“Call it intuition,” she bit out.
“I think it more a case of hubris. You couldn’t match me.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It is a fact, madam.”
She snorted. “A fact, is it? How interesting. So you would say unequivocally that you could precede me from here to the brewery.”
He considered the stretch of lane before them. “Quarter mile up the lane, good road, decent cattle, yes. I daresay I could.”
“Care to wager on it?”
His eyes swung from the lane to her face, startled by her question. “I beg your pardon?”
She pointed her crop at his face. “You say that a lot, you know. You heard what I said. Care to make a wager?”
Wesley, who had thus far remained silent, trailing behind Astrid to attract as little notice as possible, spurred his mount to come abreast of them. He looked nervously from one to the other. “Now Astrid,” he began, sounding condescending and fearful at once, “surely you’re jesting…”
“I am not. I wager I can outrace His Grace.”
Wesley turned to the Duke pleadingly. “Your Grace, you understand, of course, that she’s not serious.”
The Duke gifted Wesley with his driest look. “Ah, Mr. Honeywell, but she is.”
“I am,” she seconded, reining in her horse and fixing a challenging eye on the Duke.
Montford stopped Cyril and turned to her, forcing Wesley to do the same. He studied her with an intensity that made her want to squirm.
Now that the challenge was issued, she wished she could take it back. He had goaded her into it, and though she was confident of her ability to beat him astride, she was on a damned sidesaddle. And the way he handled Cyril gave her pause. The normally high-spirited gelding followed the Duke’s direction with uncommon meekness. Montford was clearly a strong rider.
He must have seen some chink in her bravado, for his mouth curled up into a half-smile. “What are your terms?” he asked.
Wesley guffawed loudly. “Your Grace! Astrid! You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, I am,” Astrid ground out, her heart sinking in her chest.
“So am I. Quite serious. Terms, madam.”
“We shall race from that stand of beech trees over there to the brewery. Wes – Anthony shall ride down first and mark off the finish. He shall judge the winner.”
“I shall?”
“You shall. Go on, brother. We’ll give you five minutes.”
Wesley looked from her to the Duke and back again with growing incredulity. “Astrid. Be reasonable!”
She groaned. “I hate it when you use that tone with me.”
“I suggest you do as she says,” the Duke drawled. “She is determined to be bested by me.”
“Astrid!”
Astrid reached forward and swatted her crop at Wesley. He just managed to avoid being thwacked. After one last-ditch effort at changing her mind, he took off down the lane, throwing anxious looks over his shoulder as he went.
Astrid bit her bottom lip and watched her cousin go reluctantly to his task.
She was an idiot. An impulsive, reckless idiot, who had once more, in the space of ten minutes in his company, allowed the Duke to prod her into some foolish endeavor. She had vowed to try and be more demure after Alice’s set-down, but that had not lasted above a half-hour. She’d allowed a peer of the realm reach up her skirts after all.
“Shall I give you a handicap, madam?” the Duke drawled when they were alone.
She needed more than a handicap. She needed a miracle. She’d be lucky to keep her seat for the duration of the race. But she snorted derisively at his offer. She’d rather eat glass than let him see how tentative she was. “You’ll need the handicap, Montford,” she said with utmost pomposity.
Montford looked amused in that remote, patronizing way of his that made her gnash her teeth. She’d rather he lost his temper, as he had done yesterday. She wanted to bait him, not amuse him.
“We haven’t discussed the wager,” he continued, studying the course, allowing Cyril to dance forward a little. “Perhaps we should make it … interesting.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but she seized upon the idea as she might have done to the hull of a sinking ship. “Yes. How right you are. When I win…”
“When you win?” he snorted.
“When I win, you return to London and leave me to manage Rylestone as I see fit.”
He shot her an exasperated look. “You are like a dog with a bone, Miss Honeywell.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t know why you should, as it wasn’t,” he muttered.
“So do you accept my wager?”
He sighed and turned his attention back down the lane. “Do you think that’s what is best, Miss Honeywell? For me to leave here and for things to continue as they were?”
She was taken aback by his sudden gravity. “We were managing quite well before you came.”
“Were you indeed?” he murmured in a doubtful tone.
Astrid bristled. “This is hardly the time or place for such a monumental discussion. However, now that you brought it up, I’d have to say that yes, Rylestone Green is flourishing. I admit the management is a tad…”
“Irregular?” he suggested drily. “Unlawful?”
She would not pick a fight with him. “Irregular. But the system works.”
“For everyone, it seems, but you. And me, but I suppose I, the property owner, am irrelevant in your utopic vision.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He twisted in his saddle and gestured with his crop back towards the castle. “The towers, madam. They’re crooked!” he cried, as if that explained everything. “You haven’t the funds to fix them because you insist on pouring them back into the estate and giving the tenants outrageous salaries. I have deciphered the books, madam, and am on to you. The castle is rotting, you can’t support a proper staff. God knows how you have managed to keep these mounts. I suspect your field hands live better than you do.”
“We muddle through just fine, thank you,” she said, sticking her nose in the air.
“Muddle through. Bloody Jacobin nonsense, is what it is. And look how well that turned out for the French.”
“This is not France, sir.”
He just rolled his eyes and fastened that intense gaze on her once more.
“What of your family? Do they agree that you were muddling through just fine?”
If he had a cudgel in his hands and applied it to her gut, he couldn’t have landed a more direct hit. “My family is none of your business,” she bit out.
“Maybe not. But it is clear they are far from happy.”
“Happy! What right have you to speak of my family’s happiness?” she exploded. “What would you know of happiness, anyway? You wouldn’t know what happiness was if it hit you on the head and called you by name.”
His expression hardened a little more with every word she spoke. Then when she was done, he was silent a long time, staring away from her into the distance, his eyes remote and cold. “You are doubtless right,” he said at last in a brittle tone that made something dislodge in her heart and stick in her throat.
Was that guilt she felt? “Oh, for the love of …” she groaned. “Are we going to race or not?”
He looked at her then, and the stiff set of his jaw eased a little. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“So you accept my wager?”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I can’t believe I am agreeing to this nonsense. But yes, I accept your wager, since I am going to win anyway.”
“Oh, are you now?”
“Of course. And since your stake is quite high, I suppose mine shall have to match it. What shall it be, I wonder?”
Astrid had not thought this far into her scheme, and her palms immediately began to sweat. Oh, hell! What deviltry was he going to ask for? She shouldn’t have made the wager at all.
Stupid, s
tupid girl!
He could win and make her give up everything.
Which he was doubtless going to do anyway.
But still.
Still …
Who was she fooling? Not the Duke. Certainly not herself, not any longer.
Astrid had not felt so hopeless as she did in that moment, and she had no one to blame for it but herself. She had talked herself into this untenable position, dug her own grave. Now there was nothing for it but to lie down in it and watch Montford shovel dirt over her.
She tilted her chin upwards at a defiant angle and clutched her reins, preparing for the worst.
“I think when I win, I should like to have Cyril as a prize,” he said.
She gaped at him, totally thrown by his wager. “You want my horse?”
“I do.”
It could have been a whole lot worse. She told herself this, but somehow it didn’t make it easier to stomach. She loved Cyril as much as Princess Buttercup. She’d been present at both of their foalings and had helped train them. She almost wished he had wanted something to do with the estate. At least then she’d have a clear idea of what to expect from him.
But her horse! “Why would you want him?”
“It should amuse me to have him. And I think it would make you very angry to know that I did. And that, madam, should make me quite happy.”
She continued to gape. “You are truly awful, Montford.”
He smiled cynically. “You bring out the worst in me, Miss Honeywell. Shall we get this over with?”
“By all means!”
They brought up their mounts to the line of beech trees. He allowed her to count down, which she did, with growing anticipation and dread. Perhaps she would win, she thought when she called out “Five!” At four, she thought perhaps the best she could hope for was to not break her neck. When she arrived at three, the troubling image of herself lying in a ditch with a broken neck put her former theory in doubt. But when she called out two, she imagined Montford’s form lying broken in a ditch in her stead, which raised her spirits immensely. Finally, at one, she imagined the look on Montford’s face in the event of her victory, and she vowed then and there to give the race her all.
She spurred Princess Buttercup forward with all the enthusiasm she could muster.
She realized after about three seconds that Montford had not followed. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw him lounging in his saddle. He lifted his hat brim in acknowledgement of her concern and slowly whipped Cyril into a gallop.
Astrid turned back to the road and spurred on Buttercup even harder, a sound that was half scream, half oath, escaping her throat. He’d held back on purpose, giving her a handicap she hadn’t asked for. Just to prove a point.
The point being that he was the most odious, contemptible man she’d ever met.
Well, damn his eyes, she’d take his bloody handicap, and she’d win the bloody race, and she’d have no qualms about insisting upon her prize.
Montford out of her life forever.
Though he’d done a fine job of taking the wind out of her sails. Victory in such a manner was no victory at all, in her opinion, and he knew this. He’d held back precisely because he knew it would drive her insane.
And just when she thought she couldn’t get any angrier, she heard Montford coming up on her heels. She tried to press Princess Buttercup into a longer leg, but the mare was having none of it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Montford and Cyril drawing abreast, and she heard Montford’s cynical laughter floating to her ears over the din of horse hooves and autumn wind. The quarter mile was quickly covered, and already she could see around the bend in the road to the brewery, where Wesley waited along the edge of the lane with a couple of curious fieldhands. Montford soon pulled ahead of her, sitting Cyril as if he was hardly working for it at all, which infuriated her even more.
She was going to lose.
Montford and Cyril sprinted ahead so that not one, not two, but three lengths separated them. And there was not a chance in hell she could make up the distance. She would have done anything in that moment to be spared from the smug look of victory Montford was sure to bestow upon her.
Or at least she thought she would have done anything, or wished him a thousand ill turns, until she actually got her wish.
The noise came from the left, somewhere from the dense stretch of ancient forest that composed the northern reaches of Rylestone. Astrid reined in Buttercup immediately, sensing danger, the race forgotten. Having been raised among hunters, she recognized the sharp tattoo of a rifle splitting the air. She followed the sound and saw through the foliage the rise of smoke from the blast about fifty paces deep in the wood. She saw the flash of a green hunting coat, the gleam of the gun, and a figure retreating into the shadows.
Then her attention was pulled away to the result of the gunshot, still echoing around them. She wasn’t sure who was hit: Montford or Cyril. It was difficult to tell whether Montford jerked on the reins or Cyril lost his footing, but whatever the cause, both horse and rider went careening off the lane to the right, down the side of a small embankment. Cyril whinnied in agony and Montford was ominously silent as they tumbled together down the slope out of sight.
Then everything went quiet, the sound of the gunshot fading.
Astrid’s heart stopped.
Then she heard someone screaming in terror. She thought at first it was Montford or Wesley or one of the field workers who were heading towards the direction of the Duke. But then she realized she was the one who was screaming.
She came to her senses long enough to urge Buttercup into a sprint. She reached the top of the embankment the same time as Wesley and jumped to the ground, praying that she found some life below them.
She saw Cyril on his side, something black and wet coating his neck. He was as still as death, and Astrid’s eyes pricked with tears at the sight.
“No, no!”
She raced down the hill towards the horse, and that was when she caught sight of Montford, who had been thrown from the roan at least fifteen feet, lying limply on his back in a stand of elderberry bushes, his jacket torn open, his shirt and cravat stained blood-red.
Astrid’s legs nearly gave way beneath her as she turned away from Cyril and rushed to Montford’s side. She knelt beside him and peered down at his face, afraid to touch him.
He was the color of old ashes, and there was a cut above his temple from his landing. But she wasn’t worried about that so much as the blood on his chest.
Oh, God, he’s been shot! she thought bleakly.
He looked dead. And when she finally plucked up the courage to touch him, she lifted his wrist, and it fell down to the ground like a limp noodle.
Her heart cried out in despair. He couldn’t die. He was a horrible man, she hated him, but she did not truly want him to die.
“Montford! You idiot, you can’t die,” she hissed, touching his face, wiping away the blood. He felt very cold. She bent her head towards his lips and felt a faint, weak breath against her cheek.
Her heart sighed in relief. He wasn’t dead.
Yet.
“Montford! Come on, Montford, wake up.” She patted his cheek, then shook his shoulders, and when she got no response, she began to take off his cravat and unbutton his waistcoat, searching for the wound. She felt his shoulders, his chest, for a point of entry. There was a great deal of blood on him, but she couldn’t determine where it was coming from.
“Bloody fop. Wearing more clothes than I am,” she mumbled between sobs.
She folded back his clothes to his thin cotton lawn-shirt, also soaked in blood, and began unbuttoning it as well. Her fingers trembled from fear and something else not entirely commendable. She refused to acknowledge any desire to see his naked flesh in such a time of crisis, but she would have had to be inhuman not to appreciate the fine, hard swell of male torso beneath her fingers.
Really, did he have to be attractive even while he was dying
?
Then a hand shot out, imprisoning her wrist in a hard grip. She shrieked.
“Finishing me off, are you?” drawled a voice.
Montford sat up, pushing her away, scowling. His face had regained some of its color. He looked disoriented and very, very disgruntled. He released her wrist and began to climb to his feet. This took some concentration on his part, but he refused her aid.
She stood up and put her hands on her hips with some exasperation. “Montford, you’re injured.”
He touched his temple as if it pained him and shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not!” she cried. “You’ve been shot!” She pointed towards his torso.
He looked astounded by this pronouncement and began to pat his body. Then he glanced down, which was clearly a mistake. His face lost all of its color again when he saw the blood, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell back to the ground in a dead faint.
MONTFORD CAME back to his senses to find Miss Honeywell’s head spinning around him. Her corkscrew hair was sticking out at odd angles from her cap, and her mismatched eyes were gleaming with tears. At first her head was above him, then below him, then to the right and then the left. Dust smudged her nose, and streaks of blood covered one cheek. He nearly fainted again at the sight.
She was injured, he thought with alarm.
Then he remembered everything. The sound of the rifle. Cyril faltering beneath him. A long, seemingly endless flight through the air. Then darkness. And blood. Buckets of blood covering him.
He squeezed his eyes shut as other memories came to him. Painful memories he’d thought long-since buried, of another time and place when blood had covered him. His blood, his parents’ blood, running around him like a river. For ages it had been on him, sweetly acrid, metallic, drying so that it was black and his clothes were stiff with it. He remembered reaching out to a woman – his mother – trying to wipe the blood from her eyes, which had stared up at him without seeing him. He’d tried to make her wake up, even though he wondered how she could sleep with her eyes open like that. But she hadn’t awakened, even when he had cried for her to do so. He’d cried and cried, and she’d done nothing but look at him with those strange eyes.
The Duke's Holiday (The Regency Romp Trilogy) Page 14