Letitia froze, a crazy, half-baked idea taking shape in her suddenly desperate mind.
“Sadly, I do not,” her mother was saying, and Letitia heard the clink of a china cup against a saucer. “But even though my family is one of mariners, we’re connoisseurs of fine bloodstock ourselves. I understand the need for reliable help, especially to oversee the development and care of something as priceless as one of your Norfolk Thoroughbreds.”
Letitia stood up.
She had two choices. On the one hand was Homer Trout, pale and insipid and with a conical brown mole on the side of his nose from which a hair the length of an eyelash sprouted, a hair that was as stiff and short as a bristle and which would make the act of kissing him an exercise in the personal grooming of her own skin. On the other hand was a Norfolk Thoroughbred colt who dined on people’s fingers.
If there was one thing Letitia knew her mother to be, it was determined.
Clever.
And as unswerving in her course as Nelson at Trafalgar.
She had to buy time. To do something, anything, to gain opportunity to decide how to address this newest and most shocking development. She needed to think, and Letitia Ponsonby did so best on the back of a horse.
I have to see this colt. I can slip out for an hour or so and Mama, who takes a nap in the afternoon, will never miss me.
If nothing else, a stiff bracing gallop and time spent admiring some of the finest horseflesh in the world would give her time to figure out how to address the matter of Homer Trout. To even beg off going to this house party, if it came down to it.
Resentment filled her. It wasn’t often that she got to visit with her childhood friends Jane, Winnie and Pru, but the knowledge that Homer Trout would be there changed everything. Now, it seemed like a trap where he waited, complete with mole and bristle. Now it seemed like the end of her freedom. She had to think fast if she wanted to out-think, outsmart, and outmaneuver her mother.
There was no time to lose.
She hurried back to her rooms and there found her maid, Beryl, laying out her clothes for the evening meal.
“Beryl, I am going riding in order to clear my head before dinner. Please lay out the breeches I wear under my riding habit, and find me a plain shirt and a boy’s waistcoat. A coat, too, as it is cold.”
“M’ lady?” the maid asked, eyes widening.
Letitia smiled and laid a reassuring hand on the maid’s shoulders. “I intend to sneak out for only an hour or two, but I have to do it in disguise. I have no chaperone as you don’t ride, and Mama would never approve of my going out riding alone. It will cause talk. So find me the clothes of a boy.”
“Beggin’ y’r pardon, m’ lady, but Oi think that’s flirtin’ with danger.”
“It is only dangerous if I get caught. I don’t intend to get caught, only to go look at a horse at a nearby farm and come right back. No one will be the wiser. It is all perfectly safe, I can assure you.”
“Ooh, Oi don’t loike the sound of this, Oi don’t.”
“As far as anyone else is concerned, you know nothing about it. Now be a dear, Beryl, and do find me some appropriate clothes.”
Chapter 2
God and the devil below, he hated Christmas.
Hated the damp winter days, one after another lasting from November all the way into late March, maybe even April, each one full of mist and dull gray clouds that hung so low to earth that one forgot that blue sky existed somewhere above. Raw, bone-chilling cold off the North Sea and rising damp in an ancestral home with which he was struggling to keep up the repairs. Winter, of course, with its drearily short days and expectations of being “happy” in the Christmas season, was not, and never would be, his favorite time of year. The cold and damp aside, the reality that all work stopped so that everyone could celebrate the season and be idle when he had no time to be idle, only served to remind him with relentless persistence that it wasn’t just a season of cold.
It was a season of loneliness and regret.
He was still unmarried. He had given his beautiful sister Ariadne away to her naval captain-turned-veterinarian two years past, and they were enjoying their growing family and the sight of Norfolk Thoroughbreds cavorting through pastures of thick winter mud. They knew cozy fires and the laughter of children and the pleasure of their own company on a cold winter night, and Tristan St. Aubyn, the Earl of Weybourne, was happy for them.
“Why don’t you join us for Christmas this year, Tristan?” Ari had asked, riding over to visit him a fortnight past.
He had pretended to consider, though the joy and happiness of his sister’s family only served to highlight all that he had done wrong, all that he was missing, in his own life. Someone to warm his bed at night, someone with whom to enjoy his life’s passions, someone to laugh with, cry with, dream with, love with. But he had not found anyone who shared his passions, whose eyes lit up when he talked horses and the continuation of his father’s legacy—the Norfolk Thoroughbred, the fastest horses in the world. Most of the herd that his father had spent a lifetime developing had been lost with the exception of a single stallion, Shareb-er-rehh, and the beautiful mare Gazella. Tristan had made it his own life’s work to pick up where his father had left off. That left no time for London Seasons or courting. Besides, most women he’d ever met didn’t want to talk about horses; they wanted to gossip, discuss fashion, and pretend to be simpering, swooning, delicate little flowers. Perhaps some were but most, Tristan had long since decided, were not delicate flowers at all, but thorn bushes; tougher than they looked, ruthless, and all too willing to cause harm.
He didn’t have time to seek a wife, anyhow.
And even if he did, he didn’t have time to devote to her, didn’t have time to get off this relentless, ever-churning wheel that was business ventures and stocks and evaluating bloodstock and working, working, working, to restore all that he, in the recklessness of his youth, had squandered.
Not even for Christmas.
His father, kind but distant, and putting his horses before his own two children for as long as Tristan could remember, had died three years past, but not before he’d learned of the terrible trouble that his only son and heir had managed to get himself into. Eager for a father figure and full of the enthusiasm and invincibility of youth, Tristan had fallen under the influence of an unscrupulous villain who had stolen from him, blackmailed him, and threatened the lives of those he loved. The whole affair had left him deeply ashamed of his terrible judgment, and all but destitute. In the years since, he had worked long and hard to rebuild his fortunes—and a reputation and legacy of his own of which his father would be proud.
Work, work, work. Really, he had no time to even be thinking about Christmas and what other people were doing. What he might be doing if he didn’t have so much to atone for, if even to himself.
The surviving Norfolk Thoroughbreds were his inheritance, not just his work, though in many senses they were both. The stallion Shareb-er-rehh was Ariadne’s horse through and through, though it was to Tristan that he’d been bequeathed and rightfully belonged. But Shareb’s yearling son was here now, and he looked to be as nice if not better in conformation, drive, and sheer talent than his legendary sire.
Unfortunately, he had not inherited Shareb’s kind disposition.
Tristan drummed his fingers against the table, thinking. Too bad Amir’s last groom had become fed up with the colt’s surly, dangerous temperament and left. Now he had to put out a search for a new one.
Oh, there were plenty of grooms to be had, but for the princely, temperamental heir of Shareb-er-rehh? It would have to be someone special. Brave. Gifted, even. Tristan considered elevating one of the junior grooms, but the colt was a nasty piece of work and he didn’t want to subject anyone else’s fingers—or other unwary body parts—to his unpredictable temper.
Besides, not a groom in the stable would go near the colt.
And now this letter that had just come to him from Leeds in Kent and his old
friend Stephen Pemberly, whose father, the Earl of Weston, was away on the Continent:
My dear Weybourne,
I hope these few words find you hale and hearty, and coping well in these endlessly dreary days of winter. Mama and three of her friends have got it into their silly heads to have a Christmastide house party here at Rivercrest Hall, and I have been tasked to invite a couple of young, eligible bachelors in order to “make numbers,” though I rather suspect she has a plan afoot to hogtie any and all of us to the young ladies who will also be in attendance. Got to make Mama happy, you know. I realise you’re a busy man, but even God took some time off when He created the world, and perhaps you should, too. In any case, I picked up a fine new broodmare at Tattersall’s and would like you to see her before we discuss my possibly breeding her to your Shareb-er-rehh. I also have some decisions to make about my own bloodstock, and beg the benefit of your advice and experience. Wine, women and horses...come to Rivercrest, Tristan. ’Twill do you good.”
— Stephen
Tristan sighed and leaned on his elbow, chin propped in his hand as he stared out the leaded glass windows of the library into a day as gray as the flesh of a dead fish.
Christmas here in Burnham Thorpe, most of the servants off with their own families, and only his horses, his business affairs and ventures and, if he were honest with himself, his loneliness to keep him company.
Or Christmas in Kent, with good old Stephen and a few silly young ladies who would be amusing and entertaining, even if he had no intention of marrying anyone until he had amassed a fortune equal to the amount he had squandered in his days of dissolution.
I don’t have time to go to Kent.
There was too much here to be done. A proposal from a local landowner sitting on his desk waiting to be read. A tenant dispute down in the village that required his intervention. The damnable Amir, who needed a new groom.
I picked up a fine new broodmare at Tattersall’s...would like you to see her...beg the benefit of your advice and experience.
Lord Weybourne sighed and rose to his feet. Going to Kent wouldn’t be a slide into idleness after all. It would be talk of horses. The evaluation of horses. Work, after all.
Justified, if not excused.
He penned a reply, left the library and accepting the coat his valet held up for him, headed out to the stables.
* * *
It had been raining, of course.
The damp had seeped into the Norfolk soil to make a thick, sucking mud that claimed his boots up to the ankles. It was a miserable day, raw and damp just like the one before it, just like the one that would follow, the wind off the sea knifing into his bones and making him wish he’d added a layer of heavy wool beneath his greatcoat. Overhead, low clouds obscured any blue the sky might have offered, massing and swirling and lumbering out to sea.
Too bad they didn’t take the damn rain with them.
He entered the stable and found the place in commotion.
“Now see here, laddie,” said Mick, who had appointed himself in charge following Johnson’s defection. The little Irishman had a shock of ginger hair long since thinned and going to gray, and freckles so thick across his sharp, clever face that a frog could have jumped them like lily pads. Mick wasn’t a tall fellow, but he made the young lad standing next to him seem positively tiny.
“Now see here, what?” the young lad asked in a small voice. “I only wanted to see this colt I’ve ’eard so much about. The Norfolk Thoroughbreds are famous throughout England, they are.”
“Famous or not, this is the private stable of the Earl of Weybourne. Ye can’t come walkin’ in here without invitation, ye can’t! His Lordship owns some of the finest horseflesh in all of England, and these here are the fastest horses in the world. They’re more valuable than every jewel in the king’s crown, they are, and not just anybody can come in here and have a look at ’em, especially without invitation!”
Tristan had come up behind him, and sensing the master’s shadow, Mick stiffened and turned. “Your Lordship!”
“What is the problem here, Mick?”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, m’ lord,” the Irishman said, passing a frosty glare to the young lad who stood in the shadows nearby, “but I caught this little urchin here wanderin’ the stables and lookin’ at the horses. Asked him to state his business and he won’t. I was just about to throw him out on his ear when you arrived.”
Tristan straightened a bridle that was hung haphazardly on a peg. He leaned against the door of an empty box stall and eyed the young lad.
“What is your name?”
“Ledyard, m’ lord.”
“Is that your Christian or surname?”
“Either. Both. Only one I have.”
“What the deuce kind of a name is that?”
The boy blushed beneath his oversized cap. “’Tis the name I was given, m’ lord.”
“Why did you come into our stable uninvited? This is highly irregular.”
The boy hung his head and kicked at some loose straw at his feet. “I just wanted t’ see the horses, m’ lord. I love horses, I do. My mistress was passin’ through the area and I thought I’d take the opportunity to see a Norfolk Thoroughbred in the flesh.” The kicking grew more agitated. “I never meant t’ cause trouble. Just wanted to see the horses.”
Tristan pursed his lips, thinking. There was something not quite right here, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Either way, the lad seemed harmless enough, and he knew plenty of horse-crazy youths. He’d been one himself. If the boy wanted to see a Norfolk Thoroughbred, what harm was there in granting him his wish and then sending him on his way?
“Very well, then, Ledyard,” he said. “Come with me.”
He glanced again at the young lad, his eyes narrowing, and began to walk toward Amir’s stall.
“I’m in need of a groom, you know,” he said offhandedly. Calculatingly. “You know how to rub down a horse, make a bran mash, bed down a stall?”
“I can do all that and then some.”
“Can you ride?”
“Like the wind, m’ lord.”
“And are you afraid of young, nippy horses, the likes of which sent my last groom packing?”
“I’m not afraid of any horses, m’ lord. Young ones, old ones, and everything in between ... none of ’em scare me.”
Tristan stood eyeing the lad, his intense gray eyes narrowing in a sudden realization of just what had been niggling at him since he’d first spied Mick giving him a proper drubbing. Of course. But he would keep his suspicions to himself and let this game go where it may. The “lad” was no lad at all but a young lady, and judging by the fine bone structure and high cheekbones of her face, a very pretty one at that. But why on earth was she in disguise and what was she up to?
He’d find out. But for now, he’d play along with her little charade.
In Norfolk, in the dead of winter under an endless sky of damp gray cloud, there was little else to entertain a man anyhow.
He beckoned to Mick, who was sulking outside of the colt’s stall.
“Let young Ledyard have a go with Amir,” he said cheerfully, and turning his back, headed for the door to give them both a little space.
Chapter 3
Dear God, what have I got myself into?
Letitia watched the Earl of Weybourne turn and walk away, feeling as though the very air had been sucked out of the space around her. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? Why did it feel as though someone was standing on her chest, and good Lord above, what had caused her skin to come alive with prickly sensation, her mouth to go dry and her palms to become suddenly damp? She felt breathless, hot, shivery, and warm in places she didn’t know she had. Oh, heaven help her, he was a handsome one, the earl. The kind of man a young lady noticed.
Where have you been during my London Seasons, Lord Weybourne? Hidden up here in Burnham Thorpe?
She’d spent her life in Lincolnshire and her Seasons in London, and while he’d never
graced a Season with his presence, she’d heard the rumors about him. Rumors that he was obsessed with his estate, making it run, breeding the horses that were his father’s legacy. Not quite a recluse, but a man too busy and distracted to take a wife, to make himself available in Society, to meet and mingle with ladies on the marriage mart.
Stop thinking about Lord Weybourne and start thinking about the predicament in which you’ve found yourself!
Yes, she was in trouble, deep trouble this time, because this little venture to take a look at the son of the famous Shareb-er-rehh while giving herself time to think her way out of the Homer Trout Situation had landed her in yet another mess that she’d have to find a way out of. She ought to just bolt right here and now while she had the chance—before Beryl lost her nerve and went to Mama, before anyone back at Lady Ariadne’s noticed her absence, before Lord Weybourne realized she was no lad and certainly not interested in joining his employ.
Oh, what a pickle she had got herself into this time!
“Want t’ be a groom, do ye? Then go change out the water buckets and start earnin’ yer keep,” the abrasive Mick was muttering. He shoved a pail at her. “Ye can begin with Amir.”
But Letitia was still watching Lord Weybourne retreating down the aisle, the broad shoulders clad in form-fitting dark gray wool, the breeches white as a dove’s plumage, the shiny leather boots emphasizing the length of His Lordship’s strong, muscled legs.
She felt a little flutter at the base of her sternum and wondered if her heart was jumping rope with itself.
“Did ye hear me, lad? I said t’ start with Amir.”
“Amir?”
“A-meer,” he corrected, when her tongue tripped over the name. “Means ‘prince’ in Arabic. That little bugger is the spare to the heir, so t’ speak. The Norfolk Thoroughbreds are the fastest horses in the world, and this ’un’s sire, Shareb-er-rehh, was the last o’ the old earl’s stallions. Sired another colt two years ago an’ that one’s got a disposition as kind as a summer day in Cork, but this one, oh, don’t get me started. A throwback to that wretched desert blood, he is. Going t’ kill someone if they’re not careful. C’mon, hurry up, ’tisn’t all day I have t’ wait for ye. The well’s outside, just beyond that door.”
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