by Mia Marlowe
Rhys mounted his gelding in a smooth motion and streaked after her, wondering how on earth she managed to keep her seat riding aside at that breakneck pace. She was slight enough; he hadn’t expected she’d have that much strength in her legs. But what Miss Symon lacked in body weight, she made up for in balance.
As he gained on her, she leaned forward and crooned urgent endearments to her mare. Her words brought out more speed than the well-laid smack of a crop. Olivia’s body rocked with the mare’s gait in perfect rhythm. They took the hill that rose before them as if the going were straight and level. When they reached the top of the rise, she drew back on the reins and the mare danced in tight circles, still aching to run but willing to obey the superb horsewoman on her back.
Olivia’s color was high, her eyes bright. Her unabashed pleasure in the ride lent her a sensual glow. There was an appealing flush on her skin, and she panted slightly from exertion. She was fairly quivering with excitement and the rush of risk-taking.
That’s how she’ll look after a good hard swive, Rhys thought, warming to his goal, his guilt over it be damned. If the rest of the ton could see her now, she’d never be a wallflower again.
“You’ve a marvelous seat,” he said, smiling and remembering how her neat little bum had bounced along. “If you were riding astride, you’d be the equal of any male equestrian.”
She laughed, not the affected twitter of so many debutants but the full-throated sound of a thoroughly pleased woman. Why had he ever thought her the least girlish?
“Even aside, we beat the two of you up this hill, didn’t we, Molly?”
She leaned forward to stroke the mare’s neck and gave Rhys a quick inadvertent peek down the front of her riding habit. Her breasts were small but perfect. At every step, Olivia was a surprise to him. He was usually drawn to more buxom women, but his body quickened readily enough to her slender figure.
The mare whickered softly in response to Olivia’s praise and bobbed its head as if in agreement with Rhys’s unspoken assessment of its mistress.
“You did have a head start,” he pointed out.
Her gaze flicked back toward the estate’s manor. The groom was only just now trotting out of the stable yard. If Thatcher intended to join them on their ride to act as a chaperone of sorts, at least he seemed intent on giving them a sense of privacy.
“Are you going to quibble over details, Rhys, or are you game for a jump or two?” she asked, her pixyish face alight with mischief.
Rhys swallowed back his surprise. He’d only heard of a handful of equestriennes who jumped while riding aside. “You don’t need to attempt it to impress me.”
She laughed again. “There’s no attempting about it. Molly and I can clear yonder hedgerow as easily as breathing. Or is jumping too unladylike an activity for the Duke of Clarence’s liking?”
“If I said it was, would it dissuade you?”
“Not in the slightest.” She flashed an impish grin and spurred the mare into a spirited canter toward the waist-high hedge.
“This girl doesn’t need me to ruin her,” Rhys muttered. None of his carefully gathered intelligence about Olivia Symon had revealed this daredevil side of her personality. “She’s determined to do it herself.”
Olivia and Molly hurtled toward the hedgerow, gathering speed. At the last possible moment, the mare launched herself skyward, and horse and rider vaulted over the obstacle, clearing it with plenty of room to spare.
But when they landed on the other side, the horse reared suddenly, whinnying in pain. Head down, she struck out her hind hooves.
Rhys watched in helpless horror as the saddle slid to one side. Most riders would have been unhorsed on the spot, but Olivia kicked her foot free of the slipper stirrup as the saddle crashed to the ground. The mare trampled it, adding the final touch to her panic. Then she bolted with Olivia clinging to her back, skirts and reins flying, her fingers digging into Molly’s mane.
“Hold on!” Rhys shouted, his heart pounding in his throat.
He spurred Duncan into a gallop across the frost-crisped meadow. They cleared the hedgerow without breaking rhythm, gaining on the runaway mare with each pounding stride.
Olivia clung to the mare’s back, tight as a tick, and though she couldn’t check Molly’s headlong flight, she seemed determined not to tumble off. Since the meadow was dotted with stones that worked their way up through the soil each spring, a fall at this speed was likely to result in broken bones at the very least. Eventually, Molly would tire if Olivia could just hold on.
But when Rhys looked ahead, he saw something to which the mare seemed oblivious. Olivia was unlikely to be able to see it either since her cheek was plastered against the horse’s neck. A steep ravine opened before them.
Rhys’s gut churned. He laid his crop on Duncan’s flanks, and the horse poured on more speed. Yard by yard, the distance between Rhys and Olivia shortened until he was close enough to hear her pleading with the mare to stop.
She must have known the ravine was there, yawning its scree-strewn mouth. There was no time for Rhys to snatch Molly’s trailing reins. In order to free his hands, he was forced to drop his as well.
Guiding the gelding with his knees and will alone, Rhys leaned over. He grabbed Olivia around the waist and hauled her off the bolting mare’s back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. Leaning in his saddle to counterbalance the extra weight, he barely managed to turn Duncan from the ravine’s edge.
But Molly tumbled over the lip, screaming and thrashing, to the boulder-strewn bottom twenty feet below.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he brought his gelding to a shuddering stop.
“No.” Olivia clung to him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Oh, no. Molly!”
Wiggling out of his arms, she slid off Duncan’s back. Olivia lifted her skirts and ran back toward the edge of the ravine. Rhys dismounted, quickly hobbled the gelding, and followed in close pursuit.
Molly was still alive, but she was lying on her side at the bottom of the ravine. She thrashed and emitted a shrill cry of distress. When Olivia called out to her, she tried to rise, but one of her forelegs collapsed under her weight. Molly whinnied and Olivia put a hand to her own chest, as if she could feel the mare’s agony.
“Step away,” Rhys said quietly as he reached into the pocket of his garrick and pulled out his horse pistol. He always kept it with him, even though he hadn’t used it for anything since Maubeuge. Memories of the last time it had thundered and smoked in his hand raced through him.
A strident cry rose up from the recesses of his brain. It resounded in his ears, the screams from another dying animal pricking the edges of his consciousness. And from a dying man.
“Finish me, damn you!” Rhys schooled himself not to react to the flashes of vision beyond the tick in his cheek he couldn’t control. The remembered boom of cannon made the air shudder around him. The acrid stench of gunpowder burned his nostrils. He was the only one who could hear the cacophony of the battlefield exploding in his head, but knowing it wasn’t real didn’t make it feel any less so. His past threatened to burst into his present.
A small hand touched his forearm, and Rhys drew a deep breath. He firmly shut the door in his mind that led to Maubeuge.
“No, please,” Olivia pleaded. “Don’t shoot her.”
“I don’t want to.” The last traces of the evil vision from his past dissipated, and he faced the crisis of the moment with clear-eyed decision. “But I may have to. If the animal is suffering and there’s no help for it…”
“We don’t know that yet. Not for certain.” Olivia sat down on the edge of the ravine and scooted forward, attempting to climb down the steep incline. Rhys grasped her arm and yanked her back up beside him.
“No, you don’t,” he said gruffly. He didn’t scare easily, but watching Olivia careen toward the ravine had sent his heart pounding. “Stay here. I mean it.”
He scowled at her furiously, intending to impress upon
her the foolhardiness of attempting to climb down the sheer face of the ravine, but her look of abject misery made him soften his expression. “I’ll do what I can for her.”
Even if that means a bullet.
She nodded, clearly unable to speak. He chose his way down the embankment with care, making use of rock outcroppings as finger and toe holds. The mare’s cries were softer now and with more silence between each outburst.
“Easy, girl,” Rhys said in a low tone. He needed the mare to remain calm. A downed animal might thrash and further injure itself if it perceived him to be a threat.
He continued to speak softly, letting the horse know he was approaching. When he laid a hand on her neck, she whickered and lifted her head, rolling her eyes at him in barely contained panic. Her breath snorted out in the cold air like dragon puffs. Blood streamed from several gashes on her glossy gray coat, but none of the wounds appeared life-threatening. He ran his hands over her haunches, and she kicked her hind legs.
Her spine was intact. That was a good sign.
Then he turned his attention to her forelegs. One fetlock was swollen and bleeding. If the leg was broken at that joint, she was doomed. Rhys cleared away some of the larger stones from near where she lay.
“Come, girl. Let’s get you up,” Rhys said, taking her reins in hand. He chirruped to her and she rolled, trying to gather her legs under her body. Whickering with effort, Molly finally struggled to her feet. Muscles quivered under her heavy winter coat and her head drooped. She wouldn’t put any weight on the injured leg and shied when he tried to examine it.
But at least Molly was up and, with coaxing, she took a limping step.
Rhys glanced up at Olivia, who stood at the edge of the ravine, hands covering her mouth to keep from making any noise that might further upset the mare. Duncan stood at her side, his ears pricked forward as he watched what was happening to Molly with interest. Though Olivia didn’t say a word, Rhys read hope in her eyes.
For now, at least, he wouldn’t have to dash it.
Molly had tumbled into the ravine at its deepest point. One hundred yards to Rhys’s right, the narrow rift in the earth ended in a box with no outlet. To his left, the ravine widened and became less steep until better than a quarter mile in the distance it emptied into the sloping meadow. From that direction, another horseman approached, picking his way carefully along the ravine floor.
Mr. Thatcher, Rhys realized as he led Molly toward him with halting steps. The groom picked up his speed and met them before Molly had traveled twenty limping paces.
“See this mare back to her stall, if you please, Mr. Thatcher,” Rhys ordered the groom. “I believe she’ll make it if you take her slow and easy.”
“Aye. Will you be needing my mount, my lord?”
Rhys tossed another look up at Olivia. After her brush with disaster, she might not feel up to handling another horse at the moment. If there was only one horse between them, she’d have to ride double with him on Duncan. She’d have to hug him to stay on.
Using this accident to advance Alcock’s cause was beyond despicable.
That’s why I have to do it.
“Thank you, no, Mr. Thatcher. We’ll make do with my mount.”
Rhys scrambled up the rocky face, ripping the knee of his trousers and scuffing his boots beyond saving. As he neared the lip of the ravine, he heard Olivia’s soft sobs.
She stood, her hands covering her face, her slim shoulders quaking. Rhys put his arms around her and turned her so she couldn’t look down into the ravine through her fingers. She didn’t need to watch the mare’s tortured journey along the bottom of the wash.
“Hush,” he whispered into her hair. “What’s done is done. Mr. Thatcher will see to her now.”
There was still a good chance the mare would have to be destroyed, depending on the extent of the injury to her fetlock. But the way Olivia wept meant she knew that without him saying so.
She continued to sob as he stroked her head in an attempt to soothe her. Her little hat had flown off sometime during the helter-skelter dash. He’d have to look for it later, along with his own wide-brimmed one. It was a small matter, compared with a wounded horse and weeping woman. In the meantime, her hair had come unpinned and was trailing down her back in thick waves.
The long tresses smelled of alyssums. The scent made his chest constrict. She must bathe in the stuff. He pressed his lips to her temple. “Please don’t cry.”
It only made her sob more loudly.
“But it’s my fault. If Molly has to be…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “I’ll never forgive myself.” Her tears fell in fresh torrents.
“There now. She may recover,” he said with the same soft tone he’d used to gentle the mare. He kissed her cheek. She stopped crying and went completely still.
She seemed suddenly aware that he was holding her, a situation that made perfect sense given the shock she’d suffered due to the accident. But it was definitely beyond the bounds of propriety for an unrelated man and woman.
However, Olivia didn’t pull away. Instead she tipped up her face to him. “You kissed me. Why?”
“Because you seemed to need it.”
“After that climb and everything, perhaps…you need one too.” She stretched up and tentatively touched her lips to his.
It was a chaste kiss, a virgin’s kiss. The sort of weak gesture that he ought to have been able to brush off as if it were a kiss from one of his sisters.
Instead, the sweetness of it went straight to his heart in a sharp-edged rush.
Alarm bells jangled along his spine. He was here to seduce her, not the other way around. It was high time he remembered why he was there and acted accordingly.
He bent to claim her mouth in another type of kiss altogether.
Chapter 7
When Rhys covered her mouth with his, Olivia’s eyes flared wide with surprise. She’d meant her little kiss simply as a thank you, as innocent as the kiss he’d placed on her cheek. Clearly he thought it an invitation to more.
I ought to protest, she told herself.
Her eyelids fluttered closed despite her best intentions, the better to focus on the delicious sensation of his lips sealed on hers.
This is clearly inappropriate.
Her inner scold continued as his mouth slanted over hers. The tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips, sending a flood of warmth coursing through her.
Well, that was wicked.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t pull back. It would mean stopping the little flicks of pleasure dancing along each nerve. Inside her riding boots, her toes curled.
Her lips parted slightly and—
Oh, no, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t!
But surely he did. Rhys’s tongue invaded her mouth, turning her whole world wet and molten. In ladies’ retiring rooms amid giggling confidences between the more popular debutants, she’d overheard rumors of such kisses, the ones labeled “French” for their bawdy decadence. The thought of a man’s tongue in her mouth then had seemed more than a little repugnant.
The reality was a far cry from her imaginings. A curious heaviness settled between her legs, a downward pull she’d never felt before. Even though the sensation might be properly described as an ache, to her surprise, she didn’t find it at all unpleasant.
He pulled her closer against the solid maleness of him—hard chest, hard thighs, hard—
Oh, good heavens!
She might not have much experience with men, but she’d been around horses enough to know what that hardness meant. Olivia pulled back and, slack-jawed, stared up at him.
He smiled down at her, wickedness sparkling in his dark eyes.
She pushed against his chest and he released her. The low ache inside her thumped in disappointment, but she tamped down her body’s bewildering response.
“Yes, well, thank you very much for your assistance with Molly, my lord.”
“Rhys,” he corrected. “Now more than
ever, you ought to call me that.”
“Now more than ever, I ought not.”
“Just because we shared a kiss?”
His tone implied it was a small thing. Perhaps for him it was, but for Olivia, the glory of his mouth on hers fairly stood the world on its head.
“If that kiss means so little to you, it should be easy for you to pretend it didn’t happen,” she said as she walked over to where Duncan had wandered head-down, munching on winter-brown grass.
“It’s hard to unring a bell. We kissed. It happened,” Rhys said. “And I didn’t say it didn’t mean anything. I simply meant in the grand scheme of things, a kiss is not of much moment. I won’t report it to the Duke of Clarence, if that’s what’s troubling you.”
The Duke of Clarence was the last thing on her mind.
“And in any case, if I did report it to the duke, he should be happy about it,” he said. “That kiss confirms your untouched state.”
She looked up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Simply that you kiss like a virgin.”
“And well I should because I am.” Irritation scraped her spine. His kiss had been a revelation, a glimpse into an unexplored sensual world, dark with mystery and potent with promise. Her kiss evidently revealed how little she knew about that world.
“At least, thanks to you, I’m now a knowledgeable virgin.” She tried to corral her hair into some semblance of order, but without the pins that had escaped during her wild ride, it was a hopeless gesture. “I can recognize the kiss of a rake when I receive one.”
“I hope you’ll try not to find yourself in situations that lend themselves to another rake’s kiss. You can’t trust those sorts, you know.” He snorted as he mounted Duncan and leaned down to offer her his arm. “We should get you back to the house.”
“Riding double?”
“Duncan can handle the weight,” he assured her.
She didn’t doubt that. She was more concerned about being so close to Rhys Warrington. Just the thought of it had her belly turning cartwheels.