always crowed atop a fence post. That wager was easy enough to win.”
Lucius bit back a smile as Miss Essex looked down at Maitland. Maitland was so utterly unaware of the expression in her eye and, in fact, had taken to checking Midnight Blossom’s teeth as if he thought the animal was for sale. “Let me guess,” she said in colorless voice, “you trained a rooster to crow from a dung heap, and then demonstrated its skill to my father.”
“Better than that,” Maitland said, jumping back as Midnight Blossom laid back his ears. “I cut the tendon in the bird’s heels. Once he couldn’t get up to a fence post, the animal crowed wherever he happened to be. But I didn’t accept the horse, of course. No, no. Your father was a man who took a wager seriously; I would never take Midnight Blossom from him on a piece of cajolery, much though I love the joke of it.”
Miss Essex had just finished soothing Midnight Blossom. Her hand stilled in stroking, and then she said, very evenly, “I’m certain that my father was grateful for your forbearance.”
“Must have been,” Maitland said cheerfully. “Now, if this fellow would just let me take a peek at his molars—”
But Midnight Blossom had not taken kindly to Maitland, nor to his prying ministrations to his jaws. The next moment Tess was fully occupied in controlling her mount as Midnight Blossom pawed the ground, and then reared straight into the air.
“Be still, you foolish beast!” she told him, leaning forward over his neck. Her voice was amused rather than angry, and there wasn’t even a second in which she appeared to have lost her balance.
Lucius had started up, onto his stirrups, ready to pull Tess’s bridle down—but she didn’t need any help. Those arms were as slender as a reed, and yet the great Thoroughbred quieted at her touch and settled, contenting himself with snorting at Maitland’s back and rolling his eyes as if he were having carnivorous thoughts.
Lady Clarice was leading her mare around the courtyard, greeting each member of the party in her high, rather irritable voice as she jerked on the animal’s bridle in a manner that was painful to see.
“My dear Miss Essex,” she called, “I fear you are not quite the horsewoman to handle this…animal. Aren’t you concerned for your ward’s health, Duke? I do believe that the horse should be barred civil company. Do you see the way he’s looking at my son? One would almost think that he…”
Her voice trailed off. Clearly the idea that someone might wish to chomp her son’s rear end was inconceivable.
“Your wards are in danger from these mounts!” she said sharply to Rafe, having now got the measure of all three horses.
Never mind the fact that Lucius had thought the same thing himself. “Miss Essex has her mount under perfect control,” he noted.
Rafe ignored Lady Clarice, throwing himself onto his own horse. “Let’s go!” he shouted. “Is everyone mounted, finally?”
Lucius quelled a grin. Of course, Rafe was as unused to family groups as he was.
“Not quite,” came a cool voice from the door. Mayne paused in the doorway, pulling on his gloves. He was wearing tight-fitting breeches tucked into riding boots and a coat of superfine broad cloth in Spanish blue. Lucius blinked; he was unused to seeing Mayne rigged out in full regalia. Generally, when the three of them were together, they all wore leather breeches and a drab coat. But Mayne’s jacket—which Lucius had to admit made him look princelike—was a marvel of exquisite tailoring and cut-steel buttons, and his breeches fit without a wrinkle.
Mayne glanced around the group, now beginning to walk their mounts from the courtyard, and then walked straight toward Tess.
Lucius’s mouth twisted a bit. He’d managed to forget Mayne’s marital plans. Again.
“Midnight Blossom,” Mayne said, and his voice had all the true pleasure of a horse lover. “Miss Essex, you have just risen in my estimation to the unsurpassed equestrienne of your generation!”
Tess was smiling at him, and the sun was turning her brandy-colored hair into a thousand strains of taffy, gold threads twining into russet. With a touch of his finger, Lucius sent his mount to walking from the courtyard.
Unless he was quite mistaken, Mayne had just found a touch of utterly genuine emotion to bring to all his courtship flummery. That note of heady respect in his voice rang true.
They would make a good match, Lucius thought. Mayne was an excellent man, for all he had slept with half the married women of London. That would change once he was married. No one who had Tess in his bed would feel the need to seek out the tawdry pleasures of an adulterous affair.
How could Mayne not fall in love with Tess, with her steadfast gaze and her curious questions, with her superb riding ability and her natural seat on a horse, with her exquisite self? And when Mayne loved—well, he would love with a passion that was bone-deep. Lucius knew that from watching him reel and recover from the one woman he had loved during his life, Lady Godwin.
Of course, the countess had never loved Mayne. But she had taught him something about the poverty and shallowness of all those extramarital affairs he had engaged in.
To Lucius’s way of thinking, the countess’s rejection had made his friend ready to truly fall in love. And Tess would love him in return. Tess, with her passionate mouth and tender gaze—she would fall in love with her husband. It would take time, perhaps months, even a year, but that marriage—
He wrenched his mind away. What concern was it of his?
Pantaloon pranced delicately out of the great stone archway that led into the courtyard of Holbrook Court. After Lucius came Tess and Mayne, laughing over the clipping sound of their horses’ hooves.
She was Mayne’s.
Chapter
14
Tess wasn’t quite certain how she found herself wandering down a long row of stables at the Queen’s Arrow Inn with Mr. Felton, and Mr. Felton alone. Obviously, she should be accompanied by the Earl of Mayne, who had spent all afternoon paying nothing less than lavish attention to her. Mr. Felton should be walking with Annabel, who was paying precisely the same attention to him.
But somehow in the crooked rows of stables she found herself next to Mr. Felton, and they turned a corner, or perhaps the others did. And now they were each walking without their suitors. Rather absurdly, Tess had the giddy feeling of a child fleeing from the schoolroom.
The stables were long and smelled of warm alfalfa once it starts to brew alcohol, deep in its musty green stalks. It was a smell Tess loved and loathed: it reminded her of home and Papa; and at the same time, it reminded her of all that had taken Papa away from them, years before he left them in truth.
They paused before a stall. “Lord Finster’s Ramaby,” Felton told her. “I didn’t know he thought to run him in the local races. I’m afraid he’ll have the best of my horses with ease.”
“Not this time,” Tess said, scratching the bay under the nose. “Ramaby’s not feeling like winning, are you, love?”
Lucius chuckled, watching the way Ramaby’s ears perked back and forth, trying to catch every liquid syllable of her voice. “Are you some sort of Scottish witch, then?” he asked. “Telling Ramaby that he doesn’t feel like winning and casting a spell on the poor horse?”
“Oh no,” Tess said, beginning to scratch behind Ramaby’s right ear. “But when you’ve grown up in a stable, as I have, it’s hard not to see how a horse feels. And Ramaby doesn’t feel like winning, not at the moment.” She gave him a final pat and moved away.
They walked down the straw-strewn aisles, peering into the stalls. Lucius was quite aware that he was walking slowly. He didn’t want to reach the great doors at the end, where the light spilled in, and the crowds awaited. Where he would, of course, relinquish Miss Essex to Mayne’s ardent wooing.
“Can you tell if a horse is hungry?” he asked her.
“Sometimes,”
Tess said. “But I’m not a mind reader.”
“But it seems that you are.”
“Oh no. There’s no reading minds about it. Horses are affectionate creatures, after all, but just creatures. They’re not like humans. They don’t betray, and they don’t hide their motives.”
“They also don’t speak English,” Lucius pointed out.
She stopped abruptly before another stall, startled by her reaction to his glance. Hadn’t she thought that his expression was impossible to read? “This horse won’t win either,” she stated.
“I could have told you that,” he said. “She’s in foal.”
“Oh,” Tess said, rather embarrassed. “I didn’t see that.”
“Well, what did you see?” he asked, tucking her arm closer to his body as they stood there, staring at the glossy brown mare.
“She’s sleepy,” Tess said. “See how her eyes are drooping?”
And sure enough, once Tess’s little hand started scratching behind her ears, the mare huffed out a great sigh and closed her eyes altogether.
“Well, that must be a remarkably useful talent,” he said, after a moment of silence.
“There’s no talent to it,” Tess said uncomfortably. “Shall we rejoin the others?”
“By all means, Miss Essex.” A moment later they were back in the chilly air.
The rough seats set up around the circle track were glowing in the last streams of slanting afternoon sunshine. There was a smoky tang of burning sausages in the air—from a stand selling the same—and the familiar burr of a hundred male voices discussing the haunches and hocks of a horse, or two horses, or the whole bunch of them at once.
“Here come my horses,” Lucius said suddenly.
Two horses were led by, heavily blanketed, their delicate necks arching. He didn’t ask. And Tess said nothing.
“I once told my father that I was quite certain that a horse called Highbrow would win the next race he was put into,” she said, without looking at him. “My father put all the money he had saved for our dowries on that race. Because I had been correct before.”