She let herself be pressed into the cushions then, and reached up to fumble with the flap of his breeches even as he was pulling at her skirts, raining kisses upon her face frantically. Hot, desperate kisses, that she responded to with an equal fervor, feeling a fire of desire set her ablaze as never before. She thought she might explode at the right touch. And so as his breeches were tugged away and her skirts were tugged to her waist she arched herself to meet his advance like the most shameless hussy in the world.
He entered her with a hot silken rush, a shock of sensations all at once that was completely different from last night’s langourous love-making. His hands dug into her buttocks as he brought her up to meet his demanding thrusts again and again, his face frozen in a tortured mask of need. She bucked her hips in response, rising to meet him, fingernails grasping at his spine as she moaned with pleasure.
And then he was upon her mouth again, his kiss savage and hard, and his thrusts came so fast and furious that Lydia felt she was coming apart at the very seams. The world was exploding around her, there was a rushing in her ears, her entire body was given over to their shared need, her aching longing for release, and then he drove so deep that her world went white and then black, and she screamed her release for all the household who had ears to hear.
***
She was aware of his body before her own, slowly coming back to her senses while he shifted his weight from her chest to his elbows. She opened her eyes and saw him gazing down at her, eyes gold-flecked from the lantern light. He looked content and quiet, but even as she watched him, his face darkened, remembering, and the heavy sorrow took over again.
“This is the end,” she whispered.
And Peregrin closed his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Peregrin watched the carriages depart on a blustery, chillingly cold morning three days later, the fresh horses shying at the rattling leaves as the north wind tore the dead remnants of summer from the trees and sent them sailing along the drive and around their hooves. He crossed his arms and stood on the stoop of the lodge, trying not to raise his hand in farewell. But he could not stop himself when he saw Lydia’s anxious face peering out at him, a dainty gloved hand pushing aside the heavy curtains of the carriage. He lifted his hand in response — and then saw a larger, tanned hand cover hers, and the curtains dropped again, hiding her face.
And so she was gone.
He turned away from the deserted drive as soon as they had gone, back to the empty house. It seemed larger now that Sutton’s staff was gone. His housekeeper was in there somewhere, rattling pans in the kitchen, and upstairs one of her daughters was stripping linen from the beds in preparation for the washing. And he had work to do: accounts to be reckoned, orders to be made, tradesmen to write. Several days of work loomed before him, that he hadn’t been able to get to while the lodge had been bursting with the retinue of a wealthy viscount and his wife.
And his wife.
Peregrin hadn’t been alone with her for more than a few moments after that pre-dawn tryst in the sitting room, but he thought of her nearly every second, his body burning for her, his mind full of her alabaster skin, silken soft beneath his calloused hands; her gilt lashes sweeping over her sapphire-blue eyes like autumn grasses above a hidden pool; the cascade of sunshine that was her glorious mane of hair. What a horsewoman she might have made, he thought more than once — those long willowy legs that she had wrapped around him, those gentle fingers that touched him so tremulously, that sweet and timid heart that longed for friendship and trust, that backbone of pure steel.
And she had shown him that backbone in truth these three days past, walking past him the narrow halls of the lodge with scarcely a nod in passing, without acknowledging his outstretched hand, as he hoped for just a touch, just a taste, of the passion they had shared. She was the strong one, the one that had made up her mind to honor her commitments as a lady of Quality should, and to stay true to the vows she had spoken, and he could not help but be awed by her raised chin, her set jaw, her determined eyes. If she was hurting, if she was bleeding to death inside as he surely thought he must be, she did not let on for a moment. Just that last desperate look out the carriage window, her good-bye glance — only that gave her away.
But of course it was a good thing, Peregrin reflected, ascending the narrow stairs on his way to his office. She had been kept much in Frederick Sutton’s company as the invalid’s health improved and his temper worsened. Doubtless some of his demands for her company and service were calculated, designed to keep her far from Peregrin’s side. But could he blame the man? She was Sutton’s wife. Peregrin had played a lopsided game and he had lost. Sutton wasn’t going to relinquish his prize, and he would naturally suspect that the two of them would seek one another out.
Nonetheless, her stoic stiff upper lip must have served her in good stead. Sutton could find nothing to suspect from his impassive wife’s lovely face.
Peregrin stood in his office door, eyeing the vast desk and the mountains of ledgers and papers that were stacked upon it. Then his gaze shifted to the window, rattling in the wind, and the archway of the stable block visible through the wavy glass. The day was cold and punishing, but his mind was made up in an instant. He needed a ride.
Peregrin turned on his heel ad marched to the wardrobe in his own room, waving away the startled maid from her cleaning, and pulled out a favorite pair of buckskins. He noted, as he closed the wardrobe doors, that his buckskins were kept as tenderly as his formidable valet had once kept them. Well, one did not play games with good riding clothes.
Cravats, now, were another story. He tossed the one he’d been wearing for the Sutton’s leave-taking on the floor and left it there.
***
Peregrin pulled up Cricket at the top of the ridge that edged Longcastle’s northernmost boundary. The wind raked them there, and Cricket shook his big head, unhappy with the arrangement. But Peregrin held him still with a firm rein. He could see Longcastle’s spread to his south, if he but turned his head — the vine-covered country house, the brown stubble fields, the sheep huddled together at pasture. But it was to the north that he gazed, across a few still-green paddocks that rimmed the bottom of the wooded ridge. A few horses grazed there, tall and long-legged, clearly well-born despite their distance. They were not carthorses such as were usually seen in the fields in these parts, where no resident gentry came to hunt. Nor were they good-natured cobs like Cricket, suitable for a well-heeled farmer to ride and drive. No — these were blood-horses, and Peregrin wanted to know who owned them.
Well, today he was going to find out. He nudged Cricket towards the path that led down the north slope, and the cob put down his head and obliged, picking his way down the scree of pebbles and stones, and into the little wood that huddled against the ridge’s lower slopes.
The horses looked up as mount and rider emerged from the woods, and one whinnied, a long piercing cry. Cricket neighed in reply and shied a little as the pastured horses came galloping up to the hedge for a better look. But Peregrin scarcely paid attention, his hands unconsciously balancing the reins to keep Cricket from bolting or spinning in nervous circles. He was too busy watching the horses in flight.
That one in the middle, that was clearly an older broodmare, with a sagging back and big belly from years of heavy foals. The nearest one was a fine-looking mature horse, nice enough, with a long stride and a proud tilt to his head. But the one in the back, gazing at them with pricked ears and an air of intense suspicion: that was the one that Peregrin wanted to see more closely. Broad chest, deep girth, arching neck, impossibly long legs, and young — the horse’s tail barely reached his hocks, which meant he was no more than two years old. A chance, Peregrin thought, watching as the horse overcame his shyness and came galloping to the hedge, shoving his head over and blowing hard. A chance.
And that’s what he really needed now, today, this minute. He didn’t know how else go on. Winter was coming on, he was alone at Longcastle, and
Lydia had severed ties with him. He had nothing to hope for, nothing to live for, nothing to bother waking up for the next morning. What he needed, he thought, was a horse that could give him another chance.
Perhaps he would never find true love, perhaps he would always be alone. But maybe he could salvage a little piece of the life he had wanted for himself. He leaned over and gave the young horse a pat and it jerked its head back, alarmed. “So who’s your papa, eh?” he asked, watching the colt spin on his heels and race away a few strides, then stop short, curiosity stronger than fear. “Why don’t we find your master, and see just what a price he puts on you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Having Grainne and William as guests in the house at Marston was not nearly as upsetting as Lydia had feared. In fact, she thought, settling down next to Grainne for a cup of tea in her pretty little morning room, it was rather nice. Someone to confide in, something that Lydia was sorely in need in, had made life a little better. And Grainne, expecting a child at last, was not constantly out in the stables with the men. Just the ladies in the house most of the day: it was a routine that Lydia thought she could get used to very easily.
“Are the men riding?” she asked when they were settled with saucers and cups. “I declare, I have not seen William and Frederick separated since you arrived!”
Grainne furrowed her brow a little. “I have noticed that; it is a little odd, I think. I do not think Lord Sutton is so gentle with his horses as William is, and usually he is very feeling of such things. But perhaps he is just missing a friend to ride with. I am forbidden to ride these days, and with Peregrin gone, he was probably lonely. William has not been much alone in his life, you know.”
Lydia looked down at the mention of Peregrin, and Grainne colored instantly. “Dear, I am sorry! Still not over him, are you? But it has been how long — five months since you saw him? Since your wedding?”
It was Lydia’s turn to blush. She had not recounted the story of their mishap on the way to Marston. “I saw him but a month ago,” she confessed softly. “We had a carriage accident, and as luck would have it, we were just outside the gates of your estate at Longcastle.”
Grainne put down her tea-cup with a resounding clink. “You are joking!”
Lydia shook her head. “All too true,” she sighed.
“And what happened?”
“What happened?” Lydia wriggled her toes inside her slippers.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Lydia Sutton. You couldn’t lie to a baby.”
“I certainly managed to lie about Lord Sutton compromising me!” Lydia snapped, and then she felt very, very unwell. She set her teacup down on the table next to the divan with trembling fingers. Beside her Grainne’s jaw was fit to hit the floor.
“You lied about that?”
Lydia nodded very slightly. “It was Lord Sutton’s lie,” she amended. “But I went along with it.”
Grainne sighed heavily. “Oh, Lydia. Why?”
“I couldn’t marry Peregrin. My parents would have disowned me. We had nothing to live on. All of the things you already know,” Lydia finished with a note of exasperation. Why did acting respectably, and doing all of the things that she had been bred to do, get her nothing but trouble and confused questions? Why didn’t anyone pat her on the hand and tell her she’d behaved as a young lady should? Why didn’t real life in any way resemble the life she had been trained for? “I did what I was expected to do.”
Grainne got up and walked around the room. “This is dreadful,” she said after a little while of pacing. “Simply dreadful.”
Lydia just shook her head and took another sip of tea. “Well, it cannot be changed.”
“Why did you have to stop at Longcastle?”
“The coach hit a bad spot in the road and Frederick was hurt,” Lydia recounted, remembering the cold fear and the improper hope as she stood in the rain that night. “We took him up to Longcastle to recuperate. There was a doctor there… a Falwell, I believe, who attended him. He said he had never seen such a splendid recovery from a head wound. We were there three days.”
“Falwell!” Grainne snatched up a cake from the tea tray. “That man is a fraud. He was set down from Oxford. Killed too many patients, I daresay.”
Lydia looked up slowly, her eyes round. “You don’t say.”
“Yes — why? If Frederick made a full recovery…”
“That’s just the thing,” Lydia interrupted. “I don’t think he has.”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” Grainne sat back down on the divan and ate another cake. “This baby,” she grimaced around cake crumbs. “All it wants me to do is eat.”
“He does mad things,” Lydia confessed. “He takes odd spells. He’s been very good since you got here, but, well, it’s only been a few days. Right after we got here, the overseer told me he had ripped all the pages out of the rent ledgers and thrown them out the window — no one knows why, and he won’t own up to it. Then he ordered the bowling green dug up and a fish-pond installed — and he was furious when the workers started digging up the grass. The day before you arrived he came into my room at four o’clock in the morning and announced he was going to train Foxfire — this really wild colt of his — and ride him in the Derby next spring… all himself.” Lydia stopped short; she hadn’t told Grainne her suspicions, that Foxfire was really Peregrin’s Reynard.
But Grainne looked suspicious without any prompting at all. “Foxfire, eh?” She arched an eyebrow.
“He has a bill of sale.” Lydia shook her head, acknowledging Grainne’s question without saying anything outright. “From a horse-breeder in Cornwall.”
Grainne nodded, her face grim. “A man of his status wouldn’t be caught, of course,” she muttered.
Lydia was silent.
“So he has crazy ideas and denies any knowledge of them? Perhaps he’ll forget to ride the horse.”
Lydia shrugged. “If he does ride the horse, I don’t doubt it will be the death of him. I’ve heard talk in the kitchen. One of the stable-lads has already had his arm broken. I always imagined every horse in the world was dangerous, but Foxfire truly is a danger to everyone who comes near him, from what I understand.”
“Are you going to try to stop him?”
Lydia laughed, a bitter sound. “He hasn’t listened to me once since the day we met. Why should I waste my breath on such a lost cause?”
Grainne nodded slowly. “It hasn’t been easy for you, has it?”
“It’s been a nightmare,” Lydia said easily. “It has been a daily nightmare. But it’s of my own making. Perhaps I should have been wiser that you were trying to throw Peregrin and I together. I thought we were doing the right thing, but nothing has gone right since.”
Grainne fiddled with the ribbons on her gown. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “I thought… I knew you were in love with him. I thought if he offered for you, I could at least sweeten the deal with Longcastle. William would have just as soon given him Longcastle, to be honest, but the house needs so much work that it wouldn’t have been much of a gift without a wage as well. It’s not an entailed estate, it’s really just a big farm that William’s father acquired in some deal or another.”
“It was a nice place,” Lydia admitted. “Thank you, anyway.” Then she looked around. “Do you hear shouting?”
***
The scene outside the back doors of the house was one of utter chaos. Servants were staring and shaking their heads. The head gardener was twisting his cap in his hands, and no wonder: the bowling green, its autumn grass previously bearing just a few scars from its recent near-excavation, was being ripped to shreds by the hooves of three wild-eyed horses. Only one was mounted: a shining dapple-gray between a chestnut and a bay. Holding the darker horses on leading-reins and laughing maniacally as he kicked the gray into circles, was Frederick, bareback and bare-headed and utterly insane.
Lydia put her ha
nds to her face and stood in utter shock. Grainne, the more capable of dealing with catastrophe, merely went stalking towards the horseman who was watching the scene from the edge of the green. “William!” she shouted. “William, what is the meaning of this?”
William turned and instantly trotted his wife over to meet his wife. “I have no idea,” he said, pulling up his own horse and dismounting. “We were going to head out for a training run — show these horses some fences and ditches, get them ready to hunt. And then he suddenly dropped his reins right in the yard, ran back to the stables, and came back like this. Those are all racehorses, you know — that chestnut has hardly been broken. We should be grateful he didn’t try to ride that one.”
“Not yet,” Lydia said faintly, still gazing at the destruction of her bowling green and the madness of her husband with dull eyes. “Give him a moment.”
“We have to stop him,” Grainne insisted. “He’s not in his right mind.”
“And how are you going to do it?” William asked reasonably. “He’s between two half-wild horses. If we try to grab one of their bridles, they could panic and send him under all those hooves in an instant.”
Grainne narrowed her eyes and nodded reluctantly. Lydia just shook her head. This was a nightmare, she thought. Her life was going from bad to worse, and she really hadn’t thought such a thing was possible. I could have run away to Scotland, she thought impatiently. Better Peregrin’s madness than this oaf’s.
The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Page 25
