Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback)

by Alexander, Sydney

  “You will be late to dinner again,” he said, still behind her, and her body thrilled to the velvety depths of his voice. How it struck her in her heart, in her belly, in her secret places… So that she felt like a mare, helpless with longing for the ardor of the trumpeting stallion in the next field. He made her feel like that far too often, of late; a trembling of nerves and temper that could not be cured so long as his presence was near. These nights that he had trailed her through the meadows and escorted her home had been hours of torturous longing for her, her body fairly throbbing with her desire for him; but her way was already set. And he was just a huntsman dependent on her father and the earl; he could not save her.

  “Tack can never be too clean,” she said, keeping her voice low to mask her uneasiness. “And dinner is an affair I would rather not attend of late.”

  “Poor company? Or poor appetite?” He put a hand out and touched the tendrils of hair slipping out of their knot at the nape of her neck. She shivered, goosebumps rising at his touch… And something else quivered within as well…

  “Both, I am afraid,” she answered with a sigh. Her nerves had been uneasy, and her stomach too queasy for much more than tea and toast. She had thought it was mainly to do with Maxwell’s constant presence, and with her fears over running away. The date had been set, and it was nearly upon her, and she no longer knew how she felt about her choice. With her entire body a-flutter at William Archer’s touch, nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

  His fingers skirted her neck, touched her cheek, rested at her chin. Without the willpower to resist him, her heart skipping in her chest, she gave in to the gentle pressure of his touch and turned her head.

  He kissed her.

  It was a slow, sensuous, luxurious kiss. He took his time, curving his hand around her face and pulling her closer, until she was rising from her rickety wooden chair on unsteady knees, melting into him, while his lips and tongue teased out all the sweetness of her mouth. He growled, deep in his throat, and she could not repress a little moan of pleasure. She gave in, more than she ever had before, more than she had allowed herself that day in the meadow, and let the sensations take her into a shimmering darkness.

  When their lips parted at last, slowly, reluctantly, she felt she could never separate her body from his. They stood locked together, her hands clasped behind his neck, his hands gripping her about the waist, gazing at each other hungrily in the dim yellow lamplight of the tack room. She knew then. She knew. She was lost. Whatever happened, whatever choices she made — her heart would live with William Archer, the huntsman. She felt a tendril of fear, deep within, and squashed it ruthlessly. Let me have this moment to love.

  He spoke as she did. “Your eyes are so dark,” he whispered, even as she sighed “Your eyes are so blue.” Then they both smiled, enchanted with one another, and what they had discovered.

  “I didn't know —” Grainne began, eager to share her shock and delight, that a look, that a touch, that a kiss could send such a shock wave through her entire soul. But William put a finger to her lips.

  “Tommy is outside, checking horses. And I left Seamus at the gate. We are not alone.”

  She nodded, but the gleam did not leave her eyes nor the smile her face. “We must be discreet,” she whispered. “I know.”

  “I told them I have come to escort you home for dinner,” he explained. “Let me take you.” His eyes smoldered, and she felt a thrill at the double meaning. She nodded, hardly certain what she was agreeing to. She thought of the hay-loft, so warm and inviting —

  But William Archer was a gentleman, not a gypsy. He detached himself from her curves with resignation and took her elbow. “Miss Spencer,” he said gravely. “Do allow me the honor of escorting you to dinner.”

  She smiled. She was a fool to think he would dishonor her. “It would be my pleasure.”

  ***

  All through dinner, William watched Grainne pick at her food, eating no more than a bird, and knew that he was doing the same. Mrs. Kinney set a fine table considering their means, and he felt like a terrible guest as the excellent soup went hardly tasted, the fowl was only sampled, and the bread crumbled up in nervous fingers. Only the wine seemed to go down easily, and he had to remind himself to go gently on the glasses, lest his empty stomach lead him to a drunken embarrassment before his employer and his sweetheart.

  His sweetheart! Sitting there across from him, her fork next to her plate more often than in her hands, smiling at him through her blushes, chewing at her lip when Mr. Maxwell made one of his hesitating, breathy speeches. She had dressed in a simple dark blue gown with a hint of creamy fichu at the modest neckline, and the contrast of dark gown and milky throat and coppery dark hair was doing more to strain his manners than any of the daringly cut French confections he had seen on the ladies of London. He had to admit that he was throughly and utterly bewitched with Grainne, although he could not think what to do about it.

  Marriage was out of the question, he told himself stoutly as he turned away a pretty dish of berries and cream with a regretful smile. While in England she would be regarded as an imprudent match at best and an impudent fortune-hunter at worst, here in Ireland he was the disadvantage. William Archer the huntsman was not William Archwood the future earl, and Mr. Spencer would not marry his precious daughter to a jockey without name or portion. Although Maxwell was hardly an ambitious choice for marriage, he did have a prosperous estate, a generous income, and the advantage of being a close neighbor. William guessed that Spencer would not want his daughter going far away.

  But marriage would be a fine way of stopping her from going through with her plan. Although he could not find a way to ask her about it, he had no reason to believe that she was going to go back on her determination to run away with the gypsies. It seemed impossible, now, with what they had found they shared. That kiss, by God, that kiss! He had never been so utterly lost in a kiss before. He had wanted to pull down her boy’s blouse and run his mouth over her lush breasts, he had wanted to unbutton those improper breeches and find her warmth with his fingers, with his tongue, with his very manhood. He wanted everything about Grainne, everything, her mind, her body, her soul.

  He realized he was clenching his wine glass very tightly and set it down with a clink.

  Grainne looked up at him.

  Her eyes were wide and dark in a face grown increasingly white and pinched. Her lush hair, slipping as always from its chignon, framed her wary face. She looked tired, and confused, and frightened. He wondered if it was all about him. He supposed he looked much the same. Love could be a very wretched beast, especially when one wasn’t ready to admit that it was real.

  Or when there was nothing that could be done to remedy it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  On a frosty morning that had all the horses in the height of gaiety, the stable turned out for the first cubbing.

  The young hounds were nipping at each other, rolling and playing in the shimmering grass, and the horses were milling about with high heads and wide eyes, looking for trouble. It was going to be a long, testing morning for everyone: the first time the horses had gone out in a pack in months, and the whippers-in and the master of hounds concentrating all their energies on keeping the young hounds on task.

  Grainne, mounted on the edgy Gretna, was in a frightful mood. Her father had insisted that she ride in sidesaddle and skirts today, to help prepare the mare for the young ladies who would be riding her through the hunting season.

  He couldn’t possibly have worse timing, she thought. Today, of all days, she needed to be in her breeches, and have a secure seat astride.

  Gretna fed off of Grainne’s outrage and was a devil to ride, dancing in circles and forever threatening to rise up on her hind legs. Grainne snatched at her mouth and kicked the mare forward whenever she threatened to rear up, but it was still an interminable wait for all the lads to spill out of the yard on their assorted horses, and for her father and the whippers-in to get the hounds in
order.

  The young hounds were a danger to themselves and everyone, weaving in and out of hooves with abandon, seeming to have forgotten everything they had learned under her father’s tutelage over the summer. The excitement of being turned out in the yard with all the adult pack, and two dozen horses neighing their heads off, was simply too much for them. Tommy’s horse gave a plunge as one of the pups brushed against a hind leg, then the horse snapped back a kick in response; the little hound was on the cobbles in an instant, laid out flat.

  Grainne gasped and covered her mouth in despair, and Tommy went white with shock; what would the Master say when he saw Tommy’s gelding had killed one of the young hounds? But in a moment the little wretch was up and howling again, this time with a wary eye on the horses’ hooves. He’d never go that close to a horse again.

  Sighing with relief, Grainne turned her attention back to Gretna, rubbing a hand through her bristling dark mane in hopes of settling the mare. Then there was motion beside her, and she looked over to see William, looking eminently at home in the saddle of his big chestnut, so close that if she’d been astride, their knees would have brushed.

  She blushed at the idea. William smiled as if he knew where her thoughts had strayed. She blushed harder. She knew what would come next. Their passionate kisses in private had seemed to lead only to sharp little barbs in public. She knew why she kept trying to drive him away — to stop him from being hurt, she thought, when she disappeared. But why he came back at her with those twitching lips, those dry sarcasms, when every kiss said that he loved her — that she could not understand.

  “My dear Miss Spencer,” he now said blandly. “Your mare seems distressed.”

  “Perhaps she is alarmed at the close quarters, Mr. Archer,” Grainne replied snippily, tenseness and unhappiness and embarrassment making her sharper than she meant to be. What could she do, when they had shared so much and she was about to throw it all away? Why must he be close to her, talk to her, torment her now? She had made her course, she could not back away from it now. “Indeed, you give her little room to move away,” she continued acidly. “And you, Tommy, you are no better.”

  Tommy Boxton had stationed the magnificent hindquarters of his bay gelding immediately to her left, and Grainne thought Gretna would feel just as pinned in and helpless as she was at this very moment. She longed for the open fields ahead. When would her father sound his wretched horn?

  “Your father is awaiting the vicar,” William supplied. How had he known what she was thinking? “He rather fancied a blessing this morning.”

  “How odd,” Grainne mused. “For just a cubbing? That’s an unusual step.”

  “Perhaps he is feeling unlucky,” William suggested. Bald Nick moved still closer to Gretna, and the riders’ faces were bare inches apart. Grainne took a deep breath. William’s eyes were so very blue. “It’s a dangerous thing to go out hunting without your luck.”

  Grainne slipped a hand from her reins, against her chest, to touch the little Celtic cross within her bodice. The one piece her mother had left her. “I have my luck, Mr. Archer,” she said softly, still mesmerized by his closeness. “Have you yours?”

  William’s eyes crinkled suddenly, his mouth arching in a sad half-smile. “I quite lost my luck some time ago, Miss Spencer,” he replied gently. “But I do hope to find new luck here in Ireland. They say this is the place to do it.”

  “You can look for a four-leaf clover if you like,” Grainne suggested. “But I fear those are best located from the ground, and that is precisely the place you do not wish to find yourself today.”

  “At that juncture, I could only hope it was a sign that my luck was turning,” he chuckled, and she could not help but join him. Tommy Boxton turned in the saddle, curious to see what joke he was missing, but Grainne and William were unaware of anyone around them. In the noise and bustle of the gathering hunt, the two felt curiously alone.

  And then Mr. Spencer sounded the hunting horn, its sweet call echoing through the green hills and valleys, and Gretna jumped, and the hounds howled, and Grainne remembered. She didn’t cast so much as a farewell glance at William; her course was set, and not even the charming Englishman would dissuade her from it. She concentrated all her effort on controlling the plunging Gretna as the hunt set out from the yard in a surge of chestnut and grey and bay. It would take all her strength to keep speedy Gretna to the back of the pack today.

  ***

  The hounds picked up a scent in good order, and Spencer sent them dashing ahead, their voices haunting and beautiful in the cool autumn air. William let his horse canter easily on the far right of the main body of horses, keeping his distance while he learned how the horse jumped, and reacted to the changes in going. Bald Nick was a sensible, experienced horse, if a bit heavy in the hands, and he took the first couple of hedges with ease, jumping out of stride nicely. William relaxed a little and took a look around.

  He was surprised to see Grainne lumbering along well behind the party, her hands full of frustrated mare. She was clearly struggling: Gretna’s mouth was gaping open against the tug of the bit and the mare’s head was high as she fought for control. But what confused William was why Grainne was going to so much trouble to hold the mare back. Gretna was a strong horse, but a steady one; if she was allowed to canter along where she was comfortable, somewhere near the front, she would cart the most novice rider around the hunt without putting a foot wrong. Grainne seemed to be deliberately upsetting her. He wondered if it was another one of her hare-brained training schemes, as far-fetched as teaching the mare to jump without a partner to show the way.

  A ploy, as that had been.

  This was the day she would run away.

  The thought struck him like a lightning bolt, terror rushing through his limbs. It had been a fortnight, but he had thought she would go tonight. Now he thought otherwise. She would use the confusion of the cubbing to make her escape.

  He must watch her carefully. He could not, must not let her run away, let her make this horrible mistake. Even if she had been just a foolish girl, and not a bold young woman he had fallen hopelessly in love with.

  William turned back to face the terrain ahead and saw that they were sweeping down into a low water-meadow. Nick snorted as his hooves touched water, but soon he was splashing along comfortably, pricking his ears at the hounds as they leapt about, confused by the water, searching for scent on the grasses and hillocks. There was a momentary lull as everyone brought their horses down to a walk while the hounds found the scent again.

  “Bloody good horse, that,” Tommy Boxton said, splashing up on his bay. “Ye picked a fine one to school this season.”

  “I liked his eyes,” William said, running his hand down Nick’s sweated neck. “Sensible, but bold. Perfect hunter.”

  “Aye,” Tommy nodded. “This ‘un here has more bold than brains, but ‘e means well. Tell him where to go and ‘e won’t kill ye.”

  “That’s something,” William agreed gravely. He looked around and felt that shiver of fear again. “Say, have you seen Miss Spencer?”

  “Grainne?” Tommy looked keen for a moment. He stood in the stirrups and turned, eyes sweeping the field. “Funny,” he said after a minute.

  William didn’t think it was funny at all. “Could she have been thrown?”

  “Ah, if she did she’ll soon be catchin’ up.”

  William couldn’t believe the groom’s attitude. “Are you truly not concerned for her well-being?”

  The lead bitch sounded, her voice high and clear, and Mr. Spencer blew his horn in response. The grooms and huntsmen gave a shout, the whippers-in rounded up the straying pups, and they went pounding through the water and back up the hill after the pack of hounds.

  All except William.

  Hands taut and still as Nick shook his head, fighting furiously to join the hunt, William gazed back up the hillside they had come from. As the last horses disappeared over the rise, he made his decision, kicking Nick into a gallop in
the opposite direction. The chestnut ducked his head, wringing his tail and trying to buck, outraged that the hunt was leaving him behind. But William had made his decision, and he was far too strong a rider to let a horse change it for him. He was going back for Grainne.

  The muddy hoof-prints had torn up the turf of the hillside, and as they thundered up the slippery slope, it wasn’t difficult to find the solo path leading away from the hunt. William didn’t even have to slow Nick to see that Gretna had first trotted, then galloped briskly away from the others, heading up the steep rise and into a forest. Nick, catching the scent in his flared nostrils, stopped arguing about following the herd and pricked his ears, eager to chase down Gretna. William leaned up on his neck and squinted into the wood ahead.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Grainne gritted her teeth as yet another branch pierced her foolish little riding cap. A man’s hat would have served her better in this endeavor, as would nearly every other item of clothing and tack she could have used. Len was going to laugh when he saw her, dressed up as if she were a lady coming down from the big house.

  If she made it down this hill.

  The forest started out civilized enough, but it had quickly turned into a primitive tangle of tree roots and brambles after one crested the hilltop, and the path Gretna was slithering down was treacherous with slick clay, sharp roots, and the aforementioned branches that poked at her from every direction. The mare herself was furious at the path she was being forced to take: her ears were pinned flat and Grainne could hear her teeth grinding against the bit.

  “I’m sorry darling,” she told Gretna soothingly. “When we first agreed on this meeting place, it was much drier. I hadn’t known it would be so slick.” But Gretna just snorted, unappeased.