“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “Your uncle doesn’t strike me as the type of man to appreciate my advice, however, so I’ll not be giving it.”
“It is your right, isn’t it?” Anne asked. “To advise him on such matters? I thought that was the reason he hired you to run his stable.”
He laughed and she saw the flash of his white teeth again. “He hired me to say he got the best. He likes the best, your uncle. Your aunt, too, I’m thinking.”
Now he had overstepped his boundaries. Anne bristled. Her aunt and uncle did always require the best of everything, but that was beside the point.
“That is not a subject you are familiar with and you should refrain from pretending that you are,” she scolded. “And aren’t you supposed to be riding a proper distance behind me?”
The smile faded from his lips. “When I become familiar with the path, then I will ride discreetly behind you, my lady. If that is your wish,” he added, as if the matter might be in question.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Anne asked defensively.
“I never said it was,” he countered.
“You hinted at as much,” she huffed. “You mustn’t assume to know me or what I would or would not prefer simply because you made a mistake last night.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Are you saying you didn’t make one? Maybe you didn’t mind giving me the wrong idea so much.”
His easy ability to fluster her had Anne feeling a temper that was usually nonexistent in her. Instead of arguing with him, she turned her attention to the path, kicked her heels into Storm’s sides, and took off. Anne let Storm have her head, both of them familiar with the path. Merrick pulled up next to her a moment later.
Storm was fast, but Anne doubted that she could outrun the black. The stallion was bigger and stronger. Anne, however, sat lighter in the saddle. She was feeling a rebellious streak again and urged Storm into a faster gait. Ahead the path narrowed, leaving the open fields and winding through wooded ground.
Anne supposed it wasn’t a considerate thing to do, forcing the man to follow her in a dead run across a path he was not familiar with, but she suspected she could leave him behind easily enough. He should be put in his place… although she was never one to really think of “places” and “putting people in them” before.
Maybe she only wanted to show off. Anne seldom had an opportunity to display her riding skills. The paths in London, Rotten Row and the like, were tame for her talents. A log had fallen across the path ahead and she and the mare took the jump easily. Deeper Anne wound her way along the path into the woods, always aware that the stable master and the stallion were nearly on Storm’s rump.
When the path widened, Merrick was suddenly beside her. Ahead, the path narrowed again and she couldn’t let him get out in front of her. Then it would be a case of him leading and her following. Anne urged Storm on.
Merrick swore, then loosened the reins to give the stallion more freedom. The animal lunged ahead so swiftly that Anne felt a sinking sensation. Her mare couldn’t match the stallion’s speed. Just as Anne had wanted to avoid, Merrick pulled ahead when the path narrowed and she was forced to follow instead of lead.
The path widened again and they were in a meadow. He slowed his horse, and when she pulled up beside him Merrick reached across and snatched Anne from the saddle. She was so startled by the move she immediately struggled and almost toppled to the ground. A strong arm settled around her waist and he easily brought the headstrong stallion to a halt. Merrick let Anne slide to the ground and quickly dismounted.
“What do you think you are doing?” she demanded, for the second time in the space of a few hours after being in his company.
He dropped the reins to the stallion’s bridle and pulled her a short distance from the excited animal. “I’m doing my job,” Merrick shot back. “Making sure you don’t break your pretty neck while trying to show me up and put me in my place.”
“I am a very accomplished rider,” Anne defended. “I thought you would have noticed that.”
Merrick stared down at her. For just a moment, his blue eyes softened upon her. “I did notice,” he said. “But I won’t have you getting hurt my first day on the job because you wanted to impress me.”
Since she’d just more or less admitted she was trying to impress him, Anne saw no reason to deny it. “Did I impress you?” she asked instead.
A smile tugged at the corner of his sensuous mouth. “You’re a skilled rider,” he admitted. “You have lovely form. You might have given me more of a race if not for the sidesaddle. It weighs more.”
Anne glanced at her horse, the mare having come to a halt as soon as her rider was no longer at the reins to guide her. “I hate the saddle,” Anne admitted, then bravely announced, “I’d like to ride astride, like a man.”
She expected her declaration to shock him. Even old Barton had been shocked when she’d announced the same thing at the age of twelve. Merrick simply shrugged. “Then why don’t you?”
Of course he wouldn’t understand. Anne would enlighten him upon the subject. “It isn’t considered proper for a lady to… to ride that way,” she informed him. “My aunt and uncle would never allow it.”
Merrick glanced about the clearing. “I don’t see your aunt and uncle.”
Anne came dangerously close to smiling. How simple his life must be compared to hers. She envied him in that moment. Anne had spent the good portion of her life heeding all the rules of society in order to please her aunt and uncle. In order to win their love.
“My old groom, Barton, nearly died of shock when I suggested it at the age of twelve.” Recalling Barton brought tears to her eyes. Anne had been very fond of him. “He passed on just last month. I miss him.”
Merrick placed his finger beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. In his eyes was an expression so soft it melted her heart. It took her off guard—reminded her of the power he’d held over her the night before. Anne pulled away and blinked back her tears.
“You must think I’m silly,” she said, walking toward Storm to gather the mare’s drooping reins.
“I don’t know what I think,” she heard him say to her back. “And I usually know right away.”
Anne decided then and there she must squash her unruly feelings for a man she hardly knew. It would be much better if they were simply friends. She took a deep breath and turned to face Merrick.
“Can we start over?” she asked. “I feel as if we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot with one another.”
For some reason, her suggestion made him smile. Not a genuine one but more of a smirk. “Do you think you can geld me with an offer of friendship? Do you think that will make me forget what you feel like, and smell like, and taste like?”
Heat exploded in her cheeks and shot through her body. Anne had never met a man she couldn’t tame with a show of good manners and an offer of friendship. But she sensed that this was a man unlike any she had met before. “I believe you have the wrong impression of me.”
He sauntered toward her. “Now that’s where you’re wrong, lass. I think I might know you better than you know yourself.”
When Anne looked up at him, she tried to appear as calm as he usually did in her presence. “What does that mean?”
The softness returned to his eyes and Anne thought that expression alone might be more dangerous than the scent he’d put off last night in the stable.
“You long to be something that you’re not. I understand that well enough. You want things you cannot have. I understand that, too. You want to ride your horse astride like a man, at midnight, in nothing but your undergarments. What are you running from, Lady Anne? Or are you running in hopes you’ll find whatever is missing in your life?”
The man had no right to ask her such personal questions. He had no right to assume so much about her. And damn him, he had no right to know her better than she knew herself, just as he claimed. This intimacy between them had to stop.
“I wish t
o return now,” she said stiffly. Anne turned to mount her horse. Merrick was at her back in an instant. His hands closed around her waist.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not until at least one of us gets something we want.”
Chapter Four
Anne wheeled to face him, nearly colliding with him, he stood so close. Her eyes made it past the dark hair teasing her from the open collar of his shirt, up across his broad shoulders, the dark whiskers on his chin and cheeks, to his icy eyes, but no, they were not cold. The heat was back in them. His gaze lowered to her lips and they parted as if he’d commanded them to do so. Would he kiss her again? Was that the something he wanted? And did it matter what she wanted? Or did she want the same thing?
He lifted a hand, almost touched her hair, then quickly withdrew it. “You wanted to ride astride like a man, and today you will.”
Merrick turned from her and walked to the stallion. He unsaddled the horse in short order while she stood reeling from the onslaught of his nearness, her lips tingling in anticipation of a kiss that had not come.
“You are going to do it this time, aren’t you?” he asked while carrying the saddle to her mount and laying it on the ground. “I’d hate to go through this trouble only to see you bolt and run away like you did last night.”
A teasing light had entered his eyes, but Anne did not find him amusing. Staying last night had been out of the question. No telling what might have happened had she not regained her senses and fled to the safety of the house. And no telling how often she would wonder exactly what would have transpired between them if she hadn’t escaped when she did.
“I will ride astride,” she assured him.
He didn’t comment but unsaddled Storm, then saddled the mare with the lightweight English saddle he’d used on the stallion. Merrick adjusted the stirrups, then turned to her.
“Up you go.”
Anne glanced down at her skirt. “I wish I owned a pair of men’s trousers. And tall boots like you are wearing.”
He placed a hand against his heart. “I might not survive such a sight. You have lovely legs, lass.”
She fought down another blush. Had Merrick seen her legs? And how had he seen anything at all when she hadn’t been able to make out so much as his silhouette in the darkness? He couldn’t have, she assured herself.
“I’m not sure how to proceed,” Anne tried to change the subject. Only she had to bring it back around when she glanced meaningfully at the skirt of her riding habit.
Merrick motioned her closer with a jerk of his head. “Come on, I’ll help you up, then you’ll have to figure out the rest.”
“And you won’t say anything to my aunt or uncle about this?” She wanted reassurance.
“You have my word.”
For some reason, Anne believed him—felt certain she could count on his word. Why, she had no idea. Maybe the man really had cast a spell over her. She allowed him to give her a leg up. In order to sit the saddle astride, she had to bunch her skirt up around her knees. It left her stocking-clad calves bare to his eyes, but she hoped he wouldn’t look. He did.
“Very nice,” he said. “Just like I remember.”
Ignoring him, Anne urged Storm forward, awkward at first with her position astride the horse. It took Anne only a few paces to become braver and urge the bay into a trot. The sensation was strange, to say the least. Anne decided a gallop might prove less disturbing and soon she was on the path, racing along astride and realizing how cruel it was to make women ride sidesaddle.
She laughed out loud with the sheer freedom she felt, glanced behind her, and saw Merrick riding bareback behind her. He looked like a barbarian and her heart made a funny lurch inside of her chest.
“So what do you think?” Merrick called, quickly catching up to her.
“It’s wonderful,” she called back. “It’s the way a horse was meant to be ridden. I shall never want to ride sidesaddle again.”
“And what about riding in your underwear, bareback, at midnight across the moors? Are you still brave enough to do that?”
Anne slowed her mount. Was Merrick teasing her? “Not with an escort,” she assured him.
He smiled in answer. Just at breakfast Anne had wondered what it would be like to see him smile. She decided she was better off not knowing. He had a smile that could melt winter.
“Would you do it if you had a pair of men’s trousers and boots?”
She cocked a brow. “And where would I get those?”
He shrugged. “I could get them for you. The lad who sweeps out the stalls, Brennan, he’s not much bigger than you.”
What Merrick said was true. The stable boy was only ten but tall for his age. And Anne supposed his feet were still small. Did she dare? She had wanted to dare last night. But last night had proven a mistake, and she had a feeling meeting the new stable master in the dead of night for a midnight ride again would be another one.
“May I go alone?”
He shook his dark head. “I cannot allow that. You can go if you let me go with you, to watch after you.”
His suggestion annoyed her. If her aunt and uncle were not particularly affectionate people toward her, they had made certain Anne had been well chaperoned all of her life. She wanted the freedom of riding alone.
“I don’t need looking after,” she said. “I’m a grown woman and, as you said yourself, a skilled rider.”
Merrick leaned forward in the saddle and scratched his chin. “Have you ridden bareback before, then?”
Anne frowned. “Well, no, but—”
“When I feel you know what you are doing, then you can go alone and I’ll keep your secrets.”
Anne wasn’t a mistrustful person by nature. But she wasn’t as innocent as she’d been just the day before. “Why would you do that?” she asked.
He glanced at her and winked. “To see you in the trousers of course.”
She had no idea if he was teasing her. Considering what had happened between them the night before, she thought she should ask, “You won’t try anything like you did last night, will you?”
Merrick shrugged. “Probably. It’s in my nature to ravish any young woman who stumbles across my path in the night.” His expression was perfectly serious.
“Then I must decline.”
The serious expression he wore disappeared and he surprised her by laughing out loud. Anne didn’t care to be laughed at.
“What is so funny?” she asked stiffly.
He pulled up and stopped his horse. Anne did likewise. “Last night I didn’t know who you were. Today I do. That changes everything, lass.”
Anne ignored the slight sting she felt to her ego. “You said you would not forget,” she reminded him.
Heat flared to life in his eyes as he stared at her. “Oh, to be sure, I won’t. But a maid looking for sport with her lover, and a lady only wanting a midnight ride on her horse are two different things. You’re safe with me… I think.”
It was his afterthought that made Anne nervous. But that trepidation was easily outweighed by a chance to do something she’d wanted to do for a long time. It was a chance that might never come her way again.
“All right,” she said. “Meet me at midnight in the stable. Have the clothes with you.”
Merrick had to wonder if he’d taken leave of his senses. Making offers, keeping secrets, getting too close to a woman he had no right to get close to. Lady Anne was a proper lady. He was a bastard, a stable master who made a good enough wage to support a common lass, but not a grand lady like his employer’s niece. Not that Merrick was thinking of wedding the tempting Lady Anne, but he was damn sure thinking of bedding her.
He had the clothes, paid for with a coin to the lad and a promise from the boy that he’d not ask why the new stable master needed them. He had the horses saddled and ready. He had everything but a brain in his head. He almost hoped she wouldn’t come. It would be better for the both of them if she regained her senses and decided he wasn’t a man to trust wit
h either her secrets or her virtue. She’d probably be right in thinking that, although he’d always tried to be a man of his word before.
There was little in life Merrick had besides his word and his skill with horses. He recalled giving his word to another woman. His mother on her deathbed. She’d told him not to go looking for his past. She’d told him to be content with what he’d been given in life. Not to dream of things beyond his reach. And Merrick had promised.
Now he was sniffing around a woman’s skirts he should not be sniffing around. Merrick and Lady Anne were as different as night and day. Merrick was, in fact, different from any man he knew. He had strange abilities that his mother hadn’t even known about. He had his secrets even if he chose not to acknowledge his differences most of the time. He did not understand his “gifts” or why they had been given to him. He wasn’t sure they were gifts. Perhaps they were instead a curse.
Although his mind told him it would be better if Lady Anne did not appear tonight in the stable, Merrick watched the door for her. He willed her to him, and by doing so he went back on his word to his mother. He wanted all he promised her he would not want. Deep inside, he resented that his blood was somewhat blue but still ran red like that of the common man he was.
His mother, God rest her soul, had taken his father’s name to the grave with her. Whoever the man had been, Merrick resented the hell out of him. How could a man treat a child like a dirty secret? Like a mistake, easily ignored and then forgotten? While the man was alive, he’d made certain that Merrick and his mother were provided for, but after his death, it was as if he’d wanted to bury his secrets along with him. Merrick, only a young man at the time, and his mother were suddenly forced to work at whatever jobs they could find in order to support themselves. He supposed that made them no different from most, but he had wondered if while he and his mother scraped and starved, somewhere the man’s legitimate children were living in the lap of luxury.
The horses had always come naturally to Merrick. He knew a good bloodline when he saw one. He knew what mare to breed to which stallion in order to produce a better horse. He knew how to care for the animals, how to clean up after them, how to ride them. He’d made a name for himself in his profession, if it wasn’t the grandest profession a man might strive for, and if his name was only his first name. Still, he’d learned to be content… until last night.
Love At First Bite Page 28
