A Lady of Expectations

by Stephanie Laurens

  As the party reformed, she was grateful to find Clarissa, openly concerned, between herself and Mr. Lester. Lord Percy, on her left, proved an unthreatening companion, chatting on a wide variety of subjects as they wended their way homeward through the golden afternoon.

  No further words passed between herself and her rescuer, yet all the way back to the gates of Webb Park, Sophie was conscious of the touch of his brooding gaze.

  ONCE SHE WAS SAFELY returned to the bosom of her family, circumstance conspired to afford Sophie no peace in which to ponder. As there were no guests that evening, dinner was served at the earlier hour of five o’clock, en famille. All the Webbs barring the twins sat down about the long table in the dining room.

  Naturally, her aunt and uncle were immediately regaled with the details of her thrilling rescue. It was all Sophie could do to erase the embellishments with which the younger Webbs enthusiastically embroidered the tale. From their glowing faces and excited voices it was clear that Jack Lester, modern-day hero, could have no fault in their youthful eyes.

  “Dear Sophie,” Lucilla said, her customary calm intact. “You took no hurt of any kind, I hope?”

  “None, aunt.” Sophie laid down her soup-spoon. “It was an unfortunate accident but I was not in any way harmed.”

  “Thanks to Mr. Lester!” piped up Amy.

  “You should have seen that black go, sir!” Jeremy addressed himself to his father. “A prime ‘un—a real stayer.”

  “Indeed?’ From the head of the table, Horatio Webb beamed his deceptively gentle smile upon them all. A shortish, distinctly rotund gentleman, with a face that somehow combined elements of both youth and wisdom, many, at first glance, relegated him to the rank of a genial country squire with few thoughts beyond his fields. Only those who looked closer, into his fine grey eyes, twinkling now as Sophie’s delicately flushed cheeks assured him she had taken no hurt but was being made more than a little uncomfortable by the continuing fuss, saw a glimmer of the quick silver intelligence that lurked behind his outward appearance. The very intelligence that had made Horatio Webb a byword in certain rarefied financial circles and was, at some deeper level, part of the reason the beautiful and talented Lucilla Carstairs, capable of landing a dukedom with her smiles, had, instead, very happily married him. Peering at Jeremy over the top of his ever-present spectacles, Horatio replied, “I must say I would not mind getting a look at any horse that could run the Sheik down.”

  “Mr. Lester is staying in the neighbourhood, I believe,” Clarissa volunteered.

  Horatio nodded. “Rawling’s Cottage, I expect.” With bland calm, he picked up the carving implements and fell to carving the roast which had, that moment, been ceremonially placed before him.

  To Sophie’s relief, the healthy appetites of the younger Webbs thrust her adventure temporarily from their minds.

  Dinner was followed by a noisy game of Speculation, after which, feeling positively exhausted, mentally and physically, Sophie took herself off to bed. She had expected to find time, in the quiet of her chamber, to review the afternoon’s happenings—not the stirring events her cousins had described, but the far more unnerving moments she had spent alone with Jack Lester, a rescued damsel with her knight. Indeed, with her inner peace in disarray, she climbed the stairs determined to place the episode in proper perspective.

  Instead, she fell deeply asleep, her dreams haunted by a pair of midnight-blue eyes.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING was filled to overflowing with the first of the tasks needed to be completed to allow them to remove to the capital at the end of the week as planned. Lucilla had the entire event organized, down to the last bottle of elderflower lotion needed to preserve their complexions against any breeze that might be encountered while being driven in gentlemen’s curricles in the Park.

  Excused from the first round of packing for a light luncheon, both Sophie and Clarissa were commanded to appear before the family’s seamstress for a final fitting of the walking gowns, morning gowns, chemises and petticoats they had all agreed could be perfectly adequately supplied from home. The rest of their wardrobes, Lucilla had declared, must come from Bruton Street. As, after four years’ absence from London, none of the gowns Sophie currently possessed could be considered presentable, she was as much in need of the modistes as Clarissa. Even Lucilla had murmured her intention of taking advantage of their time in the capital to refurbish her own extensive wardrobe.

  It was midafternoon before Sophie was free. She had barely had time to wander down to the front hall before the younger Webbs found her. With the single-mindedness of the young, they claimed her for their accustomed ride. With an inward sigh, Sophie surveyed the bright faces upturned to hers, eyes glowing, eager to be off. “Very well,” she said. “But I think we’ll take a groom with us today. Jeremy, please tell John he’s to accompany us. I’ll get Clarissa and meet you at the stables.”

  To her relief, none of them commented on her departure from their established norm. Jeremy merely nodded, and all three departed with alacrity.

  Glancing down at her morning gown, Sophie turned and started back up the stairs, refusing to dwell on what had prompted her caution, reflecting instead that, given that her aunt relied on her to ensure her cousins were exposed to no untoward occurrences, it was the least she should do.

  When she appeared at the stables, Clarissa in tow, Old Arthur, the head groom, raised a questioning brow at her. Pulling on her gloves, Sophie nodded a greeting. “I’ll take Amber out today. She hasn’t had a run for some time, I believe.”

  Arthur blinked. Then, with a shrug which stated louder than words that it was not his place to question the vagaries of his betters, he went to fetch the mare. To Sophie’s surprise, Clarissa, busy mounting her own high-bred chestnut, refrained from questioning her choice. Amber was as close to docile as any horse in the Webb stables. Taking her cue from her cousin, Sophie steadfastly ignored the niggling little voice which harped in her ear. Her choice of mount had nothing to do with Mr. Lester—and even less with that gentleman’s too strongly stated opinions.

  The tenor of his comments, both before and after dragging her from the Sheik’s back, had stunned her. She had not before encountered such arrogantly high-handed behaviour, but she was quite certain what she thought of it. Yet her lingering reaction to the entire episode was equivocal, ambivalent, no help at all in restoring her equanimity.

  Setting placid Amber to the task of catching up with the boys and Amy, already well ahead, Sophie frowned.

  Until yesterday, she had been inclined to suspect Jack Lester of harbouring some romantic interest in her. Her conscience stirred, and Sophie blushed delicately. Irritated, she forced herself to face the truth: she had started to hope that he did. But his reactions yesterday afternoon had given her pause; whatever it was that had stared at her from the depths of his dark blue eyes—some deeply felt emotion that had disturbed his sophisticated veneer and wreaked havoc on her calm—it was not that gentle thing called love.

  Sophie acknowledged the fact with a grimace as, with a wave and a whooping “halloo,” Clarissa shot past. Twitching the reins, Sophie urged Amber into the rolling gait which, with her, passed for a gallop. Clarissa, meanwhile, drew steadily ahead.

  Trapped in her thoughts, Sophie barely noticed. Love, as she understood it, was a gentle emotion, built on kindness, consideration and affection. Soft glances and sweet smiles was her vision of love, and all she had seen, between her uncle and aunt and her mother and father, had bolstered that image. Love was calm, serene, bringing a sense of peace in its wake.

  What she had seen in Jack Lester’s eyes had certainly not been peaceful.

  As the moment lived again in her mind, Sophie shivered. What was it she had stirred in him? And how did he really view her?

  HER FIRST QUESTION, had she but known it, was also exercising Jack’s mind, and had been ever since he had returned from Webb Park the afternoon before. As soon as his uncharacteristically violent emotions had eased their
grip on his sanity, he had been aghast. Where had such intense impulses sprung from?

  Now, with the afternoon bright beyond the windows, he restlessly paced the parlour of Rawling’s Cottage, inwardly still wrestling with the revelations of the previous day. He was deeply shocked, not least by the all but ungovernable strength of the emotion that had risen up when he had seen Sophie’s slender figure, fragile against the grey’s heaving back, disappear in the direction of the woods and possible death.

  And he was shaken by what the rational part of his brain informed him such feelings foretold.

  He had innocently supposed that courting the woman he had chosen as his wife would be a mild process in which his emotions remained firmly under his control while he endeavoured, through the skill of his address, to engage hers. A stranger, as he now realized, to love, he had imagined that, in the structured society to which they belonged, such matters would follow some neatly prescribed course, after which they could both relax, secure in the knowledge of each other’s affections.

  Obviously, he had misjudged the matter.

  A vague memory that his brother-in-law had not surrendered to love without a fight glimmered at the back of his mind. Given Jason’s undoubted conversion, and his equally undoubted acumen, Jack had always wondered what had made him hesitate—on the brink, as it were.

  Now he knew.

  Emotions such as he had felt yesterday were dangerous.

  They boded fair to being strong enough to overset his reason and control his life.

  Love, he was fast coming to understand, was a force to be reckoned with.

  A knock on the front door interrupted his reverie. Glancing out of the window, he saw his undergroom leading a handsome bay around to the stables. The sight piqued Jack’s interest.

  A scrape on the parlour door heralded his housekeeper. “Mr. Horatio Webb to see you, sir.”

  Intrigued, Jack lifted a brow. “Thank you, Mrs. Mitchell. I’ll receive him here.”

  A moment later, Horatio Webb was shown into the room. As his calm gaze swept the comfortable parlour, warm and inviting with its wealth of oak panelling and the numerous sporting prints gracing the walls, a smile of ineffable good humour creased Horatio’s face. Rawling’s Cottage was much as he remembered it—a sprawling conglomeration of buildings that, despite its name, constituted a good-sized hunting lodge with considerable stabling and more than enough accommodation for guests. Approaching his host, waiting by the fireplace, he was pleased to note that Jack Lester was much as he had imagined him to be.

  “Mr. Webb?” Jack held out a hand as the older man drew near.

  “Mr. Lester.” Horatio took the proffered hand in a strong clasp. “I’m here, sir, to extend my thanks, and that of Mrs. Webb, for the sterling service you rendered in averting misadventure yesterday afternoon.”

  “It was nothing, I assure you, sir. I was there and merely did what any other gentleman, similarly circumstanced, would have done.”

  Horatio’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I make no doubt any other gentleman would have tried, Mr. Lester. But, as we both know, few would have succeeded.”

  Jack felt himself falling under the spell of the peculiarly engaging light in his visitor’s eye. His lips twitched appreciatively. “A glass of Madeira, sir?” When Horatio inclined his head, Jack crossed to pour two glasses, then returned, handing one to his guest. “Phoenix is, perhaps, one of the few horses that could have caught your Sheik. I’m just dev’lish glad I was on him.”

  With a wave, he invited Sophie’s uncle to a chair, waiting until the older man sat before taking a seat facing him.

  With the contemplative air of a connoisseur, Horatio sipped the Madeira, savouring the fine wine. Then he brought his grey gaze to bear on Jack. “Seriously, Mr. Lester, I do, as you must understand, value your intervention of yesterday. If it weren’t for the fact we’ll be shortly removing to town, I’d insist you honour us for dinner one night.” His words came easily, his eyes, calmly perceptive, never leaving Jack’s face. “However, as such is the case, and we will depart on Friday, Mrs. Webb has charged me to convey to you her earnest entreaty that you’ll call on us once we’re established in Mount Street. Number eighteen. Naturally, I add my entreaty to hers. I take it you’ll be removing to the capital shortly?”

  Jack nodded, discarding the notion of urging Sophie’s uncle to forbid her his more dangerous steeds. The shock she had so recently received should, with luck, suffice to keep her from the backs of murderous stallions, at least until the end of the week. “I intend quitting Melton any day, as it happens. However, as I must break my journey in Berkshire, I don’t expect to reach the metropolis much in advance of your party.”

  Horatio nodded approvingly. “Please convey my greetings to your father. We were once, if not close friends, then certainly good acquaintances.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “You’re that Webb!” Blinking, he hastily explained, “Forgive me—I hadn’t realized. With so many Webbs in these parts, I wasn’t sure which one had been my father’s crony. I understand you and he shared many interests. He has told me of your devotion to the field.”

  “Ah, yes.” Horatio smiled serenely. “My one vice, as it were. But I think you share it, too?”

  Jack returned the smile. “I certainly enjoy the sport, but I feel my interest does not reach the obsessive heights of my father’s.”

  “Naturally,” Horatio acceded. “You younger men have other obsessions to compete with the Quorn, the Cottesmore and the Belvoir. But the Lester stud is still one of the best in the land, is it not?”

  “Under my brother Harry’s management,” Jack replied. “Our kennels still produce some of the strongest runners, too.”

  While their conversation drifted into a discussion of the latest trends in breeding both hunters and hounds, Jack sized up Sophie’s uncle. Horatio Webb, while younger than his own father, had been a long-time acquaintance of the Honorable Archibald Lester. More specifically, it had been he who had dropped that quiet word in his father’s ear which had ultimately led to the resurrection of the family fortunes.

  Taking advantage of a natural lull in the conversation, Jack said, “Incidentally, I must make you all our thanks for your timely advice in the matter of the Indies Corporation.”

  Horatio waved a dismissive hand. “Think nothing of it. What friends are for, after all.” Before Jack could respond with a further expression of gratitude, Horatio murmured, “Besides, you’ve cleaned the slate. I assure you I would not have liked to have had to face my brother-in-law, eccentric though he is, with the news that his Sophie had broken her neck on one of my stallions. As far as I can see, the scales between the Webbs and the Lesters are entirely level.”

  Just for an instant, Jack glimpsed the reality behind Horatio Webb’s mask. Understanding, then, that this visit had many purposes, perhaps even more than he had yet divined, Jack could do no more than graciously accept the older man’s edict. “I’m pleased to have been able to be of service, sir.”

  Horatio smiled his deceptive smile and rose. “And now I must be off.” He waited while Jack rang and gave orders for his horse to be brought round, then shook hands with his host. His eyes roving the room once more, he added, “It’s nice to see this place kept up. It’s been in your family for some time, has it not?”

  Escorting Sophie’s amazing uncle to the door, Jack nodded. “Five generations. All the Lester men have been bred to hunting.”

  “As it should be,” Horatio said, and meant far more than the obvious. “Don’t forget,” he added, as he swung up to the back of his bay. “We’ll look to see you in London.”

  Horatio nodded a last farewell and turned his horse’s head for home. As he urged the bay to a canter, a subtle smile curved his lips. He was well pleased with what he had found at Rawling’s Cottage. Aside from all else, the Lesters were obviously planning on remaining a part of the landscape, here as much as in Berkshire.

  Lucilla would be pleased.

  BY THE TIME she
returned from their ride, Sophie had a headache. As she was not normally prey to even such minor ailments, she felt the constraint deeply. As she preceded Clarissa into the back parlour, she massaged her temples in an effort to ease the throbbing ache behind them.

  It was, of course, all Jack Lester’s fault. If she hadn’t spent half her time worrying about how she would respond if he joined them, and the other half scanning the horizon for his broad-shouldered frame, metaphorically looking over her shoulder all the way, she would doubtless have taken her customary enjoyment in the ride. Instead, she felt dreadful.

  Throwing her riding cap onto a chair, she sank gratefully into the overstuffed armchair in the shadows by the hearth.

  “A pity Mr. Lester and Lord Percy didn’t join us.” Clarissa dropped onto the chaise, obviously ready to chat. “I was sure that, after yesterday, they would be waiting at Ashes’ Hill.”

  “Perhaps they’ve already returned to London,” Sophie suggested. “The ground’s certainly soft enough to send the tail-chasers back to town.”

  “Tail-chasers” was the family term for those gentlemen whose only purpose in coming to Melton Mowbray was to chase a fox’s tail. At the first sign of the thaw, such gentlemen invariably deserted the packs for the more refined ambience of the ton’s gaming rooms.

  “Oh, but I don’t think Mr. Lester and Lord Percy are tail-chasers, exactly. Not when they both ride such superb horses.”

  Sophie blinked and wondered if her headache was affecting her reason. “What have their horses to do with it?” she felt compelled to ask. “All tail-chasers, ipso facto, must have horses.”

  But Clarissa’s mind was on quite a different track. “They’re both terribly elegant, aren’t they? Not just in the ballroom—well, everyone tries to be elegant there. But they both have that indefinable London polish, don’t they?”

  Sophie openly studied her cousin’s lovely face. At the sight of the glowing expression inhabiting Clarissa’s clear eyes, she stifled a groan. “Clarissa—please believe me—not all London gentlemen are like Lord Percy and Mr. Lester. Some of them are no better than … than any of the young gentlemen you’ve met at the local balls. And many are a great deal worse.”