“We should wait for word from Nick that he’s on his way,” Quent said, yanking on his waistcoat. “We can find the animals and take them to Wyckerly for you. Taking a carriage to the docks is foolish, Bell. Let me ride down with my men.”
Bell pinned her hat to her hair and yanked on her spencer. Giving him a steely look, and picking up her gloves, she merely replied, “I’ll send Butler to hire a carriage for me. You do as you like.”
She didn’t expect him to understand that she was holding herself together with pins and string. She didn’t precisely understand it herself. All these years, she’d told herself that a horse was a horse, a beast of burden, and she ought to be missing her father more.
She was pretty certain now that she’d been lying to herself. Her father hadn’t been there to comfort her when she cried. Dream had. Her father hadn’t provided the prizes to feed her sisters. Dream had.
Taking her sisters away had ripped out her heart. Taking Dream had seared the wound and made it certain that she’d never love anything again. Abandoning Dream when the mare needed her . . . wasn’t worth thinking about.
She was not her father. She could not desert her family as he had done. And family included her horses.
Behind her, Quent struggled with his boots. Bell drifted down the staircase, looking for Butler.
He was oddly unable to be found. The buffet had been set as usual, so he had to be about. Bell caught a maid carrying in a platter of sausage and asked her to send Butler up. The maid curtsied and ran down to the kitchen.
Butler still didn’t appear.
Fretting, Bell was about to pull on her gloves and find a carriage on her own, when Quent clattered down, still unshaven but ready to ride. He grabbed a cup and poured coffee, swallowing the steaming liquid in a few gulps that made Bell wince.
“You win,” he said. “I’ve sent Butler for a carriage. We’ll stuff Hiram in it with you, and we can let him go once we find the horses.”
Bell stared at him in shock. “You sent Butler for a carriage?”
“Naturally. I sent for him the instant you made your preference clear. Are you going to eat any of this food or are we heading out now?” He grabbed a piece of toast and folded it around a handful of bacon.
“Naturally?” she asked dangerously. “What do you mean, naturally? Butler is still my servant, is he not?”
Quent raised the slash of his dark eyebrows and finished chewing before replying. “He’ll soon be our servant, unless you want to bring my people over here. Sharing is what marriage is really about, dear heart, not who spends funds on what.” He looked up as Butler arrived in the doorway. “All set?”
The taciturn servant bowed respectfully. Quent grabbed her arm and dragged Bell toward the door, unaware that he was within an inch of being stabbed by the knife Bell snatched from the sideboard.
“You do not know who you are dealing with, dear heart,” she muttered.
“I’m very afraid that I do,” he retorted. “But that’s not stopping me now. Let’s test our mettle by stealing stolen horses, shall we?”
***
Quent was almost reassured that Bell had grabbed a knife as they left the breakfast room. It was a nice sharp meat knife and should intimidate Hiram nicely if he developed any ideas of escaping once they let him out of the stall.
Not that Hiram seemed in any hurry to run. Their prisoner had been bribed with a healthy purse, given good food and ale, luxurious blankets, and a roof that didn’t leak, even if he had been in a locked stable. Quent had arranged for servants to deliver warm water and clean linen so the man almost looked respectable when he climbed up on the driver’s seat. Quent lashed Hiram’s fists behind his back and tied him to a rail, but it was an open carriage. Bell could still hear him if he cursed.
Since he’d left his horse back in Essex, Quent had asked for a loan from the Duke of Fortham’s stable. Lady Anne, the duke’s daughter, kept a formidable array of animals and grooms and had gladly loaned him what he needed. It had been all Quent could do to persuade Anne to stay home and not come rescuing horses with them. The duke would remove his head if Quent had taken his only child down to the docks.
Trailing a train of rough grooms, Quent rode beside Bell’s carriage. He tried to ignore her furiously stiff posture as they progressed past farm carts entering the city to sell their wares and servants hurrying to market. At this hour, most of Mayfair’s fashionable residents were sleeping. Quent hoped her ire would disperse once she had her horse in hand.
The fishermen and sailors on the dock were up and about as the strange progression of grooms and carriage wended its way down the cobblestones. Rude whistles and calls followed Bell, and Quent had to grit his teeth. Bell seemed impervious.
She had raced horses—as an innocent young girl, riding astride, surrounded by drunken gamblers. Quent still had a hard time grasping that the Virgin Widow standing on a pedestal well above the rest of London could be that reckless girl. But he’d seen glimpses of the hellion lately. He had to adjust his mind to the notion that he wasn’t wedding a lady who would sit properly in her parlor where he put her.
At this point, he was so far gone that he might even adjust to the thought of Bell wearing men’s breeches. But he was a selfish, primitive male. Letting other men see her magnificent limbs was a different matter entirely.
As they drew closer to the warehouses and animal pens, Quent leaned from his horse to consult with Hiram and confirm their destination. Quent kept his hand on the pistol hidden beneath his coat while he scanned their surroundings. He wanted anyone watching to know they were armed. He simply didn’t want Bell to see it. Foolish of him, probably, since she was the one carrying a knife and hiring armed footmen.
At a nod from Hiram confirming that they’d arrived at the proper location, Quent directed his men to surround a paddock filled with horses to be sold at market. The stench of dung was so thick, it was hard to breathe. Quent cast an anxious glance to Bell’s ramrod straight figure on the carriage seat before sidling his horse up to the side.
“This the place,” Hiram said. “They buy up all the sad cattle in Ireland and haul them here, where the wealth is. Dream’s get should fetch more than we got paid for ’em.”
“You mean the horses have already been sold?” Quent asked in shock, not looking at Bell for fear he’d lose his temper.
“We couldn’t pay to transport them now, could we?” Hiram asked indignantly. “And the doc was refusing to physic Jim unless we paid his bill, so we needed the ready.”
“And you thought you’d sell Dream and grab your money before I claimed what was rightfully mine,” Bell added with dangerous sweetness.
Quent held up a cautioning hand to her.
Hiram just glared. “They’re there. Just go buy ’em back. You got enough blunt to buy the lot.”
Quent dismounted hurriedly, catching Bell before she could climb down on her own. “We’ll find them,” he reassured her, swinging her down from the carriage. “And if we don’t, we’ll hang Hiram, how’s that?”
“Not good enough,” she muttered, stalking toward the nearest building, leaving Hiram volubly protesting that he wasn’t a thief.
***
Quent hunted down the man in charge of the paddocks, but as Bell had feared, the records were incomplete and on the verge of illiterate. One did not deal in undocumented Thoroughbreds without blurring a lot of lines. Stalking out of the grubby office, Bell returned to the paddocks.
Heart in her throat, she climbed up on the rail to better see the animals milling in the filthy pens. The odor of horses and manure, the nickering, and anxious side-stepping, brought back memories both good and bad. She fought tears and heart-pounding hope as she scanned the collection.
Ancient nags ready for the glue factory mixed with yearlings, underfed mares, and temperamental geldings. In a different pen were the stallions. She wanted to adopt them all. Damn blasted selfish men, treating intelligent animals like insects to be walked upon. She’d take an
y one of those horses before she’d take a man.
Quent climbed up beside her. “What am I looking for?”
Perhaps she’d keep this man, though. His calm rationality steadied her shameful temper. Bell enumerated Dream’s markings, from the white arrow on her forehead to the darker brown patch on her left haunch. Quent climbed down and spread the word with the grooms they’d brought with them.
The stable manager ambled out and Quent enlisted him in their search. The man cast a glance to Hiram, simmering on the carriage seat, and nodded. “Stolen, is she? The owner will still want his costs plus transporting.”
“He’ll get it,” Quent agreed without twitching. “And we’ll give you coin for your time, if you help us search.”
Bell didn’t care how he spent her money in this case. She climbed down from the fence and entered through the gate as if she were a proper lady, although the wild Irish rebel threatened to emerge as the animals pressed around her. She wanted to scream her fury and send the lot stampeding into the street.
It was akin to hunting a needle in a haystack—worse, because the horses shifted as they walked through them. Her damned long skirt was a nuisance in the filth. She wanted her riding breeches.
She couldn’t wear breeches anymore.
If she was carrying Quent’s child, she wouldn’t be able to ride either.
She nearly tripped and stumbled with the shock of that thought, which did nothing to pacify her pounding heart.
A sharp note whistled from outside the pen, but Bell only dimly registered it. She’d spotted a white arrow on a skinny bay to her right. She smacked a black rump out of her way, nudged past a gelding that didn’t want her to pass, and chanted over and over, “Little Dream, come.”
The mare finally lifted her bony head and looked. Bell wanted to weep at the mare’s frailty. She elbowed the gelding until it sidestepped, and then she was there . . . in front of her baby.
So many memories . . . so much pain. She almost didn’t dare touch. But how could she not? It would be like refusing to hug an infant.
She took off her glove and stroked Dream’s nose, letting her sniff. The mare nickered and tossed her head, then sought the caress again, accepting her. Weeping, not caring how mad she appeared, Bell flung her arms around the mare’s neck and buried her tears in Dream’s thin coat, a coat that had once been glossy and thick, not patchy and rough.
The mare tried to eat her bonnet, and Bell chuckled through her tears. “We’ll find you some proper feed soon, dear one. Do you have babes here? Where are they?”
The mare nodded her head as if she understood, as she’d always understood. Tears streamed down Bell’s cheeks, unchecked, and her heart cracked wide open.
When Quent approached with bit in hand, her cracked heart welcomed him. She didn’t have words for what he’d done for her. Finally feeling free to express all her roiling emotions, she flung her arms around his neck as she had the mare’s, whispered nonsense endearments, and kissed his ear. He hugged her back with a ferocity that steadied her, and aroused her at the same time. For the first time in ages, hot blood instead of ice water flowed through her veins.
Passion burned behind his dark eyes, exciting her even more than his strength. He reluctantly set her back on the muddy ground when the whistle sounded again.
“Fitz and Nick are here,” he told her, his voice low and husky. “Since they were probably at Wyckerly, I think you’ll owe Fitz a mare and Nick a new pair of boots after an all-night journey, especially if they have to turn around and sail right back.”
“Not to Wyckerly, to Belden Hall,” she said in excitement. “Can they sail her?”
Quent rubbed Dream’s neck but watched Bell. “Are you sure?”
If he understood her as well as he seemed to, if he realized how much this horse affected her—he was a man beyond all men, and her blood raced with excitement. She nodded. “I’m sure. Let’s see if we can find her offspring.”
She was risking her heart all over again—for Dream, for Quent. She must be mad. But she could no more part from her horse again than she could let Quent go. And she would marry the damned man to prove it.
She was no longer a terrified, helpless eighteen-year-old. This time, she knew the flaws of the man she would be marrying. And she still wanted him, even if Quent was likely to usurp her household and run rampant over her wishes, unless she kept him well in hand—like a wild stallion. He’d given her confidence that she could do it, although it might take snapping a thousand fragile fans to make him listen.
The stallion in him would make it worth the effort. She could scarcely think straight for thinking of ways to make him as happy tonight as he was making her right now.
Leading Dream to the gate, she greeted a rumpled, unshaven earl and diplomat. Fitz and Nick studied Dream’s protruding ribs as if Bell had lost her mind.
“This is what we risked life and limb for?” Nick asked dubiously.
“Good conformation,” Fitz said, although his expression agreed with Nick. “Out of Eclipse, you say?”
“I do,” Bell said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Hiram says there is a filly and a colt with similar conformation. He says the filly has the white arrow and the colt has the black patch and a white foot. But Summerby had word of a stallion.” She smoothed the hair over Dream’s haunch, showing the color oddity. “She’s not good for show, but if Dream’s offspring race as she once did, they should run like the wind.”
“I’ll keep an eye on this one,” Nick said, taking Dream’s bridle. “I’m not a horseman. Go forth and find your babes,” he told her.
Leave it to a man with too many sisters to know she thought of the horses as babes. Bell stood on her toes and kissed his stubbly cheek, then let Quent tug her impatiently back to the pen. She understood. She’d be impatient if he kissed another lady’s cheek, too. What they had was too new and precious to share. But she rather liked that he was jealous of her affections.
Fitz was already scrambling through the smaller stallion pen. Within minutes, he was whistling for their attention.
“Look at this one,” he crowed. “Perfect conformation, white foot, better than the rest of this glue factory. He’s not more than a three-year old! What a looker.” He held the stallion’s halter as it shook its dark mane.
From beside Bell, Dream nickered approvingly. Bell laughed, feeling more light-hearted than she had in years. “Hiram lied. A stallion, then, and not a colt. Let’s find the filly.” She petted the mare, then dived back into the pen with Quent at her heels.
Fitz led the whinnying stallion from the pen while Bell and Quent scanned the horses nearest to where they’d found Dream.
“I can recognize good bones and muscle when they’re led out one at a time,” Quent complained. “But trying to see legs among a sea of tails isn’t easy.”
She kissed his bristled cheek, too, just because she could. “You just look at their asses, dear.”
He laughed and hugged her. “I think I like the Irish imp as much as the lady. How much do you trust Hiram?”
“Not at all,” she said, coming down off her cloud. “He’s already lied about the colt, hoping we wouldn’t search the stallion pen. If he stands to earn anything from the sale of my horses, he’ll hide anything he dares. He’ll need to. Dolly will have his carcass gutted if she learns he’s told us where to find them. He’s probably planning on profiting enough to run and hide.”
“Then is there some chance that the filly we’re looking for may not have the white markings?”
Bell shrugged. “Possibly, although without the markings, it will be harder to prove she’s out of Dream. Should we torture him to find out?”
“Bloodthirsty wench. I only ask because I see a filly over there with a dark patch on her haunch but no white arrow.” Quent nodded to a smaller horse on the far side of the paddock.
Bell set off in that direction without a second thought. Not until Quent pushed in front of her did she realize it made far more sense
to let his larger size lead the way. She was simply accustomed to doing everything herself. Learning to share tasks could be complicated . . . but pleasurable.
Quent held the filly’s head while Bell examined her. The black patch was a positive sign. The shape of her head, her stance . . . Bell’s heart nearly exploded in her chest.
“She’s magnificent! Just look at her! Legs like that will eat up ground. Wonder who the stud was? It’s not as if Jim could afford a Thoroughbred.”
The filly tossed her head restlessly and stomped. Bell dodged her hooves and let Quent yank the halter to keep her head down.
Having secured the stallion, Fitz was now making his way through the pen to meet them. His eyes gleamed with admiration as he studied their find.
“My word, I need to start looking here more often! None of these would have made it to Tattersall’s,” Fitz exclaimed when he reached them. “I wonder if there are more like yours in here.”
“Ask for the Irish loads,” Bell told him dryly. “We breed them and lose them all the time for lack of funds. But I’ll be having these back, I think.”
Fitz and Quent glanced at each other and grinned. Bell ignored them. She had all her family back.
Twenty-three
They spent half a day hunting for the missing animals, hiring grooms, buying feed, setting up stalls on the ship, and waiting for Nick’s turn at the dock so he could load three horses.
Quent knew he should be gnashing his teeth with impatience. He expected to find another irate letter from his father waiting in his office. He should be taking up unfinished business instead of spending coins like water. And they still needed to obtain the special license.
But the transformation of a decorous marchioness into a woman who smiled and hugged and laughed and teased was too miraculous to miss. To hell with his office. Bell’s ladylike graces had vanished. In their place was a real woman, one unafraid to show her excitement and joy. He might regret that later when she unleashed her temper instead of happiness, but his heart grew lighter every time she held his hand or kissed his cheek. Even Nick and Fitz were staring at them in surprise and awe.
Formidable Lord Quentin Page 20