The Dangerous Viscount

by Miranda Neville

  “No need to bother Chase. I have my hunters with me, fresh and recovered from the journey by now. You may take your choice. I can beat you whatever you’re riding.”

  “Done.”

  “Good,” Blake growled. “Let’s settle the matter once and for all.”

  Diana didn’t know exactly what “the matter” was. She was part of it, yes, but the rivalry between Blake and Sebastian was older and deeper than one for her favors. She was fairly certain this race—just like a pair of men to come up with such an ridiculous method of solving their differences—was not going to settle anything, once or for all.

  Chapter 16

  He had to hand it to Blakeney: his cousin knew how to pick a horse. Warrior, a coal black miracle of muscles and sinew with the endurance of a prizefighter and the heart of Satan, soared over the penultimate jump. Sebastian wondered if he could persuade Blake to sell him the beast.

  Probably not. Without Warrior Sebastian wouldn’t have a chance in the race. Even with him, his probability of winning was slender. Though Blake only led by a couple of lengths, his mount was faster on the flat than Warrior, whose strength lay in the ability to jump anything. Only one fence remained, at the end of a long grassy avenue.

  “Come on, boy,” Sebastian urged. Warrior had no need of the crop. The great horse had thrown his heart into every obstacle once he discovered Sebastian could master him. And now he was ready to pursue and defeat his owner, streaking ahead of them on his stablemate.

  Sebastian had to admit that his despised cousin was a superb horseman, perhaps the best he’d ever seen. Even with the superior mount he couldn’t match the speed and skill with which Blake steered the bay around the course, finding the shortest path, never missing an opportunity to shave a few seconds off the journey, to cut into the lead Warrior and Sebastian built up in the early stages. He’d finally passed them and since then his advantage had gradually and inexorably increased.

  Sebastian told himself he had nothing to be ashamed of. Blake had expected him to fall at the first fence. In mastering Warrior he’d shown his cousin that he was no longer a bespectacled grinder but a man capable of challenging the best.

  A lump of mud thrown up by the leading horse landed on his cheek. He looked ahead to the arrogant ease of Blake’s perfect seat. It was all so damned easy for his cousin, the golden-haired wonder, born to strawberry leaves and adulation. He had everything he wanted and deserved none of it.

  Well, Blake wasn’t going to win this race. And he most definitely wasn’t going to win Diana Fanshawe.

  He gave Warrior just a touch of the crop. “Let’s go, old fellow.”

  “As far as I can tell they’re neck and neck.” Tarquin Compton, the tallest of the company even without the advantage of sitting on the biggest denizen of the Markley Abbey stable, had seen the competitors emerge from the trees. “By God!”

  “What’s happening?” Diana and Minerva spoke together. The two of them had ridden out with Compton and Chase to stand level with the final fence, a few hundred yards from the finish line.

  “Sebastian’s pulling ahead, but only just.”

  “I wonder if Blakeney regrets giving Sebastian the choice of his hunters,” Chase said. “He didn’t hold back from picking the best.”

  Tarquin grinned. “That’s our boy. He doesn’t like to be beaten.”

  “The black is definitely ahead,” Minerva said. As the riders drew nearer they could hear the creak of harness, the shush of equine breath, the rumble of galloping hooves. “Come on, Sebastian!” she yelled. “You can do it!”

  From the moment she heard of the challenge, Minerva had made no secret of where her allegiance lay. Diana remained silent.

  The thunder of thousands of pounds of powerful horseflesh drew nearer. Diana sucked in her breath and held it as the black stallion took off. She was enough her mother’s daughter to appreciate the way Warrior made the four-foot fence look like a puny log, and the grace and strength with which his rider held his seat, controlled the landing and adjusted to urge the horse into unobstructed parkland. She scarcely registered that the bay, less than a length behind, was mastered by a horseman at least as skilled. In a flash both accelerated away from the fence in a shower of flying sod. The din of hooves diminished as fast as it had crested.

  “Come on, Di!” her sister said. “Admit it. You want Sebastian to win. Look at him ride.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. I do hope Lord Iverley wins.”

  “Let’s go to the finish.”

  Chase and Compton were already on the move. Minerva and Diana kicked their mounts to a canter and followed them to the pair of oaks that marked the finish line, not far from the ha-ha that separated the gardens from the greater park. Juliana and Esther, hunched in fur-trimmed coats, stood the other side of the ditch.

  The competitors had still to circle the edge of the open meadow. As they rounded the final bend the spectators could see that Warrior and Sebastian were just holding the lead.”

  “Sebastian!” Minerva yelled.

  Neither man watching expressed his preference, but Diana guessed they were hoping for their friend’s victory. They maintained a steady commentary.

  “He’s still ahead.”

  “The bay’s getting closer.”

  “The black’s holding him off.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  Diana’s fingers clenched on her reins. You can do it you can do it you can do it.

  She could hardly stand to watch and closed her eyes as the pounding hooves again approached. All the others were shouting, creating a cacophony around her from which she felt oddly detached. Because while she prayed desperately for Sebastian to hold off Blake’s challenge, a corner of her mind was asking why she cared so much. Or even at all. It was only a horse race with nothing at stake beyond male pride. If Diana had a preference, logically it should be for Blake, the man she’d adored since she was fourteen. The man she wanted to marry.

  But she wanted Sebastian to win, no question, and she had a feeling she knew why.

  He’d won. Only by a nose but nevertheless a clear victory, and a sweet one. Never in his life had he ridden so fast over such a challenging course. He was enveloped in congratulations: hearty from Cain and Tarquin, boisterous from Minerva, grudging from Blakeney and Lady Chase, quiet from Diana.

  Diana’s radiant smile warmed him to the core. Unlike her sister’s bubbling glee, her words were spoken softly and he could find no hidden meaning in the conventional words of applause. Yet he had the sense that she had cared about the result of the race. As he galloped to the finish, urging Warrior to extend his long powerful neck and reach his nose over the line, out of the corner of his eye he’d glimpsed her, elegant in dark green on a gray mare. Her eyes had been closed, her expression intent, as though the outcome mattered too much for her to watch. He wished he’d seen her face when she learned that he had won. Then perhaps he would know whose victory mattered to her so much, whether her words were heartfelt, or as perfunctory as Blake’s.

  He had to hand it to his cousin. He was both a gentleman and a sportsman. Sebastian had no doubt that it took every scrap of schooling in both areas for Blake to offer his felicitations with good grace.

  “I would never have won without the better horse,” Sebastian replied truthfully. “The victory belongs to your Warrior.”

  This acknowledgement seemed not to provide Blake with any comfort. “Your riding’s improved,” he said curtly.

  Sebastian shrugged. “We don’t remain ten years old forever.”

  Minerva nosed her horse alongside his.

  “Brilliant race.” She beamed.

  “Thank you.”

  She looked at Blakeney with some remark on the tip of her tongue then apparently thought better of it.

  Blakeney responded to her derisive glance. “Don’t you have a sampler to sew? Something to knit or tat? I’m surprised your governess lets you out with the grown-ups.”

  Minerva’s eyes popped wit
h indignation but Diana intervened before bloodshed could ensue. “Come back to the stable with me, Minerva. I’m cold.”

  This drew Blake’s attention. “A word with you, if you please Diana, before you go.”

  “Go along, Min,” Diana said. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  Diana and Blakeney rode off a short distance. Minerva gave Blakeney a dark look that Sebastian could appreciate, but put up no further argument and followed the other ladies in the direction of the house.

  “One day, and a day not too far off,” Tarquin remarked, “Minerva Montrose will be a great beauty.”

  “No question about it,” Cain said.

  Sebastian had to argue the point. “Not as beautiful as her sister.”

  Tarquin shook his head. “Lady Fanshawe is no beauty. But she is,” he added before anyone could remonstrate, “one of the most desirable women I’ve ever seen.”

  Sebastian didn’t know who he wanted to hit more, his cousin, chatting away with Diana, out of earshot, or his best friend.

  “Don’t worry,” Tarquin said, saving himself from assault. “Purely an esthetical judgment on my part. I never allow myself to lust after marriageable females.”

  He cast Sebastian a quizzical look and Sebastian wondered again what had drawn the notoriously rural-shy Tarquin away from Piccadilly to this unfashionable house party. Curiosity to observe the denouement of his courtship of Diana Fanshawe, he suspected. Now it occurred to him that Tarquin, no less than Cain, might disapprove of his ultimate intentions.

  Whatever those intentions were. They seemed to change hourly, swinging madly from dishonorable to honorable with an occasional detour into call-for-my-horse-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here. The closer Sebastian came to achieving revenge, the more ambivalent his feelings.

  Then he heard her laugh. With Blake. Pain and humiliation came roaring back.

  “I’m going back to the stables,” he announced. “The ladies were correct. It’s damnably cold out here.”

  Having relinquished Warrior to the care of a groom, he headed back to the house, looking forward to a hot bath. As he left the stable yard Minerva emerged from a sheltered recess and grabbed him by a button of his coat.

  “Why are you still here?” he asked, smiling at the girl. “You must be chilled to the bone. Let’s keep moving.”

  She let him go and they resumed the walk to the house. “I wanted to talk to you. I’m glad you won.”

  “Thank you, again.”

  “Blakeney’s an ass.”

  “You are right,” he said, unbothered by her unmaidenly language.

  “Diana was glad too.”

  He stopped. “Was she now?”

  “Yes.” She gave him a piercing look. “You like my sister, don’t you?”

  “Er … yes,” he said evasively.

  “It’s all right. I know.”

  God, he hoped not.

  “I know the highwayman was your groom.”

  “Nonsense. You’re imagining things.”

  “I thought at the time the man didn’t seem like a criminal. He looked like an ordinary servant.”

  “Much you know about it,” Sebastian scoffed. “Do you think highwaymen go around with the letter H emblazoned on their foreheads?”

  “No, I don’t, but I expect them to wear masks.”

  “He was masked.”

  “Not when I first saw him in the woods, getting ready.”

  Damnation. Minerva was much too sharp for her own good, or his. He waited for the axe to fall on his hopes.

  “Then,” she concluded smugly, “I recognized him in the stable when we went to see the puppies. But I already suspected.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he rasped. “Do you mean to tell your sister?”

  Minerva shook her head. “I know why you did it and I won’t say a word. I’m on your side. I don’t want Diana to marry Blakeney. I want her to marry you.”

  Chapter 17

  “Let me in,” Minerva demanded. “I don’t care if you aren’t dressed. It’s not as though I’ve never seen you in your chemise.”

  Diana tried once more to make Minerva go away. “I’m trying to get some peace and quiet, something that seems to be surprisingly difficult considering there are very few people in this very large house.”

  Since Min’s banging persisted, Diana descended from her bed, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her dressing robe, and stamped across the room, trailing silk and lace. “What?” she demanded, turning the key and wrenching the door inward.

  Minerva almost fell into the room. “I want to talk to you.”

  “So I gather.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at her little sister.

  “I don’t want you to marry Blakeney.”

  “Because of what he said to you yesterday, after the race? He was just upset because he lost.”

  “I know that. But I think it was rather small of him, just because Sebastian beat him. It revealed something about his character.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve never liked Blakeney. And you aren’t the one who’d marry him. But you’d certainly benefit. Think what his father could do for you.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll manage without him.” Diana couldn’t help a smile at Min’s determined scowl. Yes indeed. Her sister could manage anything.

  She wandered over to a low-seated carved walnut chair and sank into the cushioned seat. “I’m still not sure Blakeney will make me an offer,” she said, leaning back and crossing her ankles.

  Minerva tossed her head, the fairy-tale profusion of her golden hair contrasting with her fierce expression. “Now you are talking nonsense. He’s hardly left you alone since we’ve been here. When he asks you, please say no.”

  “You know how I feel about Blake.”

  Except that she didn’t know herself. Not anymore. She feared she was trying to convince herself, more than Min. She’d spent so many nights since Tobias’s death wishing for a companion, wishing for one particular bedmate, imagining the touch of that well-honed sportsman’s body. But lately another face, another body had invaded her daydreams, and her sleep, too.

  She’d woken at dawn flustered and perspiring, aching with frustration because she was alone in bed. Because, unlike in her dream, Sebastian Iverley wasn’t there.

  “I think you prefer Sebastian.” Minerva couldn’t have been reading her thoughts, surely. Diana blushed at the very idea.

  “You know I want to be married again,” Diana said, her shaking voice matching her inner turmoil. “But Sebastian Iverley will never marry. He doesn’t like women. He’s famous for it.”

  “That’s rubbish. He likes me and he definitely likes you.”

  “I’m not so sure. He avoided me when he first came back to London.”

  Minerva was in pursuit of her own train of thought. “Do you know what I’ve noticed about him? He speaks to me as though I were a person of intelligence, not a child or a girl. It doesn’t matter to him that I’m female, even though he has a reputation for despising us. I’ve seen no evidence of it. He just likes me and he cares about what I say and think.”

  Diana nodded. She’d thought the same thing, with the difference that Sebastian had definitely noticed she was a woman.

  “The opposite of Blakeney,” her sister said, folding her arms with a self-satisfied expression. “As I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “My dear Min. I’m not going to choose my husband based on your opinion of his conversation. Besides,” she continued, after Min had regarded her in silence for a period, “it’s most unlikely he will offer for me.”

  “He will.”

  “Oh? And what brings you to that conclusion?”

  “I’ve been watching him for the last twenty-four hours. He’s been paying as much attention to you as Blakeney has. He’s just a bit more understated about it.”

  Diana remembered how Sebastian had brushed against her in passing, touched her fingers when handing her a cup, met her eyes across the dinner table as he raised a
wineglass to his lips. There had been several such instances, any one of which could have been purely accidental. He’d been driving her to distraction, wondering if he meant those subtle advances or whether they were a product of her imagination.

  Perhaps Min was right and his actions were deliberate. Still, her sister was so engaged by the notion of having Sebastian as a brother-in-law she might be indulging in wishful thinking.

  She shook her head hard to clear her brain. “Go away, Min. Let me rest.”

  “Very well. But I’m going to give you a chance to get Sebastian alone after dinner.”

  “I don’t want to be alone with him.”

  Minerva merely looked at her, her smile eloquent with disbelief.

  “How?” Diana muttered.

  “I’ll draw off Blakeney by asking him about hunting. Lucky I’ve had so much practice with Mama.”

  “My goodness, Min. You are serious!”

  “For you, Diana, no sacrifice is too great.”

  “You’re a madman! It’s November and it’s dark. I’m not going outside.”

  Sebastian had lured her to the great hall under false pretenses. Once there he showed absolutely no inclination to inspect the Elizabethan tapestries. Instead he asked a footman to send for Diana’s cloak.

  “It’s a clear night,” he said as he wrapped the garment around her shoulders and tied the strings. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Frostbite?”

  “The conjunction of two red bodies.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you outside.”

  “How can I resist an invitation like that?”

  “That was my idea.”

  Once the door closed behind them, shutting in the glow of lamp and candle, the light of a million stars illuminated the mist of their breaths, mingling in the dry, crisp air. Diana was more than adequately protected by fur-lined velvet. She shivered when Sebastian put an arm about her shoulder and drew her close, but not from cold.

  “Look,” he said. His movements directed her eyes to a certain section of the sky. “Do you see those two red stars?”