"I think if ye're no' careful, m'lord, ye'll be ridin' that filly full time," Fletcher answered.
Wynter slapped the hostler on the shoulder. "That's the plan." Hurriedly, he mounted Mead and galloped after Charlotte.
Fletcher watched Wynter ride away, and said to the open air, "Ye've a way wi' horses, m'lord, but ye don't know a damned thing about women. After that one's kicked ye in th' head a few times, I'll wager ye'll be a little more humble."
Wynter would have laughed at Fletcher's prediction, for on this morning he felt invincible. The sun was shining, the air was fresh and washed clean and he commanded a high-spirited animal with saddle and bridle. It was a perfect day for hunting the wariest of prey.
He could have caught up with Charlotte easily, but he hung back to watch her with the horse. Her lack of practice showed, but she fell into the rhythm of the canter and gained in confidence as she rode. She sat straight in the saddle and held the reins properly, controlling her gelding without use of a whip. She was strong, for all her delicate appearance, and the old-fashioned smoke-gray riding habit hugged her figure much as he wished to.
At the end of the drive, she halted to wait for him. Without looking directly at him, she asked coolly, "Will I do?"
"Very well," he answered.
He wasn't talking about her riding skill, and from her dour expression, she knew it.
"I find riding horses is the most fun one can have with one's clothes on," he said.
Now she acknowledged him with a glare that could have fried a sensitive man.
"Or perhaps it would be more proper to say—with one's shoes on." Laughing aloud at her very proper indignation, he turned right on the road toward Wesford Village and London. She followed, catching up to ride at his side. That made him laugh, too. She didn't want to talk to him; that he knew. But she refused to ride behind him, even if it meant a chance to avoid his odious company.
Ah, what a woman she was!
A closed coach rolled toward the two riders, and they edged to one side of the road. Wynter frowned when he saw the crest, and Charlotte gave a gasp.
The coach bowled past—and stopped.
Damn. What was Howard here for? Did he want to borrow money? Or to pay back his wife's vowels?
Had he brought that harridan of a wife with him? Her comments about Charlotte had been marked with a tinge of rancor—had it been personal, or simply the cruelty of a female on sighting a fallen foe?
The door of the coach opened and Howard himself thrust his head out. "Ruskin," he called heartily. "Fancy meeting you here!"
Wynter walked his horse toward the man who had long ago been his friend, and who he now wished to Gehenna. "Yes, fancy. Right here outside my own estate."
Howard chuckled self-consciously. "I did think there was a chance I might see you. I'm escorting my children back to school, you see."
"You?" Wynter didn't know the man well anymore, but he thought it unlikely Howard would stir himself for such an unprofitable reason.
Yet two young, thin faces were pressed against the windows, and Howard nodded with enough vigor to persuade even the most doubtful of companions. "Yes, they attend at Buriton in Hampshire." His gaze moved behind Wynter, and he said warmly, "What luck, Charlotte!"
Charlotte? He called her Charlotte? Not Miss Dalrumple, or even Lady Charlotte?
"My lord." Charlotte's voice was as cool as Howard's was warm, but that made no difference to Howard's obvious appreciation.
"I haven't seen you for years," Howard said.
"Nine years, my lord."
Howard wore a starched collar with silk cravat, a matching silk waistcoat, black coat and trousers and perfectly shined boots. Rather a formal outfit for traveling.
Howard ran his gaze over Charlotte in a discreet but completely uncalled-for manner. "You're looking well."
"I am well."
The two spoke across the space, for Charlotte had not moved forward, and while Wynter did not always understand the niceties of courtesy, he imagined Charlotte's behavior was not polite.
Why did she choose to be rude to Lord Howard?
Howard hesitated as if unsure what to do next, when one of the children's voices came clearly from inside the coach. "Father, are we almost there?"
Howard smiled back into the interior, a genuinely fond smile, if Wynter's instinct was correct. "Not quite, sweetheart, but soon." Turning back to the road, he asked, "Would you like to meet my children, Charlotte?"
Her hostility could never extend to a child. She brought her gelding forward. "That would be delightful, my lord."
"Absolutely delightful," Wynter grumbled.
Howard didn't pay the least attention to him. He had eyes only for Charlotte, and for the girls who opened the windows and greeted Charlotte in polite, wary voices. "These are my daughters Lady Mary," Howard said. "And Lady Emily."
Howard adored his children, Wynter realized, and more than that, he gazed at Charlotte with a more licentious variation of the same adoration. Wynter didn't know what connection existed between his governess—his future wife!—and this pathetic, gambling blowhard. But he knew he didn't like it.
And Charlotte…she took each thin hand extended to her and shook it, and spoke to the girls in a gentle voice. She set them at their ease and chatted with them, but her smile trembled and Wynter thought her eyes were damp.
"Your children are charming," Wynter said to Howard.
Howard could scarcely drag his gaze away from the captivating scene of Charlotte and the girls. "Didn't think I had it in me, heh?"
Wynter badly wanted to answer that, but Charlotte's training had had its effect. Or perhaps Wynter could see the pain beneath Howard's elegant, overdressed exterior. "Your daughters are weary. They wish a respite. Take them up to the house for refreshments. My daughter and son are in the classroom now. An interruption would please them."
"That's good of you, Ruskin."
Wynter didn't feel good about it; he didn't ever want to welcome Howard to Austinpark Manor again. "It is. Now go."
"Yes, Father, please. I have to go," the littlest girl wailed. She couldn't have been more than six, and her demand couldn't be denied.
Howard pulled a face. "I suppose we must," he said to Charlotte. "Will you be returning to the manor soon?"
"No," Wynter said. "Come, Charlotte."
Charlotte didn't argue, or glare a reprimand for his rudeness. Instead she submissively nodded and said her good-byes to the children.
Howard, on the other hand, looked shocked. His gaze moved from Wynter to Charlotte to Wynter again, and when Wynter nodded meaningfully at him, Howard deflated like a ruptured pig's bladder. Wynter and Charlotte left him leaning out the door, watching after them.
Even that set Wynter's teeth on edge, and he was glad when the road turned and they were out of sight.
He recognized the tension, and he knew it had nothing to do with dislike and everything to do with a romance gone sour.
Rage swept through him. He wanted to take Charlotte to task, to demand an explanation, to force her to admit…something. That she'd been Howard's teacher and he'd kissed her. But no, Howard was older than Charlotte, and Charlotte had said she hadn't seen him for nine years. Perhaps she had lied or miscalculated. Maybe she had run into Howard at some great house and he'd forced his embrace on her. Or somewhere, sometime, he'd dallied with her.
Infuriated by the images, Wynter glanced at Charlotte.
She rode like a drone, intent on the task of controlling the horse, sitting erect in the saddle. So lacking in animation and color was she, Wynter realized if a vehicle had come barreling down the road now, it would have struck her before she realized it.
This wasn't a simple flirtation gone sour. She was devastated by the sight of Howard.
By God, she'd had an affair with him!
Wynter wanted to lift his head and roar like a wounded tiger. An affair? His future wife had had an affair?
Unthinkable.
She didn'
t notice him. He'd spent hours, days, making sure she noticed every move he made every time he was around her, and she didn't even take note of his righteous wrath. She still rode mechanically, her lips pressed tight together, little wrinkles between her brows as if she suffered some great, unspeakable pain.
And he…instead of ordering her from his home, he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. He wanted to thrash that blackguard Howard. What was wrong with him?
Had she loved Howard?
The two rode without speaking to the break in the hedgerow where the horses could get through. Beyond was Wynter's land, a rolling expanse of meadow dotted with trees and a trickling brook, and Wynter breathed a sigh of relief as the hedgerow blocked their sight of the road.
No, Wynter told himself. No, she couldn't have loved a man like Howard. Howard was a chucklehead, a weakling—married! She was his lady who worshiped on the altar of propriety.
While keeping an eye on her, Wynter urged Mead straight toward the hill topped with a single ancient oak. Reaching the summit, Wynter stopped and dismounted while Charlotte stared at him unseeing. He tethered Mead and Charlotte's horse on separate low-hanging branches, then reached up to Charlotte. "Down, Lady Miss Charlotte."
She did as he commanded, slipping into his arms as smoothly as any willing woman. Held close, she didn't feel abstracted or brokenhearted or seduced. She felt very much like the lady he planned to marry.
He, Lord Ruskin—born of the loins of Adorna and Henry, adopted by the people of the desert, true-hearted warrior and master of the horse—he should not have to wed a female distracted by the memory of another man. She couldn't be his soulmate.
Yet still Wynter wished to marry her. He wished to cherish her. Perhaps the humid air of England had softened his brain.
"My lord, what are you doing?" Her voice was muffled against his chest.
He looked down, but all he could see was her hat, a stiff-brimmed, veiled contraption of annoying proportions. "Holding you." But he let her go and allowed her to step away from him. "All my life, this place has been a solace for my soul. See." He waved his arm toward the view.
"Yes." She walked toward the highest place and looked around. "It's beautiful. But a solace to you all your life? You haven't been here a good portion of your life."
Where the breeze touched her face, healthy color replaced the pale stiffness.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, "I came here in my memory. Always I could see it. The hills rolling softly like desert dunes of spring green. The pastures rich with life and green with grass, giving to the bees, the cattle, the horses with equal generosity. Homes and stables dotting the land, roads meandering in lazy loops and from everywhere the hum of life rising to pleasure the ear."
The words were torn from her. "I saw it, too. All those years of exile…I could close my eyes and see the land that I loved, and when I was alone, I cried for homesickness."
Wynter realized then: They gazed across the boundary of his land onto the land of the Earl of Porterbridge. They were looking on the place where she had grown up.
They'd both been exiled, but he had exulted in his freedom. She had been condemned to a prison. A prison that stifled the heart and spirit of a thoroughbred.
That must be why she had become involved with Howard. Perhaps Wynter could excuse her for not saving herself for him…
Impatient with the excuses he made for her, he turned his back. Her beauty muddled his usual good sense. Not everyone would consider her beautiful, of course. She was short. Her hair was red. She had a few freckles, which some men disdained, but which he thought rather winning. Yet there was also something about her that would set any man to attention. Look at what she had done to poor, drooling Howard. Her allure was, Wynter thought, that indefinable air of innocence.
He found himself facing her again. He narrowed his eyes at her, outlined against the sky, her veil flowing in the zephyr. How could he be wrong about her innocence? How could he be wrong at all?
"Tell me," he commanded, his voice so harsh it could have stripped flesh.
She didn't play the dunce with him, and he wondered if she had begun to notice him again, and notice that he was on the verge of an explosion.
She had better bloody well be noticing him.
"Lord Howard was the man my uncle wished me to marry."
"No." His denial came from instinct and confusion. "Howard? You loved Howard?"
Charlotte stared at him, her deceptively sweet face framed in that wretched hat. "What are you talking about? I never loved Lord Howard. I would have married him if I did."
"But you did love him. You saw him on the road. He stared at you with desire. You spoke coldly to him, but you clearly showed your pain at the meeting. It must have been love, or—" He caught himself in time.
She laughed. She didn't laugh often, and this laugh was no innocent, lighthearted fling at joy. This was a woman's laugh at a foolish man. At him. "I didn't marry Howard because I thought him a vapid, weak fool who imagined himself better than me because he was in line for a title and inheritance. I thought it likely he would waste the inheritance. I've heard I was right."
"Yes, you are right."
"He didn't take rejection well. After I had refused him, he kissed me. In public. In full view of everyone." Charlotte looked disgusted. "He thought to mark me as his own, to make me change my mind. I did not, although still there are those who turn from me as if I were a fallen woman."
"And you are not."
"Not unless one pinch-mouthed kiss makes me one."
Wynter relaxed, inexorably relieved by her confession, but still confused. "Yet you grieve." Grief. Yes. The sorrowing lines returned to mar her smooth skin.
"I don't grieve for Lord Howard. I grieve because…" She looked back out over the view to disguise the swim of tears in her eyes. "Today I saw the road I might have taken. Being married to him would have been…bearable. Women have suffered worse over the ages. After all, he never would have beat me, and I've been patronized more since I refused him than he ever could have done. If I'd married him, I would have had…" She swallowed. "I always thought I would be a good mother."
Relief burst on him. Children! She wanted children!
Of course. All women wanted children.
He was potent. He could give her children. It would be a pleasure.
Walking to Charlotte, he wrapped her in his arms. She stood stiffly, not fighting him but not permitting, either. Women were supposed to have instincts, but Charlotte didn't even know how to accept solace.
He refrained from shouting instructions at her. Instead he drew her closer and rubbed his palm up and down her back.
She remained rigid for one more long moment. Gradually, she grew slightly, ever so slightly, relaxed.
He kept rubbing.
She leaned into him.
Her hat knocked his chin. He growled and tilted her chin up. "That contraption must go." He jerked the ribbons apart and found himself distracted. Distracted by her eyes, wide, green and fringed by dark, damp lashes. By her soft lips, slightly open. By the dimple in her chin and the way she watched him as if she wanted a kiss.
Of all the wishes she held undeclared in her bosom, that was the wish he best could fulfill. Gathering her closer, he touched his mouth to hers. Just a touch, as sweet as the first gleam of light on the swell of dunes.
Her mouth moved beneath his.
Response. Sweet response. His blood leaped in his veins. He moved to deepen the kiss…and bumped her hat.
It slid off the back of her head. She gasped. They both grabbed. He caught it by the ribbons. And, as the romantic moment vanished, they laughed.
Together, Wynter noted with satisfaction. They laughed together.
Handing her the hat, he said, "Come. We will return and see if the man you did not wish to marry has departed."
"Yes, you should return to spend time with your friend, my lord." She tied the bow beneath her chin. "But I am the governess. My pl
ace is in the schoolroom."
As Wynter helped her back into the saddle, he thought, Not for long, Charlotte. Soon your place will be in my bedchamber.
CHAPTER 21
"My mother has returned."
Wynter's observation transported Charlotte back to real life. It was true. Adorna stood on the terrace surrounded by bandboxes and scurrying servants.
"Darlings," Adorna called as they rode near. "What a lovely day to be out!"
Charlotte had been in service long enough to recognize a note of doubt in her employer's voice. Adorna was not particularly pleased to see her son with the governess, and from the way she observed them, it was obvious she noted a shift in their relationship. Charlotte glanced toward Wynter to see if he had taken note of his mother's disapproval.
He displayed only pleasure at seeing his mother again.
Perhaps he hadn't heard her questioning tone. Men were notorious for failing to observe the most obvious of evidence. Or perhaps he didn't care.
Charlotte glanced at him again. He caught her eye this time and smiled back warmly.
No, this man didn't care what his mother thought. He didn't care what anyone thought. He'd already proposed to her, Lady Charlotte Dalrumple, despite the fact he was breaking every rule, and that he should— and could—wed a wealthy and suitable debutante.
Footmen rushed to the mounting blocks to hold the horses' heads.
"Yes, Lady Ruskin, a beautiful day for a ride," Charlotte said. "Lord Ruskin wished to check out my skill before I assisted Leila in learning the sidesaddle." She managed to get down off the gelding before Wynter could come to help her. She climbed the stairs to the terrace. "I believe he is satisfied that I can instruct that precious child."
Apparently offended by her independence, he stalked after her.
Ignoring him, she stopped close beside Adorna. "My lord, will I be allowed to start those lessons tomorrow?"
He glared at her from the other side of his mother. "Of course. I will accompany you."
"Dear boy, how could you be free? People have been asking for you ever since you left the city." Adorna laid a hand on Charlotte's arm. "Your lessons are working, Charlotte. He was so charming, all of London wishes to meet him, especially the ladies. My card salver is overflowing with invitations."
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