Bow, the veterinarian had called it. Part of a boat. What kind of a name was that?
“Your chariot awaits, Lady Ariadne.”
Startled, she raised her head to look. The chaise, a white, two-wheeled contraption with a collapsible top and a red leather seat, was barely large enough for two people. Ariadne gauged the size of that seat, and felt suddenly uneasy. She’d have to sit closer to this man than propriety, her liking, and her own betrothed status would permit.
Yes, beautiful, unusual eyes. Broad shoulders, a handsome face, and a very well-made form.
His hand rested on one wheel, and it was then she noticed the ring on his left forefinger. She wondered if he was married.
If he, too, was promised to another, had a sweetheart, someone whom he loved.
Stop it, Ariadne!
He leaned over to pull a harness and bridle from just beneath the seat. Beneath his coat, she could see the muscles stretching taut across his more-than-capable shoulders. Sudden warmth coursed through her. Did Maxwell have shoulders that looked like that? After all, she’d never really thought to study them—
“Well?” he said, holding the tack and looking expectantly at Shareb-er-rehh.
“What I don’t understand,” she said loftily, “is that you have a chaise but no horse of your own to pull it.”
“I did have a horse to pull it.”
“Well, why don’t we hitch him to the chaise, then?”
“Because he died three days ago.”
“Lovely. You’re a veterinarian and your horse died. Oh, I feel supremely confident now about hiring you to look after my animal, truly, I do.”
He had been reaching into the chaise to wipe a bit of dampness from the seat; she saw his back go stiff, and he turned around slowly, too slowly, and met her gaze with that direct and unnerving stare of his. “My horse,” he said softly, “was twenty-nine years old.”
Ariadne swallowed hard and she looked down at Shareb’s mane, her cheeks flaming. Twenty-nine years was a long time for a horse. He must’ve looked after the animal quite well indeed.
Unable to meet his eyes, she murmured, “I’m sorry, Mr. Lord. That was very unkind of me.”
“Yes, it was. “
She bit her lip and glanced at him. He merely stood there, the harness and bridle slung over one arm and a little smile playing across his face to soften the awkwardness of the moment. She tried to smile back, and felt small and insignificant in the face of his gentle patience.
“Friends?” he murmured, raising one brow.
She looked down, feeling terrible. “Friends.”
“Very well then. Let’s get our equine nobleman hitched up to the chaise, shall we? It will be dawn soon, and I think it best to get out of London before the city awakes.”
She nodded, dismounted, and holding the bridle, watched worriedly as he approached Shareb, the mass of leather straps and buckles hanging over his arm. Sure enough, the stallion took one look at the harness, flung up his head, and backed away.
“He’s not going to let you put that thing on him, Mr. Lord.”
But the veterinarian murmured softly and stretched out his hand toward the horse.
Shareb took another step back, broke out in a hard sweat, and turning his blinkered head, gazed beseechingly at his mistress.
“Oh, Shareb . . .” Ariadne caught the cheekpiece of his bridle and pulled him toward her. Giving the animal doctor a long-suffering look, the horse lowered his head and buried his face against his mistress’s chest, keeping only his ears on Colin while Ariadne murmured and consoled. “It’s all right,” she crooned, threading her fingers through his mane. The small ears remained pointed at Colin. “That big, bad horse doctor is not going to hurt you . . .”
“This big, bad horse doctor thinks it’s getting late.”
“He doesn’t want to pull the chaise. Look at him. He’s sulking, Mr. Lord.”
“He’s not sulking.”
“Well, what do you call it then? Look at his face. He’s sulking. I told you this was a foolish idea.”
“Have you a better one?”
“Well no, but . . . “
“Then stop delaying and let’s get him harnessed. Unless, of course, you don’t really wish to reach Norfolk before the decade is out . . .”
“Mr. Lord, you are the most irritatingly practical man I have ever met!”
“And you, my lady, are the slowest moving fugitive I have yet to encounter. Now harness the horse while I hold his head.”
“Me, harness a horse? I haven’t the faintest idea how to harness a horse. Even on those rare instances when I did any driving, a servant always did it. I’ll hold his head and you harness him.”
“No, you harness him and I’ll hold his head.”
“You’re giving orders again, Mr. Lord.”
“Indeed I am. Here.”
“I don’t like it when you give orders. I’m running this adventure!”
“No you’re not, you’re financing it. Now harness the horse and let’s get this escapade underway.”
She had no time to protest further before he was thrusting the tack at her. Their fingers accidentally touched, and the heavy mass of leather fell to the ground with a thud.
Simultaneously, they both bent to pick it up. Brows rapping painfully, they jumped back and away from each other, he letting loose with a curse and she coming up with the harness.
“Sorry,” she said, blushing.
“No, no, ‘tis my fault. Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right, I have a very hard skull. Father used to tell me that all the time, you know—”
“And no doubt, he was correct,” he said, ignoring the sudden burst of angry color across her cheeks. “And I see that you have consented to harness the animal after all. They say that patience is a virtue, but I far prefer obedience. Especially when it comes to dealing with spoiled young noblewomen.”
“Spoiled?” she retorted, drawing herself up to her full height. “You’ll watch what you say to me, sir! And I’ll tell you right now that I prefer my servants to display a reasonable amount of respect. Had I known you were such a boor I would never have hired you!”
“I am not a boar, I’m a man. Boars have tusks.”
“What?”
He plucked the breastpiece and neck strap from her suddenly nerveless hand, shook it out, and directing her to put it over Shareb’s head, grinned innocently at her. “So, for that matter, do walruses.”
“You are unforgivably impossible! Stop teasing me!”
“Am I?”
“You are, and I order you to stop it!”
“And I order you to put that harness on that horse under my tutelage, or I shall go back inside, have my breakfast, and allow you to figure it out by yourself.”
They faced each other, she holding the leather straps and glaring angrily at him, he merely looking at her with little crinkle-lines of amusement fanning out at the corners of his eyes and the side of his mouth turning up in a lopsided, boyish smile that did dangerous things to her heart.
And Shareb-er-rehh—pricking his ears, arching his neck, and sniffing curiously at the strange leather in her hands—was no help at all.
Sputtering and fuming, Lady Ariadne St. Aubyn began to harness her horse.
# # #
“Really, Tristan . . . I expected more from you than miserable excuses.”
He gripped the edge of the table, hard, and leaned forward over his white knuckles. “They are not excuses, milord—”
“Sit down, Tristan.”
“But you must believe me!”
“I said, sit down.”
Sweating and terrified, he obeyed.
Clive sat regarding him calmly, one dark, hypnotic eye fixed unblinkingly on his face, the other, blinded long ago and now an eerie milky blue, making him want to shudder. A signet ring glowed dully on one long finger, every hair was in perfect, impeccable place and, dressed in his habitual black, he had never looked more sinister.<
br />
“I suppose I should’ve known better than to expect so much from one who seeks to pay off the gambling debts he owes me by amassing even bigger ones.”
Tristan sank a little lower in his chair, and only that fixed, one-eyed stare held him upright and kept his suddenly nerveless body from sliding right down beneath the table.
“But I’d been so lucky at the card tables, I really didn’t think—”
“No, you are far too young and stupid to think. Which is why you find yourself in this predicament, isn’t it, Tristan?”
He was terrified; fear curled around his kidneys and squeezed his heart within his chest. “I’ll come up with the money I owe you, my lord, I swear it!”
Clive leaned back in his chair, his face without compassion, pity, or soul. “Ah . . . and what brilliant plan have you now, my young friend?”
“I’ll . . . I’ll ask my father for my inheritance.”
The earl regarded him with bored impatience. “And what shall you tell him, Tristan, when he asks you for what purpose you need the funds? Hmm? I suppose you might just come right out and tell him you owe me some money . . . to the tune of twenty-one thousand pounds.”
Tristan went white. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple cutting into his crisply starched necktie, the thick lump of fear catching in his throat and hanging there. He clasped his hands beneath the table and forced his breathing to remain steady. His creditor was playing with him like a cat with a mouse.
“I suppose if you were a truly callous and enterprising young man, you could rather . . . shall I say, force your inheritance.”
“You mean . . . k-kill my father?”
Clive took out a cheroot, tapped it, lit it, and sat regarding Tristan through a lazy cloud of smoke. “Now, did I say that . . . Tristan?”
He stared into that black eye, unable to speak.
The earl smiled darkly. “Did I?”
“No, sir, you did not. But—”
“Come up with the money, Tristan.” Clive tapped the ashes from his cheroot with studied elegance. “You fancy yourself such an enterprising young man . . . I’m sure you can manufacture some clever scheme in which to do it.” He sat back in his chair, that one eye blacker than the devil’s soul. “Because you see, Tristan . . . if you do not come up with the money, I can promise you that this Season in which you’ve brought about your own ruin. . . .”
The earl smiled, evilly, and the blood ran cold in his veins.
. . . Will be your last.”
# # #
Will be your last . . . will be your last . . . will be your last . . .
The words seemed to be in step with the mare’s steady trot, repeating themselves over and over and over in his mind.
Will be your last . . . will be your last . . . will be your last . . .
Two months ago that dreadful meeting had been, and even now the memory made Tristan’s mouth go dry with fright. With every mile the mare put behind her, with every person and beast they passed as he sought the Norfolk Road that would take him out of London and bring him home to Burnham—please God, let me get there before she does—he felt that fear returning, its black tentacles curling around his spine and squeezing the air from his lungs.
For somewhere out there, was Clive . . .
Waiting.
Will be your last.
It had been all too obvious that his creditor had something far more dark and ugly planned for him than mere debtor’s prison. And what good would his inheritance, vast as it was, do him? Five months shy of his twenty-first year, he was too young to claim it anyhow. His hands began to sweat on the reins. He should never have told his father about his predicament, should never have expected the old man to react in any way but how he had, should never have put it past Ariadne to steal the one and only means he had of saving his own life . . .
And maybe her own as well.
He gazed bleakly ahead through the mare’s ears, watching them twitching back and forth, her creamy mane rippling on the light wind.
If only it was Shareb-er-rehh I had with me, not some common mare . . . if only I had Shareb-er-rehh. . . .
But he didn’t have Shareb-er-rehh.
Ari did—and she already had a good head-start on him.
He thought again of Clive’s slow, saturnine smile of evil and foreboding, and urged the mare faster, into a canter.
He had to stop her.
But the rolling, triple-timed beat of the mare’s hoofbeats made those final words even louder.
Will be your last . . . .
CHAPTER 4
Her Ladyship managed to harness her own horse with surprising skill, and Colin didn’t know which of the two nobles—the girl, or her equally high-bred nag—seemed more put out by the procedure. It was all he could do not to chuckle with mirth when he directed her to free the stallion’s tail-hairs from the crupper, an action that made her cheeks go pink with embarrassment and Shareb-er-rehh’s head to jerk up with indignation.
Finishing, she turned, folded her arms across her chest, and stared at him with haughty triumph.
“Satisfied, Mr. Lord?”
He eyed her long and hard, until her composure began to falter. “Should I be?”
“Indeed you should. I have finished harnessing him.”
He grinned and held out the driving bridle to her. “No, you haven’t.”
Her mouth tightening, she snatched the bridle and turned her back on him. Suspecting a conspiracy, Shareb-er-rehh eyed it with malice, backed up, and reared. Colin instinctively moved forward, but Lady Ariadne brought the stallion down with a quick yank on the reins.
Gripping the bridle’s cheekpiece, she put her face as close as she could to the horse’s blinkered head and stared into his dark eye. “I don’t like this any more than you do!” she hissed, but in a voice that was clearly intended for Colin to hear. “Now, be good and stop your fussing!”
Instantly the big beast quieted, albeit with a surly look in his eye that belied his seemingly good manners. Then his mistress reached up, deftly removed the hood and bridle, and gave Colin his first full view of the stallion’s face.
His breath caught in his throat. The head was beautiful, classically sculpted, broad across the forehead with a white blaze starting just between the dark, intelligent eyes and widening as it spilled downward so that it encompassed nearly all of the horse’s muzzle.
“Handsome animal,” he said, stretching his hand toward the stallion.
Shareb-er-rehh lashed out and nearly amputated his fingers.
“Loves compliments, doesn’t he?”
“He loves his dignity even more.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does. But he’ll have to make do without it until we get to Norfolk. Please proceed.”
“I have never been treated so insultingly in my life.”
“And I’ve never had the liberty of having my horse harnessed and bridled for me. I find I rather like it.”
She shot him a murderous glare, hooked an arm around the stallion’s poll and gently coaxed the bit into his mouth. Shareb-er-rehh stood chomping the metal, working it between teeth and tongue and eyeing Colin with as much malevolence as did his mistress, but otherwise making no further protest as she pulled the bridle into place. Her tiny fingers buckled the throatlatch, pulled the stallion’s forelock free from the browband, ensured the blinkers were adjusted over each eye. Then she walked briskly around the lathering animal, taking off her cap and tossing her hair over her shoulder as she swept past Colin in what could only be a deliberate attempt to tempt and taunt her human companion.
Her efforts found their mark. Colin caught the scent of lavender, and with it an engaging blend of soap, horses, and femininity. Heat flashed through him, riding a wave of desire.
She went to the stallion’s head, turned, and eyed him with feminine triumph.
“I really think that we should make an effort to get along, if this trip is to be at all pleasant,” she announced.
“I’m glad we are of li
ke mind.”
“Therefore I expect you to show me a modicum of respect.”
“And I would desire the same.”
She smiled.
He gave her the same unflappable stare that had once placated his admiral.
And she turned quickly away, stroking the stallion’s nose and blushing furiously. “Furthermore, I’ve been thinking that Mister Lord simply will not do. It is far too ordinary, and not indicative of the great miracles I believe you are capable of performing with regard to healing animals. Therefore, I shall call you ‘doctor’ instead. Yes, doctor. Besides, if I go one hundred miles having to address you as ‘Mr. Lord’ I shall wear out my tongue!”
“That would be a blessing,” he murmured, picking up his trunk and shoving it under the seat of the chaise so she wouldn’t see the twinkle in his eye.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, that would be an unusual form of addressing—” he looked up and gave an innocent grin—“me.”
“Oh. I thought you said something else.”
“I would never insult my lady so.”
“I should hope not. So, do you like your new title, Doctor Lord?”
“You flatter me, Lady Ariadne, but veterinarians are not regarded as doctors.”
“Indeed they are not. But you are my veterinarian and if I want to consider you a doctor, I will.” Her eyes sparkling, happy that she’d gotten the upper hand in at least something, she put her hands on her hips and made a small circle around him, immensely pleased with herself and reminding him of a happy queen who’d just raised one of her subjects to the peerage. “Besides, you rather look like a doctor, especially when you wear your spectacles, as you were doing yesterday when you saved that poor dog. By the way, where are they? You haven’t forgotten them now, have you?”
“No,” Colin said, his concentration swinging from her to the task at hand as he picked up the shafts of the chaise and brought the vehicle directly up behind the horse. The big animal stiffened and turned, regarding him warily. Already, the dark eyes were rolling, the ears back, the nostrils flaring with trepidation. The horse was no idiot, and obviously suspected what was to be asked of him. Colin tossed a blanket into the chaise. They’d be damned lucky if they weren’t all killed.
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