The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2)

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  Until the tread of hooves came cantering up beside them.

  Mr. Fawkes was the one who broke the kiss. Lydia opened her eyes slowly, like a maiden coming to from a swoon, and what she saw nearly made her faint in earnest.

  It was Lord Sutton, glaring down at them from a great bay hunter, his face like a thunderstorm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Lydia felt a surge of terror run through her such as she had never felt before — not that night in front of the Archwood townhouse, not yesterday when Tilly had dragged her over the road, not in the moment before when she had been tumbling from the frightened horse’s back. The look on Lord Sutton’s face as she lay curled against Mr. Fawkes’s chest: now that was pure horror. Horses might never frighten her again.

  For of course she was ruined in every way now. Even in her state of shock, still not altogether certain how she had gone from riding a quiet horse along a serene park drive to being clutched tightly in the arms of her instructor, she was well aware of that: the damning facts that she had left her maid and sole chaperone behind in the stable yard; that she had been alone in the company of a gentleman for more than a quarter of an hour; that she was presently being held as closely as a lover by said gentleman. And that in all of her worst nightmares, she could never have imagined that the one who would find her in such disarray would be the man she was planning to marry, a man she was terribly frightened of, a man who held her life in the balance.

  And the marriage everyone had been expecting? Not now, she thought. He won’t have me now. For indeed, Sutton was glaring down his nose at her with a mixture of disgust and horror, it was as if he had stumbled upon a scene of carnage, mangled and robbed bodies along a roadside, instead of two riders come to a relatively uneventful fall. He was weighing everything he knew of her, and finding her wanting, she could see it. He was discounting her as a potential bride.

  Lydia closed her eyes against the crushing weight of defeat. Mr. Fawkes’s body was hot upon hers, her lips still felt bruised from his kisses, but it mattered not. She would be sent home to her parents with a terse note that the Archwoods were no longer able to have her as a houseguest; she would be dependent on Lord Sutton’s silence in order to maintain her place in society; she would have to fight the other young ladies on the Marriage Mart for another interminable Season to find another gentleman with the pedigree and money required to be the husband of Miss Lydia Dean.

  And she would lose Mr. Fawkes forever, although she had always known that. She had never truly had him, not for a moment. They had never had a chance…

  She pressed her eyelids closer together, fearing a burning behind them — she would not cry, for God’s sake! But her heart was broken, once and for all; she could practically hear it shatter. There was nothing left for her now, no hope at all of happiness… She swallowed a sob, waiting for Sutton’s judgement. He was in control now, that much was certain.

  There was a long silence before Lord Sutton, still towering above them on the great bay hunter, finally spoke in a cold voice. “I see you have lost your horse and your chaperone, Miss Dean. Mr. Fawkes, do you know which way the horse went?”

  “I did not see,” Mr. Fawkes replied, his voice taut. Lydia could feel his voice rumbling against her shoulder, where she was still pressed to his chest. He did not seem in any rush to let her go, she thought wildly. Whatever was he thinking? “But I am sure she left tracks in the drive — and she will not go far.”

  “Perhaps you should go after her, then,” Sutton instructed. “I will take Miss Dean back to the house — and retrieve her maid along the way.”

  Lydia opened her eyes. Mr. Fawkes was holding her so tightly; he did not intend to let her go, and she did not want him to. Not ever. “We should help Mr. Fawkes retrieve the horse,” she suggested weakly. “Since you are mounted, it will be easier for you to see her.”

  “Pray do not interrupt, child,” Sutton said coldly. “You are hardly in a position to give commands.”

  “I’m not giving a command!” Lydia gasped at his dismissal of her, speaking to her as if she were no more than a servant. Certainly mistakes had been made of her, but she was still a lady of good breeding. “I was making a suggestion.”

  “Miss Dean, I will be taking you back to the house to clean yourself up. And it is just as well, for we have much to discuss.”

  Lydia shoved at Mr. Fawkes’s arm around her wait — he was really starting to take her breath! He scowled at her and she shook her head, pushing herself up to her feet awkwardly. She shook out her skirts and then looked down at Mr. Fawkes. “Will you come, sir?”

  But Sutton pushed his horse between them, and Lydia could not help but shrink back; the big hunter was pulling at his bits, mouth foamy with distress, hooves pawing in his anxiety to be off. With the animal’s gaping mouth in her face, she could see the clear difference between Mr. Fawkes’s gentle hands on the reins and Sutton’s hard ones; the viscount’s horses seemed always to be on the verge of a temper tantrum or a fit of hysteria. Perhaps, she thought, carefully stepping away from the horse, this would turn out to be a lucky mistake. If he was rough with his horses, how would he treat his wife? Being ruined was hard, but being married to a violent man would surely be harder.

  “Give me your arm; I shall pull you up beside me,” Sutton commanded harshly, reaching down. “Fawkes! Help her up. She cannot walk all that way back when she has had a fall.”

  “What will you tell them?” Mr. Fawkes asked, getting up and slapping the gravel from his buckskins. “The Archwoods, I mean.”

  “That she fell, nothing more,” Sutton said blandly. “But Miss Dean and I will discuss that on the way back to the house. You should not concern yourself with her any longer.”

  Mr. Fawkes, on the way around the horse to help her mount, paused mid-step. “Just what are you planning to do?” he asked suspiciously.

  Lydia, heart hammering in her chest, suddenly thought she knew. She looked at Mr. Fawkes with wild eyes, and he seemed to feel her gaze upon him. His own gaze lingered upon her longingly, but then he shook his head slightly and she knew: he was not going to hold her, he was not going to comfort her. The time for such folly was past. The damage was done. He turned to Lord Sutton instead, his face bleak.

  “Don’t do this, Sutton.” Fawkes’ voice was taut, but his face seemed to be growing whiter with every second, as if he saw the precipice they stood upon. “It was my fault. It was a mistake. We were carried away by the riding, and then the horse bolted, and I was frightened for her safety — all of this is my fault. Don’t do this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fawkes,” Sutton snapped. “Surely you do not think I am some nefarious villain from a lady’s novel, ready to abscond this young thing and carry her away to Scotland? Unfair charges indeed, from the man who was just caught ravishing her.”

  “That’s not what happened!” Lydia cried, though she knew she should have remained silent. Sure enough, Sutton’s eyes, when they came back to her, were ablaze with fury. She remembered how he had turned those sparkling blue eyes upon her to stoke her lust, and she shivered. He would never be able to charm her again, not after she had seen this side of him. This horrible, imperious, uncaring side of him, with his hands tight on his horse’s bloodied mouth.

  “Help her on the horse, Fawkes,” Sutton growled, still watching Lydia with eyes like a demon’s. “You had better go and find Grainne’s old mare before something happens to her. I don’t think I’d like telling her how your irresponsibility cost her a horse she was fond of.”

  “Damn you!” Fawkes burst out. “Damn your eyes, Sutton, you have been waiting for something like this to happen!”

  “Something like this? Even my low opinion of you could not have sunk this far, Fawkes. This is really beyond the pale. Now, do I have to tell you again? Help her mount.”

  Mr. Fawkes turned to Lydia, his body quivering with emotion, and she went to him with a sigh that was half a sob. There was nowhere for whispers of r
eassurance, there was nowhere for avowals of eternal love, there was nothing to be done but to close her eyes for a moment as his hands wrapped around her waist one last time, and then the hard touch of Sutton’s grip upon her wrist blanked out the gentleness of Mr. Fawkes’s touch. She was settled behind him, behind the saddle, sitting sideways on the horse with nothing but her own unreliable balance to keep her there. “I can’t do this,” she babbled, panicked. “I can’t stay on this horse like this. I shall fall.”

  Sutton sighed impatiently. “Oh, you’re probably right,” he snapped, and unceremoniously turned in the saddle, grabbed her around the waist, and yanked her around to sit on his lap. She was pinned against his chest by his left arm, hard as iron, her eyes nearly at his jutting chin, and the realization that he would be the hero in this farce was nearly too much to bear. She looked down at Mr. Fawkes, and saw the desperation in his eyes; but he would do nothing — there was nothing he could do. Were he a knight in shining armor, four hundred years before, he could have drawn his sword and ended this here and now. But these were modern times, and the rules of society were clear and simple. And Lord Sutton had played his cards more cleverly than Mr. Fawkes. He won this hand, and this game, and the prize:

  Lydia.

  She gasped in terror as Sutton yanked at the horse’s mouth, spinning the beast around, and then sent them charging away, leaving Mr. Fawkes alone in the rising dust, to trudge down the drive in search of the runaway mare, while Lydia clung against her will to Sutton’s coat, feeling his steel hardness with every jouncing stride of the bay’s gallop.

  But they did not gallop for long.

  A few turns of the drive went winding beneath the hunter’s hooves, while Lydia felt every hoofbeat in a welter of fear and misery, and then suddenly he pulled the horse up with a great yank on its mouth, so fast that she was jolted up against his chest, bumping her head on his chin. He cursed and pushed her head away, rubbing at his chin. “You should be more careful,” he snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” Lydia said automatically, because his arm was around her and he was so incredibly strong that she thought he could snap her in two. But she wanted to scream at him. How was it her fault that he’d stopped the horse like that and she’d hit her head? Her head hurt, too! But her arms were locked at her sides by his iron grip, she couldn’t rub at it.

  “You will learn to be more careful. But I do not foresee much more horse-riding in your future. It won’t be necessary.”

  Lydia pretended she did not know what he meant, although his words sent chills through her very bones. “My lord?” she ventured quietly. “What do you plan to do? Why have we stopped?”

  “Plan to do to you, you mean?” He laughed coldly. “Why my darling Lydia, do you not know? I plan to have a taste of you, for a start, and then I plan to tell you exactly how things are going to work. But first, a little lick of the honey Mr. Fawkes was so enjoying,” and then without warning his mouth was upon hers with crushing brutality, his tongue forcing its way through her lips, past her teeth, and the hot wetness of it was nothing like the molten silkiness of the kiss she had just shared with Mr. Fawkes. This was a crushing, angry kiss to mark her a prisoner, and hot tears sprung to her eyes and trickled down her cheeks while he raked his tongue through her pliant mouth. His right hand, reins still wrapped in his fingers, managed to maul at her breast through the thick fabric of the old riding habit, squeezing until it hurt, and she whimpered despite herself, reduced to a helplessness she could never have believed, shocked and hurt by his cruelty, terrified by his strength. It was the worst moment of her life.

  And then he stopped.

  She took a deep shuddering breath and opened her eyes; he was looking down at her with a look of rapacious satisfaction. “You are as sweet as I had hoped,” he said huskily. “I am a fool to have denied myself so long.”

  Lydia swallowed and said nothing. Her brain was numb, her body hollow. If he took her down from the horse and had his way with her in the bushes, she would die. That was all. She would die.

  “Now,” Lord Sutton went on in a more conversational tone, urging the horse into a walk again. “Let us discuss what happens next.”

  She waited. The horse’s swinging walk rocked her back and forth; she felt nauseated, almost seasick. She wondered what Lord Sutton would do if she was sick all over his coat. Probably nothing very good.

  She must not be sick.

  “We were all four of us riding out together when your horse spooked. That much is easy enough. Mr. Fawkes was knocked senseless; your maid, of course, was left behind. I had to ride after you, you were clinging to the saddle like a burr, but your grip was ever loosening. Then the horse jumped over a fallen log and you tumbled to the ground. I dismounted to help you, but then we realized we were alone in the woods, without chaperone, and must ride back on one horse. Though you were compromised through no fault of your own, but Mr. Fawkes’s, I am afraid, for letting you ride out without his being on a horse with a leading-rein, I confessed my love to you and swore I would marry you. You were quite overcome by my chivalry and my avowal of love since you, yourself, have been forming an attachment to me ever since we first met.” He chuckled at his own cleverness. “That much is true, is it not? We have been dancing a pretty dance these past days. I had hoped to make it last all summer — such a fine diversion! But I shall just have to amuse myself with you in bed, instead. And I assure you that is a fine compromise.”

  Lydia was breathing through her nose and willing herself not to be sick or not to swoon or both. His cold words, so self-assured and triumphant, rang in her ears like an ill-played violin. He was going to blame Mr. Fawkes for the loss of the horse; he was going to claim that he had compromised her and play the honorable gentleman; he was going to marry her as an act of pity instead of an act of affection, which would forever give him the right to treat her as cruelly as he liked in their marriage — she had guessed it all at once but the enormity of hearing the words spoken was too awful to believe.

  In one fell swoop, all her happiness had been cut from her, and Mr. Fawkes was about to lose his cherished position as a member of the Archwood family. Somehow, she knew that cut was coming. They would be shocked and alarmed that he had allowed such a scandal to occur with a houseguest under their chaperonage. They would be worried about the reflection upon them, the effect upon their own place in society. The Archwoods were unconventional originals, but they were not fools, and they were not immune to the pressures of the ton in truly moral issues. This was going to be the ruin of Mr. Fawkes’s happy home with his friends.

  And it was her fault.

  She had left Mary behind, she had made that decision because she was selfish, and she wanted to spend a few precious moments alone with him. And for a second or two there she had been foolish enough to hope — that perhaps there was a chance at an inheritance after all, that Mr. Fawkes’ position in society was not as hopeless as she had thought. She had allowed herself to dream. And so had he.

  And now they were both ruined.

  Sutton gave her a little shake as they rounded the turn into the stable yard, making her sit up straighter, loosening his grip so that she was not pressed against his chest any longer. She held up her chin and pretended that everything was all right, even as she saw Mary rise up from her bucket, hands to her mouth in disbelief; even as the stable lads stopped all of their chores and watched the horse with two riders return to the yard. They stopped short of the gate and a lad ran to the horse’s bridle, but Sutton held up his hand.

  “Come with me and bring the beast back; I will give Miss Dean a ride up to the house. She has had a fall. Nothing too serious, miss,” he said as Mary came running across the yard, her eyes wide with alarm. “Your mistress is quite fine. But I am sure she will appreciate your ministrations as soon as she is safely in her bedchamber.”

  Mary fell in obediently behind the horse as Sutton guided it up the drive to the house, but Lydia thought she could hear the maid seething. Once again, Mary had
been the clever one. Mary should have been the heiress.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Grainne looked at them as if they had two heads.

  Lydia, for her part, could not bear her gaze. She stood and stared at the floor, gazing at the parquet boards edging the drawing room. They zig-zagged in and out, dark wood and light wood, in a geometric pattern that threatened to maker her dizzy. She shook her head a little, and averted her eyes, but the paisley carpet was no better.

  Perhaps she was just dizzy.

  “I don’t understand,” Grainne said, for the third time. Lydia glanced upwards through lowered lashes; Grainne was staring at Lord Sutton as if she had never seen him before. And Lydia, with a thrill of understanding, saw that Grainne had expected something like this from Mr. Fawkes, that this was why he had been given the task of teaching her riding, instead of Grainne taking it on herself. Lydia suspected that Grainne would not have been disappointed at all if Mr. Fawkes had been the one apologizing for compromising her young house-guest, and she marveled at the way she had been set up for a fall, however romantically it might have ended.

  “I’m terribly sorry, my lady, for betraying your hospitality in this manner. I assure that it was none of it done a-purpose.” Sutton was doing a masterful job of sounding sincere and contrite. He was really a fantastic actor — Lydia had no doubt he could tread the boards at Covent Gardens with his skills. She was going to be married to him, she thought, and could barely suppress a shudder. The thought was no more palatable now, an hour after he had first coldly outlined his plans, than it had been when his lips had been cruelly parting hers back in the parkland, and she had little doubt that it would be just as unpleasant in ten or twenty years’ time. Sutton had shown his spots today.