Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback)

by Alexander, Sydney

  William lay the letter aside and watched the flames in the hearth leap up to lick the blackened stones around them. It was not just Violetta’s terrifying mama he had to wait out. It was his own father, and the fact hurt abominably. More than he had expected, in fact. He took a sip of whiskey and relished the burn as it rolled down his throat and pooled in his stomach.

  Would he really rot out here in Ireland until his father died? He had initially been prepared to do just that. Standing there on the deck of the ship, watching Ireland’s foggy bulk rise up from the cold sea, he had been quite resolved to give up England, his home, and his inheritance until his father went to the grave, taking with him his out-dated opinions and his grandfathers’ edicts. His foolish notions about how William Archwood, future Earl of Tivington, should live. And who he should live it with.

  It would be a self-inflicted punishment that would be as hard on him as it would be on his father, of course, but truly, William believed, he had been driven to such dire actions. No matter what the documents said, he would never marry Violetta deLacey. The signatures on those yellowed parchments were not his. They were not even hers. Lady Violetta deLacey had been a babe in a cradle, and he, William, a boy still riding his pony on a leading rein, when his father affianced him to the Duke of Marchwood’s first-born child.

  He still remembered peering into the cradle in the ducal nursery, looking at the little bride-to-be in her lace and ribbons, and looking back at his father in confusion. “I’m to marry a baby?” he’d asked, scandalized, and the men and the nursemaids had laughed affectionately.

  It had been his grandfather’s doing, of course; that old man had never been able to relinquish control of any family doing, and when he had known himself failing in health, he had sewn up whatever loose end in the Archwood household he could. Even the tenant farmers were instructed on what to plant for the next five years. The supervisors of the Caribbean holdings were sent lengthy letters detailing their course of business for the foreseeable future. When the old earl died, leaving William’s father the head of the family, he was left with little to do but take his young son hunting.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about marrying the baby,” he’d told his shocked son at the engagement. “She’ll grow up to be a lovely lady, and you’ll not have to worry about any of those fortune-hunters when you grow up yourself. Now let’s go see about a new pony!”

  The pony had been a welcome distraction, but even now, William could remember his bewildered hurt at the thought of being affianced to that plump babe in a bassinet. His grandfather might have insisted that he marry the girl, but William was already developing the sort of independence (“hard-headedness,” his father would say) that made him chafe against the authority of others to run his life.

  Seventeen years later, he was even less eager to wed the deLacey daughter, if such a thing was possible. Violetta deLacey, secure in her future as a countess, was a plump, fish-mouthed thing who seemed to live on a steady diet of gossip and iced cakes. The first time William had seen her as an adult, punch glass in one hand and a feathered fan in the other, listening to her companion with such scandalized pleasure that her fat mouth had dropped open like a codfish’s, he had thought that she still looked alarmingly like that baby in her silk-hung crib: right down to the white lace and ribbons that bedecked her from head to toe.

  Now he took another gulp of whiskey, remembering his father’s face when he’d told the man he could never marry such a girl. “She can’t even sit a horse,” he’d insisted, pleading now with the hard jaw and flinty eyes of his sire. “She cares only for parties and fashion. She despises the country and never leaves London. We have nothing in common! What sort of match would we make? What sort of marriage would that be?”

  His father had dismissed his worries with a wave of a hand. “What do you expect from one of these geese? None of them can see beyond their own feathers, always worrying that they can’t play the part of a swan. Horses, boy? You worry about a wife who can ride horses? You’ll marry her, get your heir and your spare, and go on with your life as you lived it before. There’s no reason to worry that you have nothing in common with the woman in the next room. It’s her bloodline that matters, boy.”

  William had gritted his teeth. She wasn’t a mare, after all. The woman he must spend the rest of his life with, raise children with, and his father said it didn’t matter, as long as she was of good breeding?

  “I cannot possibly wed that woman,” he insisted, grinding out the words. “You ask too much of me.”

  “I ask precisely nothing of you,” the earl snapped. “I let you spend your days as you please. You wish to ride horses all day in the country, and do I not let you? You did not wish to learn a trade, and did I demand it? You can neither read the law nor preach a sermon, you have never donned a uniform, you have never done a day’s work in your life, and now, when I make one simple demand on you, you have the nerve to refuse me! But I tell you, boy, I will not have it this time! You shall obey me in this, and when you have wedded and bedded Lady Violetta and she has given you sons, you may go back to your hunters and think of her no more. Is that quite clear?”

  The earl took a deep breath at the end of this speech. William was not too angry to see how frail his father was growing, or how he gripped the back of the chair he was standing behind in order to balance himself. The earl would not be around much longer. The man who had taught him to ride a pony and jump a fence had not been on a horse in years. William was looking at an old man.

  And that was when William made the single most cold and calculating decision of his life.

  “You make yourself perfectly clear, Father,” he told the old man glaring at him from behind his desk, and then he left the library, shutting the door quietly behind him, the picture of an obedient son. He nodded politely to the butler as he took his hat and coat, and stepped lightly down the stairs into the warm London night.

  And then he went straight to his club to meet Peregrin.

  They’d plotted his escape that night over a bottle of brandy. It seemed simple. Peregrin had gone visiting in Ireland the autumn before and done some hunting. William was a master horseman. Peregrin would fish around amongst his hunting acquaintances and find him a position in a stable. William, his last name shortened to Archer, could disappear in the wilds of Ireland, far beneath the view of his circles in London, and wait.

  Until either Violetta married someone else, or his father died.

  It was a bleak thought. No matter how much he and his father had disagreed in the past years, and it had been a rough go, he still loved the man. It had been losing the hunting that had done it, he supposed. They had always agreed on hunting, but the old man didn’t hunt anymore, and so they had lost their one bond.

  William sighed and stood to bank the fire. It had grown late, and he’d be expected at the yard at an hour he had previously associated more with tumbling into bed than climbing out of it. It was hard work, riding all day and pitching in to help clean the stables, besides. Harder than strolling down to the yard, whip in hand, to mount the saddle horse his groom held still for him, that was for certain. When he stretched his back, his spine made interesting popping sounds. His knees were making their presence known in ways he had never experienced before. The ankle he had broken in a tumble over a ditch as a fourteen-year-old boy was aching as if the fall had happened yesterday.

  Yes, working as a huntsman in an Irish lord’s stable was much more difficult than he had anticipated. But by God, he was enjoying himself.

  And the master’s daughter certainly sweetened the bargain.

  He poured himself another finger and thought about the master’s daughter.

  They had shared quite a moment as he had left the house that night. He felt a little aroused just thinking of it, the way she had stood in the doorway bidding the men goodnight, and tried to walk back inside just as he was stepping out, looking back at her father to say goodnight. They had brushed, and stopped, and stared, for a
scant second, but it was enough, her breasts against his chest, her face close to his, their bodies touching… her eyes had grown wide and damn if her cheeks didn’t flush again.

  He’d apologized, but he couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face, and she had been so flustered, stepping back into the house while he went out into the night, that he knew it had affected her too.

  There was something there, he thought. Something very interesting.

  ***

  Grainne brushed her hair slowly, gazing at the fire as she drew the comb through her thick locks. After a day in the yard, her hair was as wooly and full of tangles as a broodmare left out in the fields all summer, but now, having been caught up in a net all evening, it was calmer and more biddable. She still found bits of hay and leaves in it from time to time, though. She flicked a little twig to the floor and tugged the comb through the snag it had left behind, grimacing at the pain. She supposed no one who ever saw her combing out this mane would make the mistake of thinking her a lady.

  Except for her father, of course.

  Her father had been growing tiresome of late, inviting over this stupid squire for dinner being only the very latest instance of his sudden interest in her gender. She had conveniently forgotten she was a female when she was very young; only her mother had cared, and when her mother had died, no one in the house had dared tell her no. By the time the household had thought her sufficiently recovered enough to start treating her like a normal child again, it was too late. She had run wild, spending all her days on horseback, and her father, longing for his lost wife, relished his daughter’s company.

  She had never expected he might send her away. Even when Mrs. Kinney, overstepping her boundaries as all good housekeepers were wont to do, began prodding at him to send her to relatives in Dublin, to learn to be a young lady of society, to come out and make her bow, however humble, and find a respectable husband amongst the Anglo-Irish gentry, her father had looked at the housekeeper as if she had two heads. Send Grainne away? What madness!

  And that was only a few years ago, Grainne thought sadly, watching the embers deep in the hearth glow and sparkle. She had fooled herself into thinking she was safe, that her father would never take her away from her horses. She shouldn’t have trusted him.

  Now she only had Len to trust.

  Len. The very thought of him lifted her spirits. She shivered with delicious delight, her heavy mood suddenly lightening. It would not be long now, and he would take her away from this nonsense, from Mr. Maxwell and his wretched sheepdogs. And the horses that her father seemed suddenly ready to deny her? She’d keep them forever. Len would always keep her in horses. She would never have to fear being locked away in some stranger’s house, languishing on some overstuffed sofa with her ankles neatly crossed, tatting lace and dying of misery.

  Grainne slid her hair from side to side over her back, feeling it brush her skin through her thin chemise, and then, daringly, let it slide over her breasts, rippling, silken over her nipples. She sighed, thinking of Mr. Archer’s touch.

  Mr. Archer?

  She stopped, sitting upright. Mr. Archer?

  “Mrs. Kinney, Mrs. Kinney!” The voice in the hall was her father’s. She sat very still, listening, as footsteps creaked along the floorboards, and stopped just outside her door. “Ah, Mrs. Kinney. My dear Mr. Maxwell seems to have left his umbrella. Will you send someone along to his house with it tomorrow? I should not wish for him to venture out in this misty weather and take cold.”

  “This is Mr. Archer’s umbrella,” Mrs. Kinney replied after a pause. “I suggest Grainne take it with her in the morning. She can give it to him.”

  “Ah! Mr. Archer. I need him healthy too. A very helpful man. I am so pleased with his work.”

  “Mr. Archer is a gentleman of good breeding,” Mrs. Kinney said thoughtfully. “It is not what one would expect of a horse-jockey.”

  “He is certainly more than a jockey,” her father insisted. “He is a first-rate horse trainer. I expect he will run the yard once Grainne is married to Maxwell.”

  Grainne gripped the brush to stop from dropping it. She stared at it, trembling in her hands.

  “Hush, Mr. Spencer!” Mrs. Kinney chided. “We are right outside her door. The poor girl is probably asleep. After the way you work her all day, it is a wonder she does not fall asleep with her face in her soup.”

  Her father’s voice remained light. “I have been remiss as a father, but I plan to make that up to her now. She has been nothing but a good daughter to me, and she shall have a fine estate to reward her. Well. It is late. Goodnight, Mrs. Kinney!”

  Grainne waited until their footsteps had creaked off in opposite directions. Then she slowly got up from her chair and crept under the coverlet of her bed. Across the room, the china horses on her mantlepiece shimmered in the dying firelight. She watched them blur with unshed tears until she could bear the sight no more and shut her eyes up tight. But she could not shut away her thoughts.

  Mr. Maxwell would never let her ride all day. Mr. Maxwell would fuss if she brought in mud on her boots and twigs in her hair. Mr. Maxwell did not care to hunt and kept no hunters in his little stable. She would have to sit in the parlor and mend his shirts and listen to him drone about sheep and sheepdogs, for the rest of her life. She gave in to her misery and cried into her pillow, and did not think about Mr. Archer’s alarming touch again that night.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Riding novices could be dangerous work, but Grainne always enjoyed it. The young horses were bouncy and elastic, and reading their body language to find out what shenanigan they were plotting next made for interesting work. She straightened out Prince Albert, a squirmy little bay cob who always seemed to have his head pointing in the opposite direction of his hooves, and asked him to trot.

  He went bobbling around the menage like an inattentive duck, swinging his head from side to side.

  “You will never learn to concentrate, will you?” she asked him, wrestling with the reins to try to keep his head steady. “What will you do when there are hounds and other horses all around you?”

  “He’ll probably flip over and have a seizure,” a voice said dryly. Grainne turned in the saddle and Prince Albert bounced, a little half-buck. She gave him a pop with her whip and he snorted.

  “Mr. Archer, I do wish you would announce yourself before you ride into the menage,” Grainne ground out through clenched teeth.

  “I believe I did. Or does it only count if I stand in the entrance and wait politely for you to notice me? Because that, my dear, could last me an entire morning. You are as inattentive to your surroundings as your horse is overly attentive. Perhaps he feels that it is a shortcoming in your riding that he must compensate for.”

  Grainne brought Prince Albert down to a wobbly halt while Mr. Archer was making his speech. “Stand,” she told the youngster. “You are particularly odious this morning,” she told Mr. Archer sweetly. “Did someone salt your tea?”

  He grinned. “I knew that idea was in your head! That’s precisely why I don’t take tea with you in the tack room. The first time I laid eyes on you, I said to myself, there is a female who loves to behave like a ten year old boy.”

  “You were right about being a boy,” Grainne admitted ruefully. “I am beginning to dread changing back into dresses in the evening.” She looked down at her breeches and Albert began to walk off. “Stop that,” she scolded. “Did I ask you to walk?”

  “Probably felt your body shift and read it as a command.” Archer rode his novice over to join her in the center of the menage. The wood chips beneath the horses’ hooves released a faint musty smell with every step, and Grainne sneezed.

  “You might act like a boy, but you sneeze like a man!”

  “Oh, shut up.” She rubbed her sleeve across her nose.

  Mr. Archer halted the horse close to Albert. The little colt, enjoying the prospect of company, leaned over and sank his teeth into the new horse’s neck. Archer’s horse sw
ung his head and snapped back. “Oh!” Grainne snatched at the reins. “Mustn’t let them play while they’re mounted! Such terrible manners, Albert,” she chided the cob. She looked at Mr. Archer and narrowed her eyes. “You shouldn’t ride up so close. They’re not experienced enough yet.”

  “Inexperience can be a dangerous thing,” Mr. Archer agreed, looking very serious indeed. “Miss Spencer, have I mentioned how fetching you look in breeches today?”

  She glared at him.

  “Of course,” he said softly. “I apologize. We mustn’t play while we’re… mounted.”

  “Mr. Archer!” She was blushing furiously. How infuriating. And when had she learned to blush? Right about when Mr. Archer arrived in the yard, oddly enough.

  “Have I said something amiss?” He looked contrite.

  “Mr. Archer, you are being most inappropriate,” she scolded, voice grave.

  “I am sorry if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t — that is —” Grainne found she had to stop and try to gather her thoughts. There was something about the way he was staring at her that made her brain seem slow and heavy. And other parts of her rapid and light. And… tingly.

  Yes, decidedly tingly.

  “I forget that you are young and innocent,” Mr. Archer sighed, looking terribly forlorn. “A maiden unspoiled. Unused to the games grown-ups play.”

  Not entirely unused to them, she thought, and something scornful must have shown in her expression, for she did not imagine the sudden curiosity that flared in Archer’s eyes.

  Did he see a trace of color in her face? She moved Albert away. “Have you gotten that horse to canter yet, Mr. Archer?” she asked. It was high time he remembered that she was in charge of this yard, not just someone to joke around with. She wasn’t one of the lads. “No one else has. And I would like to know he is making progress.”