by Jade Lee
“Oh,” she said softly. “He’s thinking of selling his horse too, isn’t he? How very sad.”
“How did you know that?” Lord Whitly asked, his tone frankly surprised.
She shrugged. “As far as I can tell, he doesn’t make a show of himself. But since he did just then…”
“You deduced it was to show his horse, not himself.”
She shrugged. “I had hoped his finances were in better frame.”
“The title’s on solid footing,” Lord Whitly said, his eyes canting away. “But he’s feeling the pinch right now. It’s only temporary, and he’s doing the right things to keep the ship afloat, so to speak.”
“By hunting for an heiress?”
His gaze leapt to hers. “You know?”
She sighed. “Of course I know. It’s the only reason titled gentlemen attend to me.”
“You underestimate your allure.”
She nodded and looked away. He’d spoken a routine compliment, and so she took it as meaning nothing. And yet he pursued the topic. “You’re clever, beautiful, and well-dowered. I cannot understand why you haven’t been dragged to the altar by one such as him.”
“An impoverished gentleman?”
“A man with the good sense to see what you’re worth beyond your father’s money.” He cast her a sidelong look. “Is it your father or yourself who has been shutting the matrimonial door on so many of your suitors?”
She startled at his words, a little flustered by his plain speaking. “I…um, both, I suppose. My father will not countenance a fortune hunter.” Neither would she. It was, after all, the first thing she’d written in her list.
“And well he shouldn’t.” His gaze narrowed. “But could you overrule him? If your heart led you to a man, would you be able to persuade him to allow it?”
She stiffened. “I am eight and twenty, well into my majority, and able to marry as I please.”
He nodded as if he had suspected as much. “So it is your heart that has to be caught.”
“No, my lord. A child has a heart. A woman in Society needs a clever mind.”
“And yours has not been seduced.” He said that as if it were perfectly normal to speak of seducing a woman directly to her face.
“My mind is ever my own.”
He nodded as if he were thinking something important about what she’d just said. In the silence that followed, she decided to demand her forfeit.
“I was startled to see you leave last night, my lord,” she said as they turned their horses around on the path. Truly, riding in London was distressingly restrictive. There was no room to wander, and all the while, other, more skillful riders were constantly galloping past. “I had not thought you so unsporting as to try to avoid paying your forfeit.”
He reacted as she expected, with a jolt and a dark frown. “Avoid paying? Never!”
“But you did leave rather precipitously.”
“Yes, I did,” he acknowledged as he rubbed at his chin. She twisted enough to stare directly at him. Thankfully, it eased some of the strain on her spine from sitting sidesaddle. “Why did you leave so quickly?”
“I learned that my father was in the cardroom. I had not thought he would be at a come-out ball, but apparently someone prevailed upon him, and so he was there.”
“So you left?” Certainly she knew that fathers and sons could have strained relationships, but she had not thought theirs was so difficult.
He gave her an awkward shrug. “I trust that you will not bandy this about. It’s not so much that we cannot stand one another. Well, it is, but no more than the usual father and son.”
“That cannot be true.”
He looked at her and then nodded slowly. “I simply wish to control the manner in which I communicate with my father. In a cardroom at a come-out ball was not the best location.”
“Especially since you had just made a spectacle with the dowagers? And by waltzing with a Welsh chit?” She counted herself heroic for not adding the word “wayward.”
He frowned a moment then shrugged. “He will no doubt call me to account for that.”
“I wish to call you to account for that.” And when he gave her a quizzical look, she amended her statement. “I wish to call in your forfeit. You are to tell me a secret.”
He turned their horses down another lane. “I believe I just did.”
Had he? Oh yes, that his relationship with his father was seriously strained. “But that is not the secret I want.”
He flashed her a delighted grin. “I don’t believe that was part of the forfeit. You do not get to choose which of my confidences I reveal.”
She pulled back as if shocked. “Surely you wish to give a good account of yourself, my lord. A paltry forfeit does not reflect well upon you. Not upon the winner, winner.” She said those last two words as Greenie might, high and with a parakeet’s chirp.
“You count my strained paternal relationship as paltry information?”
“I do, my lord.” She leaned forward. “I wish to know something a great deal more important than that.”
“At the moment, I cannot imagine what that could be. I’m afraid my mind is greatly consumed by—”
“Why are you in Society if you have such a great disregard for it?” She spoke impetuously, trampling over his words in her rush to get the question out. He had such power to distract her that she feared losing track of it altogether if she did not say it quickly.
But once spoken, she began to regret her question. It was what she had wanted to know almost from the very beginning. Why was he here? Why did he accost her in Hyde Park that first day? Why did he seek her out at last night’s ball?
But the more the questions crowded in her mind, the more his expression made her doubt her own sanity. Or his. Because far from quietly considering her request, he stared at her in stunned surprise.
In the end, she had to prompt him to speak. “My lord?”
“Truly, Miss Powel, I cannot guess whether I am especially bad at this or if you are being willfully obtuse.”
“If I am obtuse, my lord, I assure you it is not willful.”
“Then perhaps I have lost all ability to function in English Society.”
He didn’t seem particularly pleased with that statement, and well he shouldn’t. She tried to form something conciliatory to say, but at that moment a pair of Dims went galloping past while hooting in a nearly drunken manner. Her horse shied, her seating slipped, and it was all she could do to stay atop her mare. It was fortunate that Lord Whitly was large enough—and quick enough—to reach forward and grab hold of her bridle, otherwise she might have gone for her own wild run on an uncontrolled horse.
It took a moment to quiet her mount and another few after that for her heart to settle to a slower tempo. And all the while, he stood there, his body flexed as he held her horse, and his attention riveted to her.
“Are you steady, Miss Powel?” he finally asked.
“Y-yes,” she said somewhat breathlessly. “I’m afraid I am out of practice.”
“It was not your fault. Those young bucks should be whipped.” His gaze scanned her quickly. “You are sure you’re not harmed?”
“I didn’t fall, my lord. I was merely startled.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
And then he spoke, his words loud and clear. “Miss Powel, I left for India with one purpose in mind. Certainly, I wanted money and a certain degree of notoriety, but uppermost in my thoughts was one thing: I wished for your regard.”
He paused, his gaze skittering away, and no wonder. To say such a thing to a woman was awkward indeed. She couldn’t fathom why he was saying it to her.
“Sir, if this is some sort of tease, then it is in very poor taste.”
“Of course it’s not a tease,” he snapped, his brows drawing down. This
time he looked her full in the face, but his expression was less than cordial. “You named me useless, and I realized you were right.”
“B-but… I…” She snapped her mouth shut. She had no ability to make sense of his words. Six years she had lived thinking him her nemesis. The one man who destroyed her out of casual disregard. To hear that he had left the country because of her was like saying the moon had decided to take a stroll down the street simply because she’d wished it. He was too large and powerful a creature to be swayed at all by her opinion.
He straightened in his seat, gently releasing her mount, who had calmed much more quickly than its rider. “I returned to England for the fulfillment of that one desire.”
“Er…what?”
“Miss Powel, I returned to seek your regard. And, naturally, your hand in marriage.”
Which was when, with absolutely no one riding nearby, she did in fact tumble off her horse.
Eight
Peter would never have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. It appeared to him that after hearing his proposal of marriage, Miss Powel was so repulsed as to jerk backward away from him. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her mouth gaped into a dark red O of horror.
Shock, when he’d thought himself clear in his intention for more than a week now.
Horror, when he was the heir to an earldom.
And so she jerked away from him, which at that moment meant sideways on her saddle. Then another gasp—and this time he was too slow to react—before she desperately pulled on the reins. Too hard, too fast, which made her horse shy badly, and down she went with a squeak of alarm and a tumble of skirts.
He leaped off his mare, steadied both horses, because the last thing anyone wanted was for her mount to step on something breakable—like her body—and then, when her groom got there, he tossed the reins to the young man before rushing to her side. A quick look told him she was unharmed, though some injuries might not show for a while. Her face was red with embarrassment, but she seemed to move easily enough as she flounced her skirt back into order. Not before he’d seen two nicely trim ankles leading to very shapely calves, but he was trying to be a gentlemen and not make things worse.
Meanwhile, he didn’t have to look up to know that she was already a subject of fun among the dashing gents and ladies. He spared a moment to glare at the nearest group, giving them a silent warning to look away and be quiet. He didn’t know if it would work, but he tried. And thankfully, they at least moved back.
Which left him staring helplessly at Miss Powel and wondering what exactly he could say to make the situation better. He couldn’t think of any social inanities, so he settled on what he did know: basic medicine.
“Is your chest tight? Is there pain or numbness? Does your head hurt?”
She glared down at her feet. “I landed on my—” She cut off her words. “On the softest part of me.”
Hardly, since as far as he could tell, she fell on her bum and not her breasts. But that was not an appropriate thought, so he did his best not to look at those lush mounds so near him.
“Nothing is hurt except my pride.” She tucked her feet under her, and he held out his hand to help her up. He thought for a hideous moment that she would disdain even that, but she grabbed it quickly enough. Then he pulled her easily to her feet.
“Let’s walk this way, shall we?” He gestured to an empty pathway.
“So long as it’s away from here, I shall be delighted.” He watched her gaze travel over their onlookers. He saw her mouth pinch tight and her cheeks color, but she didn’t say more.
“Don’t worry. People fall off their horses all the time.”
She slanted him a defeated expression. “Why yes, I’m sure it happens hourly. Someone somewhere in the world falls off a horse every hour. Today was just my turn.” She began moving away slowly. “I just chose to do it in front of the horse-mad set.” Then she looked to her left and winced.
“What is it?” he asked. “Pain?”
“No, no. I just saw Mr. Randall. Or rather, he saw me.”
“And he offended you?”
She snorted, but the sound came out more as a mournful laugh. “No. I shall simply have to cross him off my list of potential husbands.”
He frowned. “Mr. Percy Randall? The horse-mad puppy with delusions of oratory genius?”
She turned to him. “You know him.” It wasn’t a question.
“We all know him. His attempts to match his father’s eloquence have been the subject of laughter since he was in school.” He cut off his words there, but that didn’t silence his thoughts. The woman was considering Percy Randall, a braying ass if ever there was one, but she fell off her horse rather than accept him?
“I thought I could help him,” she said almost too softly to hear.
At which point, his temper snapped. They’d walked far enough to be relatively private, so he drew to a stop and touched her arm. He wanted to grab it and haul her around, but he did not.
“I will have an explanation, Miss Powel, or I will drag you to the nearest doctor, for you are obviously concussed.”
She gaped at him. “Concussed? Because I didn’t accept your proposal?”
“Because you fell off your horse rather than accept it. And yet you’d willfully consider an idiot like Percy Randall!”
She dropped her hands onto her hips and faced him squarely. “Percy Randall has a temperate nature—”
“Unless you damage his horses.”
“He will be in the House of Commons soon.”
“Speaking nonsense about horse-trading laws.”
“And his father is a brilliant, influential man.”
“What the bloody difference does that make?”
She huffed out a breath. “I could help him. Host political salons. Aid his work against slavery. Any number of things.”
“Then you should marry the father.”
She threw up her hands. “He already has a wife.”
“I don’t,” he snapped. “I don’t have a wife, I will inherit an earldom, and my conversation is about more than horseflesh spoken in a stutter.”
She pressed her lips together in a mulish pout, but a second later she was off defending that ass again. “He doesn’t stutter often. Just when he’s at a loss for words.”
“Which happens whenever he speaks about anything but his damned horses.”
She huffed out a breath and turned to look behind them, presumably at Percy, but Peter had had enough of this ridiculous conversation. It was merely a way to avoid speaking of his proposal. So rather than let it continue, he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and drew her face around to his.
“Percy hasn’t proposed, Miss Powel. I did. And I will have an answer.”
She stared at him, then she abruptly jerked her chin back. “First of all, you didn’t propose. You informed me of your intention. There wasn’t a question anywhere in there.”
Of course there was. Except when he thought back, perhaps he hadn’t exactly phrased it as a question. “Well, if you need—”
“Good Lord, no!” she cried. “Truly, I begin to think you’re the one concussed. Lord Whitly, whatever possessed you to think that you and I would suit? We cannot be five minutes in one another’s company without sniping at each other. Can you imagine a year of that, much less a lifetime?”
Bloody hell, but she was being difficult. “We would rub along just fine if you would cease seeing me as the enemy.”
“And what evidence do you have of that?”
He stared at her. Her eyes were bright in the sunlight, and her cheeks were flushed. She had one eyebrow arched and a tilt to her chin. She was challenging him with every fiber of her being. The problem was she was challenging him with words, and he was not a man who used words well. “I just know,” he ground out. It was something he�
��d tried to explain a dozen or more times and had always failed. He couldn’t even understand it himself. There were times in his life when he just knew what other people needed in their life: money, attention, discipline. He knew his father would never be pleased with him, simply because Peter had a mind of his own. And he’d known when she’d cut up at him that first time at the ball that every word she uttered was true. He was a useless man floundering on a path that led nowhere.
And so he had changed.
He knew when he returned and saw her with that bloody parakeet that he would find her beautiful until the day she died. Her skin could wrinkle, her hair could turn gray, and she could gain four stone in weight, but he would still lust after her. He didn’t know why, he just knew he would.
And sometime in the last six years, he’d known that he would marry her. That he had to marry her because she was the woman for him. But how did he tell her that? He couldn’t, and frankly, he’d never thought he would need to.
“I’ve got a title, wealth to spare, and a temperate nature.”
“I’m well aware,” she said, her voice not hard so much as frustrated. “Though you can never be classed with so simple a word as ‘temperate.’”
He didn’t know if that was a compliment or not. Knowing her, probably not. “Do you wish for a political career? I have considered it, and certainly I will one day serve in the House of Lords.”
“But it is not your passion.”
“It isn’t Mr. Randall’s either!” And damn it, they were back to that braggart, which was the last thing he wanted. Behind him, his mare was growing restive. He needed to keep her walking and eventually stable her. With a grimace of frustration, he gestured to Miss Powel.
“Shall we walk some more?”
She stifled a word. It was most likely a curse, which had him smiling. He liked that he could make her swear, though he wanted to hear the word rather than have her swallow it down.
They fell into step beside one another, the air thick with unresolved questions. But he had no way to answer them and only more problems. “I never imagined that I would have to fight so hard for the woman of my choice.”