“I dare you,” she said provocatively.
His lips twitched as if he was suppressing laughter, and he relaxed. “You don’t believe I can do it. Confess now, you simply hope to watch me make a fool of myself.”
“On the contrary, I am perfectly certain that you can do it, but I also believe that it will teach you to have more respect for women who ride well, particularly for those of us who hunt.”
He looked intrigued. “Do I ride your horse, or do we attempt to put your sidesaddle on mine?”
“You ride mine,” she said, surprised but oddly pleased. “That way you can’t blame the horse if you do fail.”
“You misjudge me,” he said, dismounting. “I should never employ so paltry an excuse for my own failure.”
Chuckling, she waited until he had tossed his reins to the astonished groom, then allowed him to help her down. His hands at her waist were a minor distraction, his nearness a worse one, but she managed to ignore both and keep her mind on the lesson at hand. When he moved to the gelding, she said quickly, “Before you mount, there are certain things you should know.”
“Patience, my dear. I am merely going to adjust the leathers for my longer legs. That saddle,” he added, eyeing it askance, “is too big and too cluttered up with pommels and such.”
“You will get used to them, and you will be glad of its greater size. Are you ready?”
He looked back at the groom. “One word of this, my man, to anyone, and I will see you get turned off without a character.”
The groom grinned at him. “Do you require assistance to mount, my lord?”
“I do not. Speak your piece, worthy instructress.”
“Very well. There is nothing at all odd about mounting, but instead of beginning with your left hand on the pommel, as you are accustomed to do, you must use your right. Your reins and whip must be in your right hand, too,” she added.
Deverill gave her a speaking look. “My dear girl, I have no skirt to manage, and I am perfectly capable of climbing onto that saddle without the aid of a groom’s shoulder. It’s what I am to do after I get there that concerns me.”
She watched doubtfully, but he was right, and she envied him the ease with which he put his left foot in the stirrup and still managed to slip his right leg past it into the proper position to lift himself onto the saddle. He grimaced as he pressed his left knee into place, and she recalled that the leaping horn had been specially fitted to her much less muscular leg, but a moment later he was settled, looking only a little uncomfortable.
He called the groom to adjust the leathers again, and Daintry held the man’s horse and the gray while he did so. When she saw him hide a smile, she glared, and he sobered at once.
Even knowing Deverill to be highly skilled, she was astonished at how easily he managed the strange saddle and how quickly he found his balance. She had only to tell him to keep his left knee firmly in the angle between pommel and saddle flap, with his thigh and calf close to saddle and stirrup leather.
“Don’t just hook your right leg over the pommel, Deverill. Sit well back on the saddle with your shoulders square to the front and press down from hip to knee until your leg is as close to the saddle as possible. One rises from the right knee, so it is essential that the leg below the knee be held as firmly against the horse as the left one is.”
“This is not so easy as I thought,” he said, grimacing.
“You ought by rights to be wearing a skirt.”
The look he cast her that time sent a shiver up her spine, and she knew Susan had been right to say she would be unwise to anger him, but the look was gone in an instant. He said only, “I think not, thank you. How on earth do you ride with half your body facing one direction and the other half facing another?”
“Really, it is not so different from the way men ride. You are making far too much of having both feet on one side of the horse. One simply shifts one’s weight so that it is evenly distributed. That’s it exactly,” she added, when he made a minor adjustment in his position.
In what seemed to her to be only moments, he looked as if he had ridden sidesaddle all his life. First he walked the gelding in circles, then urged it to a trot, nearly unseating himself before he grew accustomed to rising from his right leg, but not long after that he was riding easily. He grinned at her.
A shout from the direction of the woods caught them both off guard, for so absorbed had they become in the lesson that the intruders were upon them before they saw them coming. Daintry turned, stifling a groan of dismay when she recognized her brother-in-law and Susan, Lady Catherine, Lord and Lady Jersey, Lord Alvanley, and her brother, Charles. Casting a glance back at Deverill, she saw that he was still grinning at her.
Seacourt, riding up first and reining in with a flourish, shouted, “What the devil are you doing here, my dear Daintry?”
“We went riding, Geoffrey, and Deverill decided to see what it was like to ride a sidesaddle, that’s all.”
“You ought not to be here alone with him,” Seacourt said, eyeing her with disapproval. “Your father will be most displeased to learn of this, will he not, Charles?”
“He will,” Charles said unhappily, not looking at Daintry.
“Only if someone is mean-spirited enough to tell him,” Daintry said. “I am not alone with him, after all. The groom has been with us every moment.” Remembering the brief period before the man had rejoined them at the stream, she salved her conscience with the fact that nothing had happened.
Lady Jersey, looking from one rider to another, said, “My goodness me, I do not think anyone here would carry tales even if there were any to carry, which in view of the groom’s presence, there cannot be. I daresay even the most finicking patroness of Almack’s would not look askance at a lady and a gentleman riding through an open field in the company of the lady’s groom. But pray, why are you riding Daintry’s horse, Deverill? I will most obligingly pretend not to see that sidesaddle.”
Seacourt laughed. “Well, I certainly will not be so obliging, for this tale is far too rich not to be repeated. What an ass you are, Deverill, to put yourself in such a ridiculous position, let alone to allow yourself to be found out.”
Deverill’s eyes glinted with that look of danger Daintry had come to recognize. “Ridiculous, is it? Have you ever tried to ride with a sidesaddle, Seacourt?”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I have never done such a ridiculous thing.”
“Then do not be so quick to condemn it. I’ll wager anything you like, within reason, that you cannot stay on one.”
“Good God, if a woman can stay on one, of course I can!”
“Would you care to put money on that statement?”
Seacourt laughed again. “I see how it is. You merely want someone else to look as ridiculous as you do.”
Lady Jersey’s tinkling laughter rang out. “Do you think it is truly so easy as all that, Sir Geoffrey? I am here to tell you, it is not. Is it, Susan?”
“Oh, I am certain Geoffrey could do it easily,” Susan said, smiling at her husband. “He is a very fine rider, you know.”
“Of course, he could,” Lady Catherine said, adding with a teasing look at Seacourt. “Geoffrey can ride anything.”
Sally laughed again. “As you say, my dear, but not on a sidesaddle. Alvanley, have you ever ridden on a sidesaddle?”
“Not on purpoth, Thally,” the plump little dandy lisped. “Not on purpoth. There wath one time when the thaddle thlipped. I believe the animal—or, no, it wath me—had had too much wine and failed to tighten the girth properly. But otherwithe, no, I have not. But I’d like to watch Theacourt attempt it.”
When the laughter had faded, Deverill said, “Well, Seacourt? I’ll wager a monkey that you cannot trot this horse twice round the field without either losing control of it or falling off.”
With the others urging him to take Deverill’s five hundred pounds, Seacourt, his face reddening, said, “Very well, I suppose I must show you all how easy it is. Good
God, my little daughter rides one of those things. How difficult can it be?”
Deverill jumped down and handed him the reins. When Daintry moved forward to tell Sir Geoffrey what he should do, Deverill said quietly, “He knows all about it, my dear. There can be no need to offer him assistance.”
Seacourt, hearing him, shot him a look of disdain. “What, take direction from a female? I should say I don’t need any such thing. Stand back, Daintry,” he added as he hoisted himself into the saddle. His attempt was not so smooth as Deverill’s, but he accomplished it easily enough, finding difficulty only when he tried to settle himself. The gelding fidgeted nervously, dancing and refusing to stand as quietly as it had with Deverill. Seacourt held onto the pommel, trying to get his knee around it, clearly finding the position an awkward one.
Lady Catherine said, “Hold the reins in both hands, Geoffrey, not one. “You will find it easier to sit properly.”
And Susan said, “Sit back a little farther, Geoffrey. You forget you are accustomed to a much smaller saddle.”
“I am doing perfectly well on my own, ladies, thank you,” he said, his tone grim.
Deverill glanced at Daintry, his amusement clear, and she held her tongue, waiting for the inevitable. Geoffrey deserved his fate. He still had not found his balance, for he was too far forward in the saddle just as Susan had said, and his weight was too much to the left. It was a common error, easily corrected, but if Geoffrey did not want correction, who was she to offer it?
He was using the stirrup to balance himself, a thing she was certain he would never do riding astride, and he managed to get the gelding to walk, then to trot, but he had not the least notion of how to rise, and the gait nearly unseated him. Reining the horse in, he tried again, not looking at anyone now, and ignoring the good advice Lady Jersey and the others offered him. When the gelding began to trot again, he sawed on the reins with his left hand and hit it with the whip in his right. Daintry cried out to him to use only the reins but it was too late. The gelding reared, and Seacourt, already off his balance with his left leg nowhere near the horn, tumbled over backwards and landed on the sandy grass with a thud that knocked the wind out of him.
The groom leapt to help him up, but Sir Geoffrey, still holding the reins and recovering quickly, snatched up the whip and moved purposefully toward the gelding.
Deverill intercepted him. “I think not,” he said calmly. “It was not any fault in the animal that caused you to fall.”
Seacourt looked at him angrily but did not argue. Thrusting the reins at him, he snapped, “I’ve no money on me now. You’ll have to wait.” Then, striding to his horse, he snatched the reins from Alvanley, mounted, and rode off at a gallop without waiting for the rest of his party.
Watching him jump the gate in the hedge surrounding the next field, Lady Jersey shook her head. “My goodness me, but men are sensitive. You must go after him, Susan dear, and soothe his lacerated feelings. The soft, comforting touch of a female, you know, can work wonders on the beasts. Only ask Jersey if that is not true.” She grinned saucily at her husband, then cried, “Come on, everyone! We will go tell Seacourt that Deverill was quite mistaken. The horse is clearly a brute.” And with a last tinkle of laughter, she rode after Seacourt, followed by her husband.
Susan had been staring at Deverill as if she were not certain what to make of him, but now, looking down at Daintry in disapproval, she said, “How could you let him do such a thing to poor Geoffrey? I am most displeased with you.” And on these words, she rode after the others.
Daintry turned to Lady Catherine, who had said nothing at all since Sir Geoffrey’s fall. “Are you angry with me, too?”
“Good heavens, no. Why should I be angry? Geoffrey will be in a pet, of course, but there are any number of others to talk to, and even to dance with. Geoffrey’s moods are nothing to me, I’m sure. Charles, Alvanley, shall we join the others or remain here to play propriety to these two?”
Alvanley, exchanging a look with Deverill, said, “We will go on, I think, Lady Catherine.”
Deverill said to the groom, “You ride on, too. Lady Daintry and I will follow soon enough, and since we are in plain view of the house, I think I can assure you I will do her no harm.”
The groom looked at Daintry, and though she wondered why Deverill was sending him away, she nodded, whereupon he handed the gray’s reins to Deverill, mounted his own horse, and rode off in the wake of the others.
Watching them go and not at all certain what to expect next, Daintry hesitated even to look at Deverill. Suddenly she felt vulnerable and isolated, as though she were being abandoned. At the same time, she was only too well aware of his presence. She thought that so strong was his personality and his intrinsic determination to dominate her that she would be aware of his nearness even if she had not known he was there.
“Will Seacourt try to make trouble for you?”
The gravity in his voice made her turn at last. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “He has never done so before.”
“He lives very near you, after all.”
“Yes, but he does not visit. Even Susan does not visit often. We see more of her in London than we do during the rest of the year. We invite them, of course, and although the distance by road from Seacourt Head is absurdly long, it is much shorter to ride around the bay, and I was used to visit them frequently. From some cause or other, the habit died, but as I told Susan, now that Charley and Melissa have become friends, I daresay we will visit more frequently. In any event, as you see, I doubt that Geoffrey will carry tales of me to my father.”
“He will not have to carry tales. Your brother saw as much as he did.” He moved nearer. He was standing right in front of her now, looking down at her.
“Charles won’t say anything,” she murmured, looking at the middle button of his waistcoat. She let her gaze drift upward past his broad shoulders and strong chin to his face. His jaw was taut. His lips were pressed together in a straight line, but as she watched, they softened. His nostrils flared. His eyes—
She saw his intent, but it was too late to stop him. Later she would ask herself, more than once, why she did not resist, but at that moment, caught in his strong embrace, it did not occur to her to do so. And when his lips touched hers, she dropped the reins she was holding, put her arms around his neck, and pressed her body against his, savoring the sensations that coursed through her, delighting in his taste, his strength, and the way his kisses sent hot flames rushing through her veins.
She was aware of his hands moving over her body, caressing her, pulling her closer, and she knew she ought not to allow such liberties, but she did not want to stop him. No other man had ever dared treat her to such a display of passion, not the men to whom she had been betrothed, or any other. Then, as if her body had taken command of her good sense, her lips suddenly parted beneath his, and she could feel him tasting her, exploring her mouth with his tongue. She had not known such sensations existed, had never suspected that a man might wish to learn what the inside of a woman’s mouth tasted like. But without giving the matter another thought, she pressed her tongue against his, teasing him, then pushing his tongue away so that she might thrust hers between his strong white teeth, to learn why—
Deverill set her back on her heels with a thud that jarred her entire spine, and looked down at her in consternation.
“Either you’ve had more experience than I thought, sweetheart, or I am the worst scoundrel unhung.” He drew a ragged breath. “Damn, I deserve to be flogged.”
Staring at him, paying little heed to his words, she wondered what on earth had possessed her to submit to his embrace in such a wanton manner, particularly when—not an hour before—she had declared herself more than a match for him. A lowering reflection, to be sure, since not only had she submitted, she had responded. But more lowering still was the undeniable awareness that she very much wanted him to do it again.
Eleven
GIDEON WAS SILENT ON the way back to the stabl
es, and he was glad that Daintry made no effort to draw him into conversation, for he needed to think. The guilt that had nearly overwhelmed him as a result of her instant response to his kisses was a new experience for him. Having had little to do with innocent young ladies in his years on the Continent, and accustomed as he was to casual flirtations with women who understood the rules of the game as well as he did, he had been completely unprepared to meet with such passion. He realized that he had begun to relax with her in the same way he had with his more experienced friends, and in his wish to prove he could overcome her independence, he had in fact taken base advantage of her innocence.
Escorting her back to the house, he kept up a flow of small talk, hoping to avoid any discussion of what had occurred until he had had time to sort out his feelings. She seemed to have withdrawn, and he was sorry for that. If he were any sort of a decent fellow, he would apologize for the whole and let her think he had simply let his detested male urges get the better of him. The problem was, he didn’t think it had much to do with basic urges. It had seemed so natural to kiss her, not a game at all. Lord knew, he had wanted to do it since the day Penthorpe showed him her miniature. But what kind of a fellow would he be to try to attach her interest before he had sorted out his own life?
The damned feud was the least of his worries. Before Jack’s death it might well have been a major impediment, but he could not believe that even St. Merryn would deny his daughter the opportunity to become a marchioness. Jervaulx would prove more of an obstacle if the feud were not laid to rest, but if worse came to worst he was of age and could do as he liked. Still, to offer for any young woman before he had come to terms with his place in the new order of things would be unfair, and in truth, he was not ready to put his belief that she cared for him to the test. He had seen enough of her to know that she would not let herself be led by any mere physical attraction to believe she was madly in love. She blew hot and cold, and he thought it would be far wiser to scout the territory ahead with care before he committed all his resources to an uncertain victory.
Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] Page 16