He shook his head a little at his own foolishness. There would be no heiress for him, whether it was a love-match or not. Lydia Dean was altogether beyond his reach. Even if he made a fortune with Reynard — he turned back to look for the chestnut colt, but Wilkes had already dispatched the horse up to some isolated paddock to spend a few weeks in solitude — even if the colt was all that he hoped, the Derby was a year away for him. It was a race for three year olds, and he would have one shot at it. If Reynard didn’t pan out, Peregrin doubted he’d be able to afford another prospect with such promise as the chestnut again. The English blood-horse grew more rarified and well-bred with every passing season. The stud book was bristling with new horses, but the same sires were appearing over and over: names like Herod and Lath and Whiskey. Reynard traced back to the Godolphin Barb, that sire of so many champions of the turf, and even his dam was related through Herod. But there weren’t many more like him that Peregrin would be able to even get a glance at, the way things were going. His allowance was small, his savings nearly gone, and he was frightened his welcome with the Archwoods was about to wear out.
No, a wife, especially from a notably title-hunting family, was not in the cards at this time.
Ahead of him, Lydia had stopped the mare and was gazing out into the wooded park beyond the yard. He thought he recognized the look upon her face when she turned: it was a longing for freedom, a sudden realization of all that she had been denied in a lifetime of hothouse flowers and fancy-work.
And so he let her out. Perhaps he shouldn’t have, but as he watched her walk past him from the gated yard and into the world beyond, the park at Tivington large enough to give the impression of endless countryside, he felt a surging in his chest that he had not felt with his boots upon the ground in some time. She flashed a smile at him as she passed, and then seemed to forget his presence. He watched her gaze up at the trees above, the blue sky beyond, and then on to the road winding away ahead of her, and he thought he knew the thrill she was feeling, walking that horse along that open road. It was a feeling he lived for, after all.
He walked after her slowly, letting her get further away than he should have, because to intrude upon her happiness felt wrong. He didn’t want her to know that she was being minded, he didn’t want her to feel she was being instructed — she had spent a lifetime being minded, being instructed, being watched, being judged. Now she was coming to understand something that had been central to Peregrin’s life since he was a boy: that horses do not judge. Tilly wanted only a leader and a companion; she did not care about Miss Dean’s riding habit or deportment. True, there were rules in the way a hand touched a rein, or the way a voice issued a direction, but it was a different kind of etiquette from the ballroom or the drawing room. It was a much more satisfying kind.
And then she turned back to look at him. He had been watching her, of course, and there was no way to hide it, but she did not seem to mind. In fact, she gave him a luminous smile that made his heart skip a beat. This girl, this Lydia Dean, she was ruinous to his good sense, he was starting to realize. He should have let Grainne teach her to ride, he should not have allowed himself to grow so close to her! You haven’t got what her family wants, he reminded himself. And she knows it as well as you do. She will dance the dance she has been taught. All you can do is make sure she finds some measure of happiness with her husband.
And who would that be? Lord Sutton? Peregrin felt a flash of anger, and in that same moment he saw the squirrel leap from the tree and land in front of the mare’s hooves; he saw the mare start slightly, tugging at the reins; he saw Lydia’s balance waver, saw her stumble over a stone in the path, and then he wondered how in God’s name he hadn’t seen that her hand had somehow gotten wrapped in the reins under the mare’s jaw. For as Tilly saw her mistress stumble to the ground and leaped away in fright, the rein wrapped around Miss Dean’s hand pulled taut, and when Tilly took off at a heavy canter, Miss Dean was dragged beside her.
Peregrin sprinted after the horse and lady, his face white with terror. The same horrified words beat through his brain, drumming in his skull as he raced down the shale road: Oh God, I’ve killed her. Oh God, I’ve maimed her. She’ll lose her hand, she’ll break her arm, she’ll be trampled, oh God oh God oh God —
And then, after just a few yards, the supple old leather somehow gave way and snapped, leaving Miss Dean limp in the road, her battered arm stretched out before her, the reins still wrapped around her hand.
It felt like an eternity before he was beside her, on his knees in the gravel of the road, tearing at the taut leather on her hand to loosen it and bring blood back into those white fingers, turning her over gently to slap at her reddened cheeks. There was a long scrape along one delicate cheekbone that sent a chill of guilt and horror rushing through him. She had been utterly perfect before this moment, as untouched as a doll in a shop, and in seeking to free her from that he had made a terrible miscalculation. At least as a doll in a shop, she had been safe, unsullied by dirt or blood. Look at her now. You did this.
She opened her eyes then, as his panicked mind was racing through strange territory, and the blue sapphire of her eyes had never been so bright or pronounced to him before. She wasn’t just beautiful, he realized, she was glorious. How had she ever managed to fade into the background at the routs and soirees and balls where she should have found a rich and handsome husband to take her hand? How was she lying her on the ground, trying to learn to ride a horse so that she could seduce a titled oaf who was not half good enough for her?
“Are you alright?” he murmured hoarsely. “Please, sweetheart, tell me you’re not hurt.”
She shifted a little, lifting her head, and then her right arm, and could not hold back a little cry. He winced and reached for the hand, but she shook her head a little. “It is fine,” she whispered, brushing at the dust on her face. “I do not think anything is broken.”
He helped her to sit upright and they sat there in the dirt of the road for a moment. Tilly by now had come back and was grazing nearby, with that innocent look that many a horse adopts after they have done something foolish. Without any reins attached to the bridle to trample upon, there was no way for the horse to do any harm to herself, so Peregrin paid her no mind. When he walked Miss Dean back to the yard to clean her up, he’d send a lad out to catch the old mare, bring her back, and untack her.
“Do you want to get up?” he asked after a moment.
She shook her head. “Not yet. I turned my ankle, I think — it throbs. But it is getting better. May we just sit here for a moment?” She looked up at him with those wide eyes.
He wanted to touch her, dammit, he wanted to reach out and hold her close, and apologize and tell her that she was too fine and valuable for him to have been so careless with her safety. But he held himself back. She was not for him. “I am sorry,” he said instead, keeping his hands to himself. “I should not have let you walk so far ahead. I would have noticed that the reins had gotten looped around your hand.”
She looked down at her hand, where an angry red weal had sprung up across the white skin. “It was a foolish mistake,” she replied, not looking up. “I should have been paying more attention. I was just so — ” she paused and looked around her, at the tall trees and the winding road, poised forever to take travelers to some new world (although it was really only to the menage). “I was just so transported,” she finished. “The fresh air and the gravel beneath my boots and the horse following my every command — I have never felt so… so…”
“Free,” Peregrin finished for her.
She looked up at him and blinked. There it was again — that fearless fascination in her eyes. She was meant for Sutton, he knew, but the quivering pulse of lightning between them — she felt it too. He knew it.
And he was sorry for it.
“We should take you back to the yard,” he suggested again, certain that they shouldn’t be so intimate when so many mistakes could be made with ease. “Wash your f
ace before we take you back to the abbey and your maid sees you.”
She drew a finger under the red line across her cheek. “Is this very bad?”
He looked closely. “Not so very bad,” he decided. “It is only a scratch.”
“I shall have to keep a creme on it, lest it scar,” she said worriedly. “It would be a terrible thing to have a scar right across my cheek. What would people think?”
“That you were brave and bold, a woman who was not afraid to feel free,” Peregrin told her huskily, unable to help himself. And then, without thinking, he grabbed at her hand, her left hand, the one she had not injured, and held it tight. “I hope you will go on learning to ride, Miss Dean. I could not bear to know my mistake has put a stop to your learning, because I can already see what joy you will take in it.”
Why didn’t she snatch her hand away from him? Oh, Miss Dean, he thought desperately, watching her white face, her sapphire-blue eyes, her trembling smile as she turned it upon him, why won’t you be the sensible one, why won’t you put a stop to all this?
But she sat there and watched him, her hand warm within his, while the mare grazed on the verge of the road and the world outside went about its business, never knowing that two people in the park were very busily making their lives into perfect nightmares.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sutton was not pleased with what Wilkes was telling him, and he was not above letting Wilkes know it. He sliced his walking stick through the jolly spring daisies that had been planted around the stable yard’s perimeter. A few horses, heads out the back windows to take in the views of the rolling hills of the paddocks, darted back into the safety of their boxes, hooves ringing on the brick walls. Wilkes winced, presumably imagining all sorts of injuries to his beloved horses’ fragile legs, but Sutton couldn’t give a damn. Shoot every last one of them, and take pleasure in it, so he would, if only it would teach Wilkes a lesson or two about who was in charge.
“It’s a damned cock-up is what it is,” Sutton hissed vehemently, determined to keep his voice unheard by the grooms on the other side of the stable. “How many weeks did you turn him out for? Three, you say? And how then am I to convince Fawkes that he has to sell? The horse will come back again fresh as a daisy and Fawkes will be thrilled with his progress — and I, meanwhile, will be stuck out here in the country for weeks on end! This is no good, Wilkes, no good at all.”
Wilkes, who at the age of fifty was starting to think that getting out of bed every morning at four o’clock, in charge of thirty-two of the finest horses in England, and six no-more-lazy-than-usual stable lads, was less and less attractive, did not particularly relish being spoken to like this by a man who was not even his master. “Milord,” he said evenly, but his jaw was tight and his eyes cold, “I cannot go against the wishes of the master. Not even for you.”
“The master! Do you jest? Fawkes is but a guest like me.”
Wilkes shook his head slightly. “He’s been as much a part of the family as Lord Archwood for many a year. And her Ladyship counts him a constant advisor in matters of horseflesh. Believe me, milord, in the yard his word is final.”
Sutton made another swipe at the hapless daisies. “I suppose I shall just have to take possession of the horse in a different way.”
Wilkes blinked. “Milord?”
“Don’t ask questions of your betters,” Sutton snapped, turning away. “I’m done with you. And don’t expect another coin from me, either.”
Sutton tramped back around to the front side of the yard, pushing open the gate and leaving it open behind him, never minding the stable lad who ran to close it again in his wake. He couldn’t have given a damn if the gate was meant to always remain closed, lest a horse get loose from the yard and go running pell-mell across the lawns. That was what the staff were for — to clean up his messes, to close his doors, to pull out his chair, to do as he bid.
And Wilkes — he glowered again at the empty stall as he marched past it — Wilkes had suddenly betrayed his trust by ceasing to do his bidding. That old bastard! Probably he’d gotten cold feet, probably he’d let his blasted conscience get in the way — as if a peasant’s ill-conceived notions of right and wrong could have any bearing on the needs of his masters. At any rate, the horse was no longer being fed the blend of herbs that had put him in such ill temper, and out on the spring grass all his ailments would disappear as if by magic. When he came back to the stable yard in a few weeks he would be as gentle as a sheep. He’d go right back into training as if nothing had ever happened.
And what would he, Sutton, do? Go on courting Miss Dean, he supposed. But that was nothing but a diversion, something to keep him busy while he waited for Fawkes to grow disenchanted with his broken horse. And it wasn’t half as interesting as he had hoped.
There was no real game with Miss Dean — he’d marry her soon enough, after all, but he’d hoped for a more entertaining flirtation. A few more flounces, a few more tears, before he deigned to make her his. Of course, he didn’t regret choosing her — she was beautiful, after all, and didn’t have too much to say, which was nice, and most importantly brought a fantastic fortune to the table. And since she had somehow managed to put herself on the shelf after having several excellent offers refused by her foolish father, there wasn’t any competition for her hand. They’d be married before the years’ end, he had no doubt — he just wished he wasn’t going to have to waste the summer courting her when if he could just secure the horse, he could propose marriage, have done with it, and leave at once. She could molder out here in the countryside all summer if she liked, as long as she knew she was coming home to his house in the autumn.
Miss Dean — he stopped outside of a horse’s stall and let the animal run its lips over his cupped palm while he thought about her. Such a lovely little girl, Miss Dean. Big blue eyes that always looked at him with a bit of fright in her eyes, rather like a deer that was too foolish to run away. He excited her, he knew, as much as he frightened her. It was going to make bedding her a singular experience. His groin tingled a little at the thought, and he snatched his hand away from the horse right before the creature decided to take an experimental bite out of him. The horse’s teeth clicked together on empty air and it looked inquiringly, without malice, after Sutton, but the gentleman was already marching on, taking stock of each and every horse while he endeavored to think of something besides Miss Dean’s maidenly fears.
Then there was a sound of hooves on cobbles, and he looked up: here was Fawkes himself, riding into the yard on a tall bay blood-horse. A boy ran up and grabbed the horse’s reins, and Fawkes nodded to him and swung nimbly from the horse, landing on his toes. He clapped the horse on the neck a few times and then walked away, swinging his whip, while the boy led the horse back to its box to be untacked and sponged down. I’ll ask him now, Sutton thought. While he is still downcast over his pet’s bad behavior.
Fawkes looked to be in fine fettle, Sutton thought, and he grinned to himself before he stepped out of the shadows, waiting for the smile to disappear from his fellow houseguest’s face. And there it goes, he thought cheerfully, as Fawkes caught sight of him and his stride slowed. “Sutton,” he said unenthusiastically. And then, a bit more cordially. “Do you ride? The ground is surpassing good today. I took Toulouse out to the gallops and send him around for a few miles. Turf like clouds. I can recommend a horse to you, if you fancy a good run.”
“No riding,” Sutton declined, despite his buckskins and boots. “I came only to look the horses over. I am thinking of buying a few blood-horses to fatten up my stable next season.”
“I don’t think any of them are for sale,” Fawkes said without a hint of regret in his voice. “That one especially,” he went on, pointing his whip at the dapple gray Sutton had been spying upon. “Grainne dotes upon Marguerite.”
“She’s too sentimental by half,” Sutton drawled, stepping away from the gray, who was, he had to admit, uncommonly fine. “But what do you expect from a woman. At lea
st a man knows when to sell a horse and cut his losses — or make his profit.”
“A profit is a fine thing,” Fawkes agreed, but with a note of caution. He eyed Sutton warily.
“A true businessman, a man of good sense, would never turn down a chance at profit,” Sutton went on, his voice unconcerned, as if he were discussing the clouds floating by in the serene blue sky.
“Indeed.”
“So if I made you a fat offer for that chestnut colt you would regard it as a sensible thing, would you not?” Sutton said amiably, running his hand along the lapel of his riding coat.
Fawkes looked down at the ground. “Of course anyone would regard it as a sensible thing. But you must understand, Reynard, the colt — he’s not for sale.”
“Mr. Fawkes, my good man, let us be candid. Your state of affairs is not a secret to any man who matters. Your allowance is nearly gone, you are in great danger of going into debt. Your father was a good man, this is true, but he was a poor investor. And I am afraid you have shown no great aptitude for business yourself. Why is it, Mr. Fawkes, that you did not go into a trade?”
“It was not necessary,” Fawkes said defensively. “I have never wanted for friends who would give me a place to stay, so that I could continue my education as a horseman. I am a fine trainer, Lord Sutton. That is as good as any trade to me. I shall build a name for myself with my racehorses. I believe I already have done such with my hunting horses.”
“Oh, you’ve quite a name for yourself as a breakneck daredevil in the most wild hunts in the Empire, if that’s what you mean,” Sutton said waspishly. “But I hardly think that constitutes as a trade.”
“When I have trained a horse, he will never stop at a fence. He is safe for anyone to ride. That commands a certain price.”
The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Page 15
