by Lynn Kurland
Feeling inferior wasn’t her usual modus operandi. She frequently made very brutal assessments of her strengths and weaknesses so she could identify areas for improvement. A certain sort of clarity came with that kind of inventory taking, mostly because since she already knew where she was failing, having someone else pointing out her flaws held less sting than it might have otherwise.
Of course, she was accustomed to dealing with people who either liked her for herself or thought her useless based on her skills as a life coach. She wasn’t at all used to being judged by the situation of her birth or her clothes.
The only thing that made her feel any better was knowing that if David Preston’s friends had seen her parents, they would have gotten a collective and potentially quite fatal case of the vapors.
She pulled the tie of her robe more tightly around her and considered herself in the mirror. She thought her sister was stunning, though she could see nothing past ordinary in herself. Maybe if she slicked her hair back and wrestled it into something resembling a chignon, she might have passed for someone fit to be in the current house party.
She rolled her eyes and pulled herself together. She couldn’t control what others thought of her; she could only control what she thought of herself. And while she wasn’t a world-famous opera singer or Madame Curie, she was who she was and that was enough. She would borrow an iron, put her clothes back together as best she could, and go socialize.
Because her happily ever after wouldn’t happen if she sat down in the mud and gave up.
She put her shoulders back and left the bathroom, shivering as she hurried down the stone of the hallway in her bare feet. It was a bit of a hike, as it happened, but she ignored that as well. She wasn’t going to think about who had poached her room and how far it was for him from bed to bath. Maybe he would stub his toe and not get to go hunting that afternoon or trip over the piles of love notes from his feminine admirers and sprain his ankle, leaving him unable to trot onto the dance floor tomorrow.
With those happy thoughts to keep her warm, she walked briskly back to her room and threw open the door.
And came to a skidding halt.
There was a maid there, true, but it wasn’t the girl from the day before. It was Aunt Edna … only slightly younger and more starched.
“Ah,” Peaches began.
“I am Edwina,” the woman announced crisply, rising from the stool she’d been sitting on, “and I am here to dress you.”
Peaches managed to swallow. “Oh—”
“And see that all runs smoothly here in your quarters,” Edwina continued, “which are now under my supervision.”
Peaches nodded, because it seemed like the right thing to do.
“I understand there was trouble last night,” Edwina said with a severe look, sounding extremely disappointed.
“My gown,” Peaches began. “It had a little accident—”
“No matter,” Edwina said dismissively. “We shall pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and soldier on. I’m not keen on excess, but I can see that in this house your old things were entirely unsuitable. A new wardrobe has therefore been provided.”
Peaches followed the long arm and extended bony fingers to the hooks driven into the wall upon which hung exactly what Edwina had described.
A new wardrobe.
Peaches walked—no, she floated across the room to look at what was hanging there. There was a hook sporting riding gear with boots tucked discreetly against the wall underneath the breeches, another hook sporting something Audrey Hepburn would have relaxed in if she’d been at an English country house party, then a lovely dress that …
Peaches looked at Edwina. “Is that for the ball?”
Edwina drew herself up. “No, miss,” she said, sounding appalled. “That is for supper tonight. It is hardly the sort of thing one wears to a formal ball.”
“Oh,” Peaches said quietly. “I thought—”
“Tomorrow will take care of itself, miss.”
Peaches felt her way down onto the bed. That wasn’t difficult because she’d been leaning against the wall and the bed was approximately three feet from any wall. “Of course.”
“One can’t expect miracles, Miss Alexander.”
“Of course not.” Peaches looked up at her maid. “Who did this?”
Edwina looked as if Peaches had asked her to hike up her skirts and do the cancan. “I have been sworn to secrecy, miss, and to secrecy I will remain sworn.”
“Not even a hint?”
“Not even a hint.”
Peaches imagined she would have more success liberating a few bars of bullion from Fort Knox than getting the details out of Edwina. Besides, did it really matter who had taken pity on her and sent along a few things for Peaches to borrow for the weekend?
Or so she thought until she caught sight of the pile of tags in the wastebasket. She started to lean over to examine them more closely, but found herself thwarted by means of Edwina’s foot placed strategically over the rim. Edwina clucked her tongue and frowned.
“Secrecy must be maintained.”
Peaches gave up with a sigh.
Edwina rubbed her hands together purposefully. “I’ve sent for light refreshment for you, which should be arriving at any moment. You will want to dress for the hunt.”
“I will?” Peaches squeaked. Her excuse for getting out of riding was racing off into the distance—which would be exactly what her horse would be doing in approximately half an hour. The truth was, her experience with horses was limited to trying not to shriek in terror when the nosey ones nosed her for carrots or apples or whatever it was they thought she might be carrying in her pockets. Actually climbing up on the back of one and trusting him not to scrape her off against the nearest immovable object wasn’t anything she thought she could do anytime soon.
But before she knew it, she was dressed in breeches, a discreet shirt, and a hunting jacket. The boots fit, a miracle in and of itself. She couldn’t bring herself to speculate on their cost and a casual look in Edwina’s direction resulted in a slight shake of the head. No, no hints from that direction. Edwina was, as she had proclaimed earlier, an absolute vault when it came to secrecy. Peaches was left to admire her anonymous sartorial provider in silence.
Whoever he or she was, he or she had excellent taste.
She wondered if it might have been Raphaela, David’s elegant mother, or perhaps Andrea, David’s cousin.
But the thought that made her feel a bit weak in the knees was that it might have been David himself.
She refused to feel embarrassed that he, if it had been he, had felt the need to buy her anything. She would just be grateful and let the rest go.
She had breakfast and wondered if Stephen’s butler had been hounding the chef again, for it was rather good. She then submitted to a thorough study by Edwina, found herself pronounced absolutely adequate, and was shown the door.
And she was on her own.
She left the servants’ quarters, then walked along marble hallways, wondering when the house had been built and how many hunting and shooting parties had been held in it over the years. She could hear talking and laughter coming from a room to her right, so she started to open the door. It was pulled open for her by household staff, and she was left with no choice but to go right in.
All she could say was that at least she fit in. Everyone was wearing breeches and jackets and most were carrying heavier short coats. The men looked dashing and the women capable.
Why, then, did her gaze go immediately to Stephen de Piaget instead of lingering on David Preston as it should have?
She was going to have a stern talk with herself—maybe Edwina could help out with that later—but for the moment, she was going to casually ogle.
It could be said that the man had been born to wear tweed, but that would have completely ignored the absolute perfection that was the Viscount Haulton in riding breeches and a hunting jacket. She had admittedly been something of a Mr. Darcy groupie
from the first time she’d met him between the pages of a dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice, but she could safely say that he had just been officially relegated to runner-up status.
What was it about a dark-haired, gorgeous, exceptionally fit man in tall boots that was so drool-inducing? Peaches grasped frantically for any shred of self-control and sanity. She didn’t want an English gentleman, she wanted a raw-food guru. She didn’t want elegant dress shirts and tan riding breeches, she wanted a beard and Birkenstocks. She didn’t want a meat-eating, horse-riding, heartbreaking nobleman she had no hope of even dating much less forming an attachment with, she wanted a spinach-eating, smoothie-slurping, wheatgrass-juicing guy who wouldn’t demand she produce patents of nobility when he picked her up to go find something vegetarian at the local pub.
And she especially didn’t want an elegant gentleman when he was that elegant gentleman.
She looked frantically for David, who, as it happened, was coming to her rescue. She pasted on her most welcoming smile and took a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart. So last night hadn’t gone all that well. Today was another day. She didn’t smell like wet sheep, she’d had a decent breakfast, and her hair was completely thawed. Life was good.
And David was extremely good-looking, something she wasted no time in pointing out to herself. His blond hair had just the right number of highlights, his jacket stretched over just the right breadth of shoulders, his tall boots had just the right polish. Though he wasn’t exactly tall and muscular, he looked just the right amount of fabulous in his breeches. In fact, just about everything about him was just right.
Not like that dark, brooding character standing over to the side, watching her from under his eyebrows and no doubt thinking critical thoughts about her.
She let David take her hand and was very happy that she didn’t feel flushed or nervous or unsettled. Yes, just and right were going to be her watchwords for the weekend.
David brought Irene along, which put a bit of a damper on her happiness, but if she couldn’t put up with a nasty potential-in-law or two, what sort of spine did she have?
“I was telling Irene,” David said, tucking Peaches’s hand into the crook of his elbow, “about your degree. It was something scientific, wasn’t it?”
“Organic chemistry,” Peaches agreed.
David laughed merrily. “I said it was something organic, but I thought at first you were talking about the compost for your garden.”
Peaches laughed, because it would have been rude not to, but she had the grave misfortune of realizing that Stephen was standing within earshot. He had made that very same comment in just that same way, only then she hadn’t laughed. She’d been utterly humiliated, then furious that he had been making fun of her. She stole a look at him now only to find him watching her steadily, without expression on his face.
Well, apart from his general broodiness, as if he couldn’t stand to be where he was and couldn’t wait to be somewhere else.
“I don’t suppose that’s something you just write off for from one of those agricultural universities you have in the States, is it?” David asked, a twinkle in his eye.
Peaches suppressed the urge to squirm. Would this deviation from his just-rightness ever end? She managed a smile. “No,” she managed, “no, it isn’t. I got my degree from Stanford.”
“Well, that’s in California,” Irene said coolly. “No doubt you had ample opportunity to investigate all sorts of organic things there.”
“I say, it looks like we should be heading out,” David said, ignoring his sister. “Don’t want to get caught out in the weather.”
“The weather is already out there,” Stephen said pointedly from behind them. “A bit foggy for a hunt, wouldn’t you say?”
“Lest someone’s shots go awry?” David asked politely. “Yes, which is why I’ve decided to call it a perfect day for a ride. Then we’ll come in for hot drinks and a warm-up by the fire. I think it’s a brilliant plan.”
Peaches had several terms for the plan, but brilliant wasn’t among them. But there was nothing to be gained by voicing an opinion, so she trotted along beside David, grateful to be away from both his sister and Stephen. Maybe those two would find themselves thrown together and their separate nastiness would cancel itself out and leave them both slightly bland but easily endured. Irene seemed to be happy enough to hang on Stephen’s arm, so Peaches left her to it.
She kept up a steady stream of silent, confident self-talk until she found that the path had ended and she was facing her doom. It didn’t look to be a very terrifying doom, but it was substantially bigger than she’d feared it might be.
“Diablo,” David said, reaching out to pat the horse on the neck. “Perfect for you.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Stephen said from just behind her. “Miss Alexander is a novice rider.”
David only smiled. “And Diablo is a gentle horse.” He handed Peaches the reins. “Up you go, love.”
Stephen took the reins out of Peaches’s hands. “Up she doesn’t go, Your Grace,” he said curtly. “That is too much horse for her.”
“I think I’ll be the judge—”
“And I think you won’t,” Stephen said, handing the reins to a groom.
Things didn’t improve from there. Peaches wondered if the two men would soon come to blows, but apparently one did not slug one’s host before lunch.
David finally swore and glared at Stephen. “Go look for a nag, then, and embarrass the girl. Here, Irene, you take Diablo and show His Lordship how gentle a lad he is.”
Peaches watched David’s sister take the reins and accept a leg up into the saddle. Diablo didn’t buck David’s sister off, but his front feet left the ground half a dozen times before Irene wrestled him into compliance. Peaches felt the sudden need to sit down. She was very grateful she wasn’t currently trying to keep her seat on the back of that horse.
Stephen said nothing. He simply stood there with his hands clasped behind his back and watched David organize things. Peaches was tempted to dash back into the house and hide behind Edwina’s very starched skirts before Stephen could say anything about other horses, but before she could, David turned and spoke to her. Angels didn’t sing and the sun didn’t break through the clouds, but close.
“What?” she said, looking at him.
“I said, lovely boots,” he said easily.
“Yes, they are,” she began, but he turned away before she could say anything else.
“Let’s be off,” he announced to the general assembly as he strode with just the right amount of jauntiness to his horse, an enormous thing with just the right amount of energy. “The others will catch up.”
The company en masse started for their horses. Well, mostly en masse. Peaches noticed a trio of gals who didn’t seem particularly eager to mount up and trot off. They were the same women who had glared at her the night before, though they’d cast an equal number of unhappy looks Irene’s way so she’d thought little of them. It occurred to her, though, looking at them out in the sunlight, that she’d seen them before.
It had been at Payneswick, though they hadn’t been in a group there. She had no idea who they were, but she could safely say she wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.
“Let’s go,” Stephen said.
Peaches realized he was talking to her and considered taking umbrage at his bossiness, but she was too busy being towed toward the stables. She caught a gander of the small fight Irene was having with her horse and decided that whatever Stephen picked for her couldn’t be worse than that hell beast. She wondered if the little cluster of women still dragging their feet were going to tear each other to shreds, then saw she needed have no fear. Once they seemed to reconcile themselves to the fact that she was the one walking with Stephen, a visible yet unspoken truce was struck and they turned as one to watch her.
She would have told them there was no need to be worried about her because she didn’t even like their guy, but she didn’t h
ave a chance. She looked at Andrea, who was standing ten feet away, watching the whole thing with obvious amusement. She cast the only person she could reasonably call a friend a pleading look, but Andrea shook her head slowly. Peaches decided she could either face the Dawdling Debutantes or ignore them. So she ignored them.
She followed Stephen, but not too closely. Those gals had riding crops and she didn’t want to meet the business end of them. She also didn’t particularly want to get up on a horse, but she had the feeling she wasn’t going to get out of it.
Stephen walked up and down four rows of stalls, soon joined by a man Peaches could only assume was the head groom. He was either intimidated by Stephen—and that she could understand—or he was seeing if Stephen had any clue what he was looking for. Stephen finally stopped, considered, then looked at the man.
“Miss Alexander has extremely limited experience on the back of a horse,” he said.
“How do you know?” Peaches said, before she thought better of it. She thought refraining from adding smarty-pants showed extreme self-control.
Stephen looked at her and raised one of his eyebrows. Peaches wished desperately for somewhere to sit down—because the thought of getting on a horse was terrifying. Yes, that was it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way Stephen had reached out and was gently stroking the nose of that beast in front of her, or that small smile he flashed that self-same creature.
The man was nicer to horses than he was to her. That was surely reason enough to want to slug him, wasn’t it?
“I believe this lad here will suit her,” Stephen was saying to the stable master, “but I will defer to your opinion, Andrews. Her Grace, the lady Raphaela, spoke very highly of your judgment.”
Andrews looked as though Stephen had offered him the chance to go on a quest and be at the head of the procession. He seemed to be fighting a very pleased smile as he nodded. “Gunther is a perfect choice, my lord Haulton. He’s a fine, old fellow, but always eager for a bit of exercise. I’ll have him saddled immediately.”
And immediately was just how fast he was saddled. Peaches found herself standing next to Stephen, shaking, as a saddle that looked wholly inadequate to giving her anywhere to sit was brought and applied to the back of a horse that had to have been a gazillion feet tall.