Bram grinned up at her, banishing her worries. ‘Me today, Warbourne tomorrow. I’m moving up in the world.’
Phaedra reached a hand between them to stroke his member where it rose against her. ‘You certainly are.’
* * *
‘I’m losing her.’ Giles pulled back the heavy fabric of the curtains, watching Phaedra and Bram lead their horses into the stable yard as dusk fell over Castonbury. They didn’t look like a groom and his charge. They looked, well, they looked ‘together’. That disturbed him greatly.
Lily came to stand beside him, a soothing hand at his arm. ‘You’re not losing her, Giles. She’s just growing up, finding her own way, as we all do.’ She’d come up earlier in the day to help Aunt Wilhelmina take care of some details for the gala and he was glad she was here. Her presence was a piece of calm, an anchor, in his very chaotic world.
Giles shook his head, unwilling to accept Lily’s verdict. ‘He’s not the sort she should be finding her way with. I regret hiring him. My only consolation is that Tom Anderson is up and about now. I won’t need Basingstoke any longer.’
He’d made a mistake when he hadn’t asked for references. He knew nothing of the man except that he was good with horses and a handy man in a fight. For a temporary worker those qualities had seemed enough. But Giles had seen the way Basingstoke had looked with Phaedra. There were other things too, when he thought about it. They had ridden out on several occasions Giles knew of. He’d thought nothing of it. He’d been thankful Phaedra was following protocol at last and riding with an escort. Now, he wasn’t so sure that was the safest course of action, the two of them alone out in the vast Castonbury lands.
Lily smiled up at him. ‘You’re a good brother to worry about her but she’ll be fine.’
‘I’m not a good brother. I’m a man, and I’m remembering what you and I got up to on our rides.’ He and Lily had gotten up to plenty but that was different. He was a man of honour. He was going to marry Lily. More than that, he loved Lily.
Giles hugged Lily to him and returned to his desk where mounds of paperwork awaited him. Phaedra confounded him.
He knew how to lead men through the bloody fray of battle but what did he know of shepherding young women into adulthood? Of helping them make matches that would see them well-settled and happy with a family of their own? That was women’s work. Women instinctively knew how to arrange these things. He hoped Aunt Wilhelmina’s party worked. More than anything, he wanted Phaedra settled and fast.
Phaedra needed a husband to protect her, a husband who understood her as well as the ways of the world. She didn’t need a fortune-hunter or a man who would use her for her connections. What she didn’t need was the handsome likes of Bram Basingstoke, a no-account bounder with nothing to his name but his good looks.
Giles picked up a report and tried to focus. It was good news, he should be glad. Finances were starting to stabilise but other things at Castonbury were more unsettled than ever, primarily Alicia’s claim that she was his brother’s widow and this child of hers the rightful Rothermere heir.
Giles spread his hands on its polished surface. Alicia had been all that was patient and kind since her arrival in the fall. He doubted he would have managed the protracted situation with as much élan if it had been him. But then again, the cynic in him spoke, she could afford to be patient. She had a roof over her head, a very nice roof too. The Dower House was no mere cottage, and she was playing for high stakes: a dukedom.
Giles started through the reports, glossing over the first two which he was already familiar with. He hated thinking of Alicia ‘playing for stakes,’ as if he’d already decided she was a fraud. But the implausibility of the marriage was ever at the fore of his thoughts. The timing fit but Jamie knew his duty. A whirlwind war romance was not his duty no matter how pretty the chit was.
Giles couldn’t fathom Jamie doing it and Alicia had on occasion fed his doubts with a few little ‘slips,’ things she’d said or done that seemed out of place, like that bit at Kate’s wedding. One way or another, her situation had to be decided.
For himself, he’d never coveted the dukedom for his own, but he did care for his family. Harry could take care of himself and Kate was settled in Boston with Virgil. But Phaedra was young. She’d been raised to privilege. If his father died and Alicia’s son inherited, who knew what would become of Phaedra. Phaedra was not entitled to anything the new duke did not want to give her and that included the stables and her horses. That was why Phaedra needed a husband.
‘You’re worrying again,’ Lily said softly from her chair. ‘You’ve been looking at that same sheet paper for the past twenty minutes.’
‘Of course I’m worrying. What will Phaedra have if Castonbury betrays her? My father won’t live for ever.’
‘She’ll have us, Giles,’ Lily answered simply. ‘Family doesn’t change even when circumstances do.’
Lily was right. As usual she’d seen to the heart of matter, looking past the peripheral issues. That was why he loved her. But it still couldn’t hurt to have a word with Bram just to be sure.
* * *
Bram stepped out bare-chested into the stable quadrangle and took a deep lungful of the fresh morning air. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, beautiful mornings, days filled with the satisfaction of hard work, passionate nights, even passionate afternoons. If life got any better, he’d think he’d died and gone to heaven, the one place his father had assured him he would never go.
Bram sought out the pump and doused his head with a healthy gush of water. He’d be dirty by the time the day was over but he’d at least start clean. It had been six weeks since he’d come to Castonbury. He should be tired of Phaedra by now, tired of his little rustic sojourn. He should be elated that Tom Anderson was back to work. It meant he could leave. Indeed, he’d probably be asked to leave any day now. That had been the agreement.
Only he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to return to being the idle Bram Basingstoke whose days were fundamentally useless. More than that, he didn’t want to leave Phaedra. Not yet. He was sure a time would come when he would want to leave; it always did with his affairs.
He reached for his towel and began drying, his eyes looking past the stable yard to the rows of paddocks and beyond to where the heather was starting to show some colour against the land, his mind fixed on the business of the day. It was either think of that or think about how many precious days he had left. There was no doubt about it though, those days were numbered.
Bram shook his head free of the last of the water droplets and draped his towel about his neck. Today would be a perfect opportunity to exercise the more vigorous mounts who didn’t do well constrained to the riding arena and the turn-out paddocks. The boys wouldn’t mind. Everyone was feeling spring in their bones, even him.
Spring had made him reckless. He’d let his intrigue with Phaedra grow, something he’d not expected. He had a weakness for a pretty face, to be sure, but it was a short-lived one easily satisfied and overcome after a period of regular association.
Like many things in his life, pretty faces could only hold his attention so long. Phaedra and horses had proved to be the two exceptions in a long list of items that conformed most disappointingly to the standard of brevity. Both of them were also likely to cause him trouble. He could leave and get away with his masquerade. But Phaedra and Warbourne kept him rooted here in spite of his gambler’s common sense.
He was also rooted by a disturbing sense of honour that hinted at deeper emotions. Phaedra may need him yet. He could not walk away while the situation with Captain Webster lay unresolved. He would not let Phaedra face that danger alone. In this case, Giles would be of no protection. Giles Montague couldn’t shelter her from things he didn’t know about. If he and Phaedra chose not to tell Giles about the incident, Giles could not stand between Phaedra and Samuelson’s threats when they came, if they came.
A loud whinny from the riding house drew Bram’s attention. That was u
nmistakably Warbourne. She hadn’t waited. Bram reached for his shirt and tugged it over his head in a hurry. Phaedra would be foolish enough to mount that colt alone. Visions of Warbourne tossing Phaedra and stepping on her in his rebellion urged Bram into a run.
He wasn’t too late. The horse was saddled and prancing under the weight but Phaedra had things well in hand. Bram eased himself into the shadows of the doorway. He would be there if she needed him. He watched, body tensed with expectation, as Phaedra approached the colt and swung up in a fast, fluid motion. She was seated before the colt began to shift under the unfamiliar weight, the reins tight in her hands for control, her heels jammed down in the stirrups for balance.
Warbourne turned in circles but Phaedra was in command, her words floating across the arena in snatches. ‘You remember this, don’t you, boy? You know how to take a rider.’ On it went, the soft pattern of her voice, the rigid control of her feet and hands at his neck and sides, until she had him patrolling the arena in a collected trot. Bram laughed to himself. He’d been a fool to have worried.
Bram stepped out of the shadows, careful to wait until she brought the colt to a halt. He didn’t want to take a chance that Warbourne would spook. ‘I don’t think I could have done any better.’
Phaedra tossed him a smug smile and urged Warbourne towards him. ‘That’s high praise indeed.’ She brought the horse to a halt. ‘Things will happen fast now. I’ll take him down to our training track and see what his reaction is to being outside. As soon as that’s settled, I can do some race training.’ Bram noticed the singular reference. She was determined to do it alone. He’d have to change her mind about that. Warbourne wasn’t a horse one rode alone.
Bram stroked Warbourne’s muzzle. ‘Have you picked out the races you want to try him at yet?’ Another man would have argued with her audacity but there’d be no stopping her. Only Phaedra would stop Phaedra.
Phaedra gave a small shake of her head. ‘I’ll go straight to the Derby with him. There’s really no time to do otherwise.’
Bram nodded. The days were passing. In the southern part of England, the early-spring race season was under way at Newmarket. Up here in the north, there wouldn’t be any great meets until the end of the month. ‘Don’t leave it too late, we still have to find a rider.’ She had to know finding a rider might prove to be the biggest obstacle of them all. The Jem Robinsons of the world wouldn’t be lining up to ride Warbourne. That calibre of rider was likely already claimed by the big breeders like Egremont and Grafton. The Duke of Grafton, both father and his son after him, had owned the Derby winner more times than not and had the trainers and riders to keep the streak up.
Phaedra slid off Warbourne in a graceful motion and shot him a condescending look. ‘I know. First things first.’
‘Where are you taking him?’ Bram fell into step with her.
‘Down to the track. It’s a good morning to see how he runs.’
Bram shot her a surprised look over the horse’s muzzle. ‘So soon? You just mounted him.’ When she’d mentioned it, he’d not understood it to be quite so immediate. A queer sense of foreboding took up residence in his stomach.
‘There’s no time like the present and time is slipping away.’ Phaedra reached up and patted Warbourne’s neck. ‘Besides, he knows what to do. He’s just been taking his time remembering. Right, boy?’
The Montague track was an oval three furlongs in distance not all that unlike the training tracks at Newmarket. Bram had learned from Tom Anderson that Giles’s great-grandfather had designed the track in the early 1700s as a testimony of the Rothermere wealth. But recent generations hadn’t shared his extreme love of the turf and little had been done with it beyond using it as a place to exercise.
‘Give me a leg up,’ Phaedra said once she’d walked the track and made sure it fit her specifications for safety. Bram cupped his hand for her boot and tossed her up. Phaedra settled into the saddle while he adjusted her stirrups and checked the girth. He checked the girth twice, unable to shake his apprehension.
Bram gave Warbourne a pat of approval before moving away. ‘Not too fast, Phaedra, just see what he can do, see what he responds to.’ She was going to bark at him for that and then she was going to forget his advice. Bram pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open, prepared to be ignored.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said tightly. Phaedra steered the horse onto the track, gathered herself and then with a kick she was off, her body poised in perfect form over the saddle and Warbourne’s neck, Warbourne’s dark mane flying.
Heavens, the horse was beautiful, the very personification of speed. Whatever else could be said of her, Phaedra had a good eye for prime horseflesh. Warbourne was the epitome of the modern thoroughbred. Bred for speed, he was taller through the withers than the previous generation of racers, and stronger, able to exert great speeds at a shorter distance. Bram shot a glance at his watch. For raw speed and an amateur rider, Warbourne was doing well. With a trained jockey on board who knew how to navigate a course, who knew how to get every last ounce from a horse, Warbourne could approach record speeds.
Warbourne was flying and Phaedra was flying with him. For a moment everything was perfect and then it went terribly wrong. In an instant, controlled perfection morphed into chaos.
Chapter Fourteen
Bram saw it all in slowed motion. Warbourne’s stride broke from its collected rhythm, his muscles bunched, his ears went back and he was off in a bolting gallop. They flew past Bram on their second lap, Warbourne clearly out of control, a full-blown runaway. For an awful moment he watched the reins slip out of Phaedra’s hands and his stomach fell. It would only be a matter of time before she was thrown and he was helpless to stop it.
A fall of that magnitude could be deadly unless by some miracle of strength, the miracle of simply being Phaedra Montague, she could hang on long enough to outride the colt’s spook. If she’d been in the riding house she could have run him into a wall, the tried and true method for stopping a bolting horse. Out here on the open track there were no walls. Bram cursed his oversight. He should have saddled up Merlin. If he’d brought a horse to act as an ‘outrider’ he could have ridden after them and perhaps pulled Warbourne over.
Still, Phaedra’s form was magnificent. Her hands fisted in Warbourne’s long mane, her thighs clenched tightly around his barrel, her only remaining point of real contact with the horse. But Warbourne continued to surge. It would have been an impressive display of stamina and speed if Bram hadn’t been so worried about Phaedra.
Then it was over. Bram watched in amazement as the muscles of her thighs went slack and Warbourne slowed to a trotting halt. The crisis had passed. Bram ran onto the track to take hold of Warbourne’s bridle as if he could hold back a thousand pounds of horseflesh single-handedly.
Phaedra laughed, a little breathless, atop her sweating steed. ‘He won’t bolt again. He’s well-spent.’ She leaned down and patted Warbourne’s shoulder. ‘I thought that might happen.’
Bram gave her an incredulous look. ‘Don’t tell me you enjoyed that?’ It had been torture for him watching Warbourne dash around madly with her on board and she’d been having fun?
‘It’s the clenched thighs,’ Phaedra explained, showing no desire to dismount. Most people he knew would have jumped off that horse straight away. But now that the crisis had passed, admiration was warring with his anger. She’d been extraordinary and he couldn’t help but appreciate it.
‘Care to explain?’
‘Tightening your thighs signals him to run. The tighter the thighs, the faster he goes. It’s why he’s thrown his jockeys at the starts.’
‘How did you know? How did you guess?’ It had been risky to give up her last point of reliable contact. If she’d been wrong, she would have been thrown most definitely.
‘His dam’s grandsire, Brave Warrior, had the same problem.’ Phaedra gave him one of her smug grins. ‘He turned out great foals but had a checkered racing history himself bec
ause of his little problem. Oh, look, here comes Giles.’
She waved to someone behind him and Bram turned to see Giles Montague approaching.
‘Did you see him, Giles?’ Phaedra called out.
‘I saw some of it,’ Giles said with a tight smile. He leaned on the railing beside Bram. ‘He’s magnificent, Phae. You’ve done a good job. No one will be able to touch him at the October hunts.’
Bram thought for a moment Phaedra might contest the omission of racing but Phaedra simply smiled and moved away from the railing. Warbourne was still pulsing with adrenaline from his run and needed some light work, which was just as well. Whatever Giles Montague had come down to say, Bram would prefer to hear it first. He hoped news of their indiscretion hadn’t reached Phaedra’s brother.
‘Were you the one who taught her to ride like that?’ Bram asked casually. If they’d met at a club in London, he and Giles might have been friends. Right now, the perceived differences in their stations prevented that familiarity. Giles wouldn’t get too close, or too friendly, with an itinerant horse handler.
‘No, I can’t take credit for that. I think growing up, Jamie and I were more like uncles to her than brothers. She was so much younger. I was off to school and into the military before she was ten. It’s mostly Edward’s fault. He was around the house longer and, being the two youngest, they were close.’ Giles’s jaw tightened. ‘It should be you on Warbourne. He’s not Isolde. It’s one thing when you’re riding breakneck on a horse you know. It’s another when the horse isn’t as familiar.’
‘Better my neck than hers, eh?’ Bram paraphrased bluntly. Phaedra would not like that verdict.
Giles gave him a sharp look. ‘She’s all I’ve got left. I don’t know if you’ve looked around my family lately, but it’s in tatters. There are too many people I’ve failed to save. My baby sister won’t be one of them.’
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