by Deb Marlowe
It was locked. Stephen cursed the air blue under his breath while he jiggled the knob again. Helpless, he looked at his pistol, and then stood back, preparing to try to kick the door in.
‘No.’ Mae put a staying hand on his arm. ‘I’ll do it.’ She dropped to her knees in front of the lock and pulled out two hairpins.
‘How?’ Stephen dropped beside her and mouthed the question.
Mae grinned and jerked her head back toward Josette.
It took several minutes, another hairpin and Stephen’s help, but she got the thing unlocked. Stephen tugged her into the darkness of the shed. He set his bucket down and left the door open the smallest crack. Poking a finger through, he signalled Josette to begin.
Silence settled in around them. The air in the shed was close and warm.
‘Keep still,’ Stephen breathed. ‘We don’t want to set the tack to jingling.’
Mae turned carefully and crouched at the door. She peered out. Josette had slumped against the stable wall, a picture of abject misery.
Seeking a vantage point, Stephen moved into position above her. And around her. She closed her eyes and let the picture linger in her mind. She was encased in the strong, solid shell of Stephen’s strength.
She breathed in. And wished she had not. The musky scent of him was a treacherous thing, filling her up with sweet recollection: her face buried in his neck, her hand burrowed into his hair, his hand burning between her thighs.
Oh, God, but she hoped the scent of her was driving him similarly insane.
Outside, Josette had begun to cry. The sound of her delicate, despairing sobs barely reached their hideaway. If someone were to hear they would have to be very close to her location. Or listening very closely.
Stephen shifted slightly and Mae jumped. Oh, but that was his pistol pressed against her hip. She suffered a level of disappointment that must be a severe character flaw.
How tempted she was to move—just a little—until her thinly clad bottom was pressed right up against his front. Then she would feel for herself if he were as uninterested as he was feigning to be.
He stiffened suddenly and grasped her arm. Mae froze.
The burly, surly man from earlier today—no, it was yesterday—edged around the corner of the stable. Mae caught the glint of moonlight shining off of the blade in his hand. She gasped.
Stephen drew his pistol. His hand gripped the door.
Peck drew to a halt several feet away from Josette. ‘What in hell’s half-acre is going on here?’ Obviously he wasn’t eager for attention either. He pitched his voice low and gruff so it wouldn’t carry.
Josette only continued to sob.
He took a step closer. Roughly he grabbed the maid’s arm. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?’
With a soft wail Josette threw herself into his arms and proceeded to bawl down the front of him.
Miraculously, this seemed to take all the bluster out of the man. He cursed quietly. ‘I never saw a stable overrun with so many blasted womenfolk,’ he complained. But he still held a wicked-looking blade in his hand. It made him awkward as he reached up to try to pry Josette off him. But his free hand encountered a sample of her curves and the anger almost visibly drained out of him. ‘Come on now, stop yer blubbering. You don’t belong here, in any case. What are ye doin’ out here?’ The knife disappeared and he held her farther out, so he could get a good look at her. ‘A pretty girl like ye? Why aren’t ye inside, warming his lord ship’s bed?’
Josette accepted this for the compliment it was meant to be. ‘Oh, no.’ She wiped her eye. ‘I’ve a man already. Never would I serve him so.’
‘Who is your man?’ Peck demanded. ‘Someone here?’
‘P-P-Patrick!’ she cried with another quiet wail. ‘They said in the taverns that he was gone, but I knew he would never leave me without a word. I came to meet him tonight as we’d planned, but he … he is not here!’ She collapsed in a spate of fresh sobs.
‘Aye, he is gone, and so must ye go. Ye cannot stay here.’ It came out reluctantly.
‘Oh—and after I stole away a decanter of my employer’s best brandy, too,’ Josette said forlornly. She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Its cost was that dear, I’ll be sacked in the morning, and for what?’ Her brow furrowed and her lip trembled and even from so far away Mae marvelled at her skill. Josette’s misery was a thing of beauty.
‘Wait, now. What is it that you’ve got, there?’
With a visible hiccup, she reached into her bag and pulled out the decanter. Peck removed the stopper, took a sniff and then a taste.
‘Bleedin’ ‘ell, that’s some fine stuff! Nary an excise label ever to touch it, either, if I made a guess.’ He took another swig.
Josette let out a little sigh and leaned her head against him. ‘We could share it. If I am to be sacked, I might as well get a little pleasure out of it.’
Peck’s eyes lit up at the idea of Josette’s pleasure. ‘I shouldn’t,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I got to stay alert.’
‘For what?’ Josette straightened and scoffed. ‘Someone must listen for the snoring of these fine horses and their grooms?’ She pulled away with a sniff. ‘I do not understand these Englishmen,’ she muttered. ‘To throw away a willing woman and a bottle of fine spirits?’ She kept grumbling as she snatched the bottle back and returned it to her sack. ‘Goodnight, monsieur,’ she said with her nose in the air. ‘I shall try to sneak this back where it belongs. Then I am for France, where I belong.’ She turned to go.
Peck wavered. He let her go a few steps before the brandy, or the sight of her calves, won him over. ‘Wait.’
She turned her head over her shoulder. ‘You will help me forget Patrick?’ she asked plaintively.
He nodded.
‘Come,’ she beckoned with a finger. ‘You will drink with me in the same place that he meant to.’ She slid her gaze up and down the man. ‘This will be very good,’ she said in a rough whisper. ‘You will wipe my mind clean of that treacherous man.’
He took a step towards her.
She held out a hand. ‘I will tell you of the first man who broke my heart. I was very young and had only just blossomed into my womanhood.’ She ran a hand across her bosom and Peck, his eyes glued to her fingers, followed her like a lamb around the corner.
Mae straightened a little. Stephen sagged against her in his relief. For a moment they stayed where they were, barely touching, but Mae drew strength and comfort from him anyway. Then he stood and eased the shed door open. Taking the bucket with them, they crossed to the stable wall.
Stephen peered around the corner. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he whispered.
They slid around the corner and Stephen swung open the top half of Pratchett’s stall door. There was no reaction from within.
‘Perhaps this won’t be so bad,’ Stephen said, hopeful.
‘He prefers a sneak attack,’ Mae whispered wryly. ‘And you aren’t quite close enough yet. Listen—his feed box is there, on the left. He already knows he wants a bite out of me, so I’ll approach from the right. When he lunges for me, you dump the pottage in.’
It worked like a charm. Pratchett’s first feint was silent and quick. He let out an angry snort when he missed, but Stephen was already swinging the top door shut again, which helped to muffle the sound. They slid quickly back around the corner.
Peck must have heard something. Mae heard Josette’s soft voice calling him to come back to her. The words were unintelligible, but the tone was clear. She and Stephen froze where they were.
Nothing. No steps. No response. Neither of them moved. After several minutes, Stephen peered around the corner again. He motioned for her to follow and very carefully they made their way to the box next to where Josette had taken Peck.
The empty stalls all stood open at the top. Stephen took great pains and several long seconds to silently open the bottom half of the door and the two of them slid in. He stopped her hand when she would have closed it after them.
‘We may nee
d to get over there quickly,’ he whispered.
She nodded and left it where it was.
From here they could hear the sing-song rhythm of Josette’s voice. There came the sound of pottery clacking together.
Stephen tugged her along to the opposite wall of the stall. ‘Now, we wait.’ He breathed the words in her ear.
A shiver started everywhere his hot breath touched her skin, then raced up and down her spine. Insolent with need, unmindful of their circumstances, her nipples tightened up and poked through her linen shirt.
He didn’t notice. He settled against the far wall and beckoned for her to join him.
She did, but she positioned herself far enough away from him to be safe.
Time stretched out. Their breathing settled into a comfortable rhythm. He breathes out. I breathe in. Over and again. Perhaps it was the nearness of him, perhaps it was the very precarious nature of their situation, but the tension in the air held a decidedly sensual tinge. Mae’s nipples were still peaked and tight.
More murmuring next door. More clinking of cups. Stephen suddenly shifted and moved closer to her.
Good heavens. Was he not beset with images of everything they had got up to the last time they settled into the straw together? Mae remembered it vividly. The images—and her consuming wish to do it all again—were setting her blood to boiling. Her skin flushed. Her whole body was awake and tingling, hanging breathless while it waited for his to catch up.
‘By my count, Peck has got to be on his fourth or fifth glass,’ he whispered. ‘If he’s got any awareness left right now, I guarantee it is all fastened firmly on Josette. I’d say we’ve got a few glasses to go before he’s done with the decanter.’ His gaze lowered to her knees, propped up and clearly delineated in her divided skirt. ‘Tell me a story,’ he asked. ‘Distract me.’
The look mollified her. A little. Slowly, she raised her eyes to his.
* * *
Stephen leaned away as Mae looked up to meet his gaze. His ears were tuned to the low murmur of conversation next door, his body tense with anticipation of the action to come. And yet—perhaps it was the straw and the unavoidable memories it invoked, perhaps it was that damned split skirt—but his head was filled with the sight and the scent and the incredible uniqueness that was Mae.
He needed to stay alert, but what he wanted was to sit her down and start enumerating all the ways in which his feelings for her had changed in the last week. He longed to tell her how much he enjoyed her quick wit, and admired her indefatigable spirit. How he’d caught himself a hundred times over the last days, filing away odd thoughts and funny incidents and serious observations until he could share them with her. How he adored her quirky need to streamline everything around her as much as her ready laughter and her tempting curves.
And if that didn’t work, then he thought he’d rather enjoy laying her down and binding her to him with soft murmurings and softer caresses. Playing with her and intriguing her and making her achingly curious for what came next. With tenderness and laughter and fierce, hard passion he wanted to make her forget she’d ever held any aspiration other than to be his.
She was staring at him. Oh, Lord, but he recognised that steady, unrelenting expression.
‘No, Stephen,’ her voice pitched low, she replied to his request. ‘I rather think that it is your turn to talk.’
He bowed his head. That was his Mae. She was not going to come easily, or without cost. She was never going to accept the flashy, shallow view he fobbed off on the rest of the world.
‘I agree completely that we had to forge ahead tonight and stop Ryeton from perpetrating a fraud upon the entire world of racing. Heaven knows, I would not have missed this for the world.’ He caught the flash of her grin in the dim light. ‘But you’ve lost your chance at a match between Pratchett and Ornithopter.’
He groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’
‘Are you hoping to gain something further from this?’
He shrugged. ‘The notoriety that would have come from returning Pratchett will double with the exposure of Ryeton’s duplicity. I can hope to use it to help Fincote.’
‘All of this …’ and her gesture took in more than just the incredible adventure they found themselves in at the moment ‘… it’s all been for Fincote Park.’
‘I owe—’
‘Yes, Stephen,’ she interrupted him. ‘Of course you owe your best to the people who look to you. But there is more to it, isn’t there? My father said that he and Toswick agreed to race their fillies at your track. So there’s an opening match for you.’
‘It’s not enough …’ He turned from her, his voice trailing away. God, he’d known it was going to come to this. It didn’t matter that they were in the middle of a horse theft, or that every event and emotion that they had set in motion was careening out of control. He was going to have to strip his soul bare before her.
‘Why isn’t it enough?’ she demanded in a harsh whisper. ‘Why is it so important that Fincote’s launch be grand and spectacular? What is it that you are not telling me, Stephen?’
‘I …’ He was going to do it. Every instinct screamed for him to evade, escape, push back or take flight, but he was going to force the words past the fist of fear squeezing his throat. ‘I’m not sure if I can explain,’ he began.
He was interrupted when a loud rapping sounded on the other side of the stall.
Chapter Nineteen
It all happened so quickly after Josette summoned them. Stephen was up and gone from the stall like he’d been shot out. Mae followed, and found him standing bemused over Peck’s form, prostrate across the stable floor.
‘I didn’t even get to hit him,’ Stephen protested.
‘I could not wait,’ Josette said calmly. ‘He was drunk, and he started to get restless when I was telling him about my last great affaire. So I accidentally dropped my mug. He stumbled, trying to fetch it for me, and I thought it best to hit him over the head with the decanter.’
Stephen pursed his lips. In a sudden explosive movement he reached out, swung Josette about and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.
Just as a great flare of jealousy surged inside Mae, he set her maid down and treated her to the same bit of handling.
‘It’s all downhill from here, ladies,’ he said in a ferocious whisper.
And it was. Mae ran to fetch Matthew and the cart while Stephen bound and gagged Peck. They left him sleeping off his brandy in the stall.
The opium had begun to work on Pratchett. He stood fixed when Stephen slipped into his stall, and his head had begun to droop. He did snap at Stephen when he placed the bridle on him, but his movements were slow and half-hearted.
Stephen touched the viscous coating gathered at the horse’s nose. He sniffed his gloved fingers and rubbed them together. Looking about the stall, he strode suddenly to the front corner and snatched up a bowl from the floor. It was coated inside with the same thick stuff. ‘Flour and water, if I don’t miss my guess.’
He bent down to touch a white foreleg. His glove came away smeared. Grimly, he met Mae’s eye, but he didn’t speak again.
Pratchett didn’t protest when he was hitched on a leading rein to the back of the farm cart, but when they had gathered everything and everyone and Matthew picked up the reins to set out, the thoroughbred planted his feet and refused to move. No amount of tugging, encouragement or bribery worked.
They all gazed at each other in despair.
‘The cat!’ The thought struck Mae suddenly.
‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Stephen with relief. ‘Will she come to you?’
‘I think so.’
‘Then use this.’ He handed her a large basket with a latch.
‘You really do think of everything,’ Josette said with admiration.
Mae collected the cat from her nest in the straw. Moving to where Pratchett could see her, she placed the cat in, latched it closed and set the basket in the cart right before the horse’s nose. When they started off
again, Pratchett followed docilely along.
It was a quiet journey back to Newmarket. Stephen and Matthew were in high spirits. Josette was as unflappable as ever. Mae, on the hand, felt nearly as subdued as the stallion, despite the evening’s successes. She’d missed her opportunity. Stephen was hiding something, something to do with Fincote, true, but it was more than that. Just a little more time, and she thought she could have coaxed him into sharing.
They entered Newmarket proper without incident and plodded right down High Street with their ill-gotten stallion. They made their way slightly north and when they reached Titchley’s border, Matthew paused to let the rest of them scramble out.
‘I’ll see Pratchett and his friend settled tonight.’ He jerked his head toward the back of the cart. ‘But I will be back to take part in the fireworks in the morning!’ With a cheeky grin, he called to his horse to walk on.
Stephen looked tired, but happy as he escorted Mae and Josette along the lane they had traversed earlier. ‘Let’s get you ladies home,’ he said. ‘You two can lie abed, but I’ve got several more stops to make, if we are to confront Ryeton in the morning.’
Mae’s feet were dragging. She could not get those unspoken words out of her mind. He’d escaped and his relief was obvious. She glanced over at him. ‘Stephen, will you be happy, do you think? After tomorrow’s revelations?’ In her mind she could see the attention he was bound to attract, the success he was going to bring to his people and to his enterprise.
They trudged along a moment in silence. Stephen never took his gaze from her. She wondered if he saw her, or if he was imagining the same sorts of scenes she was.
‘Yes,’ he answered at last. ‘I intend to be happy.’
The air practically crawled with all of the things that were being left unsaid between them. The silence continued, leaving her upset and unsatisfied. Then they were at her back gate and Stephen was bending over her hand, and over Josette’s as well.
‘I cannot express my thanks, ladies.’
Mae didn’t wish to hear him try, because she feared that was all that he would ever have the courage to express. Already her mind was awhirl with possibilities, conjuring ways that she could draw him out, but firmly she put a stop to it.