Her happiness was fleeting. “Of course, a governess must also know those things,” she pointed out to herself as she continued toward the stables. “A governess, or a schoolmistress. No. I’m too young to be a schoolmistress. A governess is possible, even if the thought of being one is terribly lowering. But would a governess dance? No wonder the purple lady was frowning. I probably overstepped myself while supposedly chaperoning her daughters—two of them, and both as uninspiring as their mother, no doubt—and got myself turned off for my pains, without a reference. I’ve been wandering the world on my own ever since, with neither family nor friends to ease my plight, until I finally got myself into a scrape that ended with me lying facedown in the roadway, dressed in a man’s cloak, and minus my shoes. How thoroughly depressing.”
“’Ey! Yer al-ays prate ter yerself? Sumthin’ havey-cavey ’bout folks who jaw bang when nobody’s there ter ’ear ’em.”
Caroline stopped walking and looked around until she discovered the source of the voice that had interrupted her imaginings. She found it sitting perched atop a granite pedestal that supported a lovely statue of a Grecian maiden pouring water into the small, stone-edged pool that surrounded the statue like a miniature moat.
“Jeremy Holloway!” she exclaimed in relief, for it wouldn’t have done for Pierre to have overheard her romantic imaginings or she would never, she was sure, hear the end of it. Waving to Jeremy gaily, she redirected her steps until she was in front of the pool. Sitting down on the low stone wall at the water’s edge, she looked inquiringly at the young sweep. “What are you doing here? Did you wade across? I thought you detested Adam’s ale.”
He ignored her questions, seemingly more concerned with her welfare. “They’ll takes yer away an’ fix yer up wit yer own straight-waistcoat iffen yer keeps it up, yer knows that, don’t yer? Oi lifted the blunt from a gentry mort an’ went ter see the loonies in Bedlam onct on a Sunday. There’s all manner of dicked-in-the-nob folks locked up inside, all jist singin’ and dancin’ and talkin’ ter themselves nineteen ter the dozen. Ain’t a pretty sight, Oi tell yer. Yer’d best be careful.”
“Thank you, Jeremy, for the advice. I’ll do my best not to let that happen to me.” Caroline allowed her fingertips to dangle in the cool water, trying to catch the ever-widening ripples caused by the water pouring from the Grecian maiden’s stone pitcher. “How are you now, Jeremy, now that your active citizens have been routed?” she asked, careful to keep her gaze diverted from the boy’s all-but-bald head until he could replace the knitted cap he constantly wore.
“Oi wuz jist lookin’ at m’self in the water,” he mumbled, carefully pulling the cap down over the light golden fuzz that barely covered his head. “Oi’m goin’ ter kill dat frog, yer know,” he added matter-of-factly. “Oi bit ’im good, but Oi’m still goin’ ter kill ’im. ’E deserves it, Oi’m thinkin’.”
“I understand,” Caroline returned sympathetically. “But it had to be done. There’s no other way to rid yourself of the pesky little creatures, unfortunately. Your hair will soon grow back, twice as thick and long as before. But must you really kill him, Jeremy? Guv’nor will be grievously saddened, you know, for Duvall is the only person in the world, save you, who can tolerate him.”
“Guv’nor likes the froggie?” Jeremy sounded dubious, understandably depressed by what he could only see as a serious flaw in his otherwise perfect savior. “Well, mebbe Oi’ll only ’urt ’im bad.”
Caroline suppressed a grin and nodded her agreement with this generous concession on the sweep’s part. “That’s very kind of you, Jeremy,” she told him. “Now, would you like to accompany me to the stables? I have a wish to see if I can ride.”
As Jeremy’s face twisted into an expression of wary incomprehension, Caroline held out her hand, helping him to leap from the pedestal to the wall to the ground, then explained her predicament as they walked together.
“So you see,” she ended as Jeremy lifted the latch that allowed them to push back a section of fence and enter the yard, “I have absolutely no memory of anything about myself, other than those few things I just told you.”
She felt Jeremy’s hand take hold of hers. “Oi’ll ’elp yer,” he told her, his protective urges coming to the fore. “It’s a terrible thing, bein’ away from all yer know. That’s ’ow Oi wuz when ’Awkins took me.”
Caroline felt the back of her throat stinging with emotion as she looked into the boy’s open, childish face. “Thank you so much, Jeremy, for understanding. You have no idea what it means to me to—oh! Jeremy, just look at him! Isn’t he a beauty?”
The horse being led into the stable yard was no more than three years old, a huge, sleek, black satin creature with a wide white blaze running the length of his handsome, intelligent face. His form was fluid, hinting of speed even as he was walked slowly in a wide circle, his muscles rippling along his strong flanks, his ears and tail nervously twitching at the sound of Caroline’s voice.
Jeremy stopped short in his tracks, eyeing the huge horse warily. “A beauty, is it? ’E looks like a bleedin’ devil ter these peepers.”
“Nonsense.” She approached the stallion fearlessly, taking the reins from the startled groom. Stroking the horse’s velvety nose, Caroline murmured fulsome compliments to his handsomeness, then allowed him to nuzzle her open palm. “Sugar, Jeremy,” she said, still using the same soothing tone. “Ask the groom for some sugar. This darling creature and I have got to get to know each other.”
After doing her bidding, Jeremy approached the stallion gingerly and all but flung the sugar lump at Caroline before quickly scurrying away for, being a child of the city, he had long ago learned to keep his frail body a safe distance from deadly hooves. “The groom says ’is moniker is Obtuse, wotever that means. Be careful-like. ’E looks like a killer iffen Oi ever seen one.”
“He doesn’t mean it, sweetheart,” Caroline assured the horse, feeding it the sugar. “You’re just a great big baby, aren’t you, Obtuse? Obtuse. You have to be Pierre’s mount. No one else would think to saddle you with such an unsuitable name.”
As if to confirm her thought, the groom came up to her and told her that Mr. Pierre was most protective of his horseflesh, horseflesh that had been left in the groom’s charge, and now that the young miss had petted the horse—and this next bit he would appreciate very much—perhaps she’d be willing to give him back into his hands.
“I have Mr. Pierre’s generous permission to ride Obtuse,” she lied with a quick coolness that surprised even her, looking directly into the groom’s eyes as she uttered the blatant untruth. “Please see that he is saddled for me immediately.”
There are many things a groom can do on his own with his master’s horse. He can curry the horse, feed the horse, exercise the horse, and even get kicked in the rump by the horse if he isn’t careful. All this and more can a groom do on his own. There are some things he cannot do. He cannot buy or sell the horse, beat the horse, or even get bucked off the horse, as he may not mount the horse without his master’s permission.
But there is a higher rule, one that the groom knew stood head and shoulders above the rest. He cannot, under pain of instant dismissal, contradict a guest. Caroline, dragging this bit of knowledge from the depths of her memory, knew it as well, and her triumphant smile blighted the man with its brilliance.
Obtuse was fitted with a sidesaddle, and within five minutes Caroline was on his back, galloping out of the stable yard with the nervous, grumbling groom riding behind them on a mount that could not hold a candle to the stallion’s speed.
“I can ride!” Caroline shouted delightedly into the wind that was rushing by her as Obtuse headed for the open field. “I can ride!”
HE RODE LIKE A MAN possessed, quietly cursing the groom who had come pelting back to the stables, having lost Caroline somewhere in the dense trees.
He cursed the soft ground that slowed his mount’s progress and the mount itself for not being the more fleet-footed Obtuse.
&
nbsp; He cursed his father for having saddled him with the responsibility of someone else’s welfare and for that same man’s premeditated defection.
But most of all he cursed Caroline Addams, the willful, headstrong idiot of a girl who had ridden off over the countryside without a thought to the danger she might well find there.
Pierre urged his mount into a full gallop, hoping against hope that he would find Caroline still in one piece. “So that I might have the pleasure of killing her myself,” he declared through gritted teeth.
She was in danger, he just knew it. No stranger to peril, he had long ago recognized its smell, its chilling effect on his bones, its capacity to swoop down and destroy everything in its path. He had met danger face-to-face on the Peninsula, slept with it lying by his side, fought with it on more battlefields than he cared to recall, and watched its victims being sucked down into the greedy Spanish mud.
To look at him, Pierre appeared to be a gentleman giving his horse its head, for his impatience was rigidly controlled, a lesson learned long ago. It was an inward battle he was fighting now or, more clearly, two battles, one with his old enemy, danger, and another, even more terrifying, that raged between his heart and his head.
His head told him that Caroline Addams was the last, absolutely the very last person in the world who should matter to him. His heart, beating hurtfully in tune with his mount’s galloping hooves, fought to tell him that Caroline Addams was the only person in the world who could ever really matter to him.
Suddenly, just as he pulled his horse to a skidding, plunging halt at the crest of a slight hill in order to scan the horizon, he spied Obtuse tied to a branch of a small tree, a grazing grey gelding tied beside him. His rapidly pounding heart stopped in mid-argument before beginning to beat rapidly again, now more in fear than in anger. Caroline was nowhere to be seen.
Dismounting, and checking to be sure that his pistol was still tucked into his waistband at his back, he proceeded slowly, his eyes scanning the open field and border of trees, his ears alert.
“Oh, Sir John, really?” he heard after a moment, his entire body swinging about at the sound of Caroline’s voice, followed by the lilting song of her delighted laugh. “Admit it, sir, you’re funning me. Nobody could be that contrary, not even Pierre Standish.”
“It’s true, I swear it,” came a male voice, obviously belonging to the unseen Sir John. “He has always been an odd duck. You can never know what he is thinking.”
“But to cut a man dead on Bond Street just because he didn’t like the style of his jacket? And the man actually broke down and cried? It sounds so incredibly silly.”
Pierre pushed back the branches of a wild flowering bush and stepped into the small clearing to see Caroline sitting at her ease on a fallen log, Sir John Oakvale lying at her feet, one hand propped against his cheek,
She looked beautiful sitting there, her entire blue velvet clad figure softly dappled by sun and shade, her expression one of delight, the disapproving frown she customarily donned while in his presence nowhere in evidence. Her smile, the same innocently devastating smile he had glimpsed that first morning of their acquaintance, was now directed at Sir John Oakvale.
Pierre sensed danger again, this time emanating from himself, whom he knew to be capable of falling on Sir John and beating the grinning nodcock into a bloody pulp. He carefully schooled his features into their usual faintly bored expression.
“Hardly silly, Miss Addams,” Pierre drawled, masterfully containing himself and stepping completely into the clearing. “The man was utterly crushed, as well he should have been, for I am known to be a most demanding arbiter of the best fashions. He retired to his estates that same day, a broken man, so that I could not tell him that the whole thing was my fault. I had gotten a bit of smut in my eye, you understand, so that in actuality I had passed by him without seeing him. You did remember to tell her that, didn’t you, Oakley?”
Sir John scrambled to his feet, hastily brushing dirt and leaves from his buckskins. “Standish!” he exclaimed, looking as guilty as a young lad caught with his hands in the honey pot. “We didn’t hear you ride up. And it’s Oakvale,” he added pettishly, wishing he could refrain from correcting Pierre but unable to restrain himself.
“Of course it is, Oakmont. How could I be so forgetful? Do forgive me,” Pierre said silkily, walking over to Caroline and extending his hand to her. “You have been very naughty, haven’t you, Miss Addams. My groom is quite destroyed by your capriciousness. I left him in the stable yard, a shadow of his former self, as he is sure you are dead and I shall blame him. Or was it that he was sure Obtuse was dead, and I shall demand his life in forfeit? Yes, I’m convinced it was the latter. Only the loss of my dearest Obtuse could serve to put me in a rage.”
“My loss would doubtless be cause for a celebration, isn’t that correct, Mr. Standish?” Caroline asked, ignoring his hand and rising without aid.
“I shall leave that determination to your own judgment,” Pierre offered magnanimously.
“Of course you will. I shall apologize to your groom, for it is my fault he is upset. Your sensibilities and their condition are your own problem, thank goodness, and I care not whether they have or haven’t suffered permanent damage. Sir John,” she said, walking over to where that man stood, looking about to bolt for the safety of the trees, “it was so very nice to meet you. Perhaps you shall agree to visit me at the Standish home, in order to help me pass these long, tedious days?”
Sir John blushed from his intricately tied cravat to the roots of his wavy blond hair, pleased that Caroline had found his company entertaining. Heaven only knew his father didn’t, which was why he had been out riding in the first place, finding that being away from home for as many hours as possible during his duty visits to that same home was less taxing on his easily overset nerves.
Sir John, young, boyishly handsome, and a great pet of the London ladies, who found his company pleasant without being threatening, had come upon Caroline in the field separating his father’s small holding from the larger Standish estate. The sight of her had gone a long way toward reconciling him to his enforced visit home, even if the thought that he would have to endure the sure to be uncomfortable presence of Pierre Standish whenever he called on Miss Addams was distasteful to him.
Bowing over Caroline’s hand, Sir John said brightly, “I should be honored to visit you, Miss Addams.”
Pierre, one foot perched on the fallen log, raised a hand to stifle a yawn. “I had a premonition you would say just that, you dear man, and in just that way. How utterly deflating. I suppose you’ll expect me to serve as host, in my father’s absence. Oh, very well. Mapletree, please, consider my father’s home your home, for the duration.”
“That’s Oaktree!” Caroline fumed, hands on hips, knowing Pierre was taking great pains to get Sir John’s name wrong, an insult so blatant she was surprised he would sink to it, for his cuts were usually more subtle.
Sir John coughed slightly and cleared his throat. “Actually, Miss Addams, it’s Oakvale,” he corrected apologetically. “For myself, I don’t mind but Father is rather starchy about people getting it right.”
“As well he should be! It’s a lovely name,” Caroline responded, horrified by her mistake even as she caught Pierre’s gaze and found the corners of her lips twitching as a silent message of shared humor flashed between them. Her expression hardened, for she was angry with herself at even this small intimacy with a man she loathed. “Mr. Standish, I’ve just had a thought.”
“You have, Miss Addams? Might I convey my congratulations?” Pierre cut in, seemingly occupied with removing a spot of dust from his brilliantly shined boots. “I refuse further comment, as it would be beneath me.”
“Really?” Caroline retorted, obviously not believing him for a moment. “I would have thought you beneath nothing. To continue, sir; if you are not ready to return to the estate, Sir John can bear me company home.”
Pierre removed his foot from the l
og and took a firm grip on Caroline’s upper arm. “Much as I detest denying Sir John this opportunity to ingratiate himself with me by performing this kindness, I feel that, as your host, I must cut short my own pleasure and escort you safely back to the stables. My dear fellow, excuse me, but you do understand—don’t you, Oakvale?”
So pleased was Sir John that Pierre had deigned to use his correct name, he acquiesced immediately, causing Caroline’s upper lip to curl in disdain as he bowed once more over her hand and departed before Pierre could ruin the moment with another of his crushing remarks.
“And now, madam,” Pierre said softly as they watched Sir John ride away, his tone so mild that Caroline had no idea of what was to come, “if it isn’t an out-of-the-way demand, and putting momentarily to one side your heartless disregard for my groom as well as your kidnapping of Obtuse, do you think you could possibly explain your reasons for deliberately putting yourself in danger?”
CHAPTER NINE
“DANGER? WHAT DANGER are you talking about, Mr. Standish?” Caroline questioned hotly, immediately going on the offensive. “Oh, just a moment. Could it be? Is it possible? Surely you cannot be referring to the ‘shortsighted poacher’ in the garden? That man, whose presence you did not even choose to investigate by exerting yourself to the point of making an actual search for him, in the unlikely chance I may have been correct and the fellow was trying to kidnap or murder me? That man, whose presence in your garden, on your property, was so innocent that your father, who has set himself up as my guardian, has taken himself off to parts unknown, leaving a worthless dandy like you as my only protector? Please, please, good sir, enlighten this poor, confused lady. Is that the danger to which you are referring so obliquely?”
“That’s the way, Miss Addams. Be nasty,” Pierre urged reassuringly. “It’s good for the soul. Rage at me, and don’t forget a single insult. We, both dissolute father and reprobate son, have done just as you say. We have treated you as if you were naught but an infant, pooh-poohing your fears and not giving your story of the man in the garden the credit you are convinced it deserves.”
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