by Decca Price
“...hast thou forgotten this day we must part?
It may be for years, and it may be forever...”
He urged his mount forward.
“... why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
It may be for years and it may be forever...”
Montfort had suffered through a half a hundred renditions of those sentimental verses in a dozen overstuffed drawing rooms, warbled by simpering misses angling for a husband. This invisible singer invested the song with a heartfelt longing that lured him, siren like, to hear more.
He rounded a turn in the lane and encountered a large gray hunter plodding slowly down the grassy center. The singing came from the far side of the horse but he could see no one. The song stopped abruptly in midline.
“Is that you, Bobby?” a light voice asked. Then a woman’s face peered round the hunter’s withers and he saw that a hand gripped the horse’s bridle on that side.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were my groom. Ridiculous thing—the bit broke as I took Toddy here over a hedge about a mile back. I sent Bobby to bring me another mount so I could continue on to the village.”
Lively sky blue eyes looked up from under the brim of a smart ladies’ topper. A lock of burnished hair escaped from the snood at the nape of her neck and he noted with approval the way her womanly figure filled her dark fitted habit. Mud splashed her full skirt halfway to the waist. And a very trim waist it was.
He dismounted for a closer look. Just under 17 hands, he decided. Young but no longer a girl. Her clear complexion, freshened by exercise and the cool morning air, was the soft pink and white of unfurling apple blossom.
She was uncommonly pretty, he decided, and her quick smile on greeting him carried no trace of calculation. He caught her cultured London accent immediately, but she lacked the smug look of the self-aware society beauties he knew.
A slow blush crept above her snowy cravat to brighten her cheeks further as he boldly studied her in silence. She stared right back at eye level without flinching, though. Even her delicate earlobes reddened, and he noted with interest the faint throb of her pulse just beneath. There was a fresh ripeness about her that intrigued him.
“You must be new to the neighborhood,” he said at last. “Either that, or a fool. No one else would try to jump in these fields at this time of year. As you must have observed, it’s rather wet.” He stepped forward. “Take these.”
Thrusting his reins into her hands, he turned to run his hands over her horse’s legs. “He looks sound, but he’s too young for a lady to ride securely.” He then examined the restive horse’s mouth. “He appears unhurt.”
“We did not fall, sir, and I did not cut his mouth,” Claire said warmly. “Toddy is a capital boy. The bit broke, but I was able to control him. I’ve been riding since I was four and I never put my mounts at risk.”
“My apologies, ma’am. I am told I can be rough about the edges. I was merely concerned for your welfare.” He took back the reins. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Rhys Fitzgordon.”
“And I am Miss Claire Bu—aoof!” Toddy gave Claire a mighty shove with his head. She slipped in the muddy cart track and went down on her derriere with a squish.
Montfort stooped, wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her easily from the ground. Beneath whalebone and petticoats, his experience confirmed, there was a strong lithe body likely worth the trouble of seducing out of its carapace. He liked his women with both curves and muscle.
He pulled her closer, ostensibly to bring her to drier ground but really to gauge her reaction. It was not his habit to despoil virgins. To his dismay, instead of sighing into him, she responded to his embrace like a schoolgirl. With more blushes and stammers, she wiggled out of his grasp and jumped back a good three feet. Right down in the puddle again.
“Miss Claire, be more careful. Let me help you again,” he said, lips quirking. This time Montfort extended his arm to the lady. She clasped her hands around his wrist firmly, pulled herself erect and quickly disengaged. She was breathing heavily, he observed, though the exertion was slight.
Claire felt scorched, first by this man’s gaze, then the physical contact, even through gloves and clothing. Where his speech was arrogant, his dark eyes were challenging. What flustered her most was the knowingness he did not attempt to hide. “I know you know,” those eyes said, and dared her to respond. Know what?
Seated above her, he had stirred only her curiosity. He sat easily on the big black, regarding her intently. A countryman’s slouch hat gave him a dashing air in contrast to the meticulously groomed steed and gleaming tack beneath him. Clearly, he was a man of quality, so she relaxed and let herself smile a little at him.
But when he dismounted, her hand tightened convulsively on Toddy’s bridle and her senses sharpened. The dripping trees and lowering sky underscored their isolation in the narrow lane. No one could see them. On the other side of the hedge, a million miles away, a raven squawked, but she heard nothing else over the thrumming pulse in her ears.
He was taller than she, and filled the space they shared. Unlike the pale young men who squired her sisters and friends from picnic to party to ball, he was bronzed from the sun. A thin red scar ran across his left cheek from his brow to the corner of his mouth, giving him a quizzical look. He wore tight buckskin riding breeches that emphasized his powerful thighs and he moved with an assurance that suggested a life in command. She tried to imagine him seated at Mama’s tea table and failed.
Time slowed, stopped. She forced herself to stand firm while keen eyes studied her top to bottom. She was acutely aware of the mud on her dress, the tendril of hair creeping round her cheek, the damp seeping into her boots.
At first she thought his eyes were black, but as he came closer, she saw wide pupils surrounded by irises of the deepest brown flecked with gold. He was clean-shaven except for a thick but neatly trimmed moustache and she wondered what other eccentricities formed his character in an age when men of all ages luxuriated in abundant facial hair.
“Are you a fool?” he said in sharp voice.
She drew breath to speak. Then Toddy butted in.
Too shocked after landing in the mud, Claire would have laughed, but Fitzgordon seized her before she could react. Surely no gentleman, even under the guise of helping a lady, would be so—she flailed for a word—so personal, regardless of the circumstances.
Before breaking free, she inhaled leather, plain soap and an unfamiliar musky pungency that went straight to her knees. Unsteadied so, she stumbled and fell again.
And experienced his power again as he plucked her from the mire.
She felt gauche under those appraising eyes and tried to think of something to say. The words that came out of her mouth shocked her.
“Do you always inspect the ladies you meet in the same way you examine an injured horse?” she said quietly.
“Don’t you, Miss Claire?”
“Pardon?” She didn’t quite catch his words.
“Don’t all ladies scrutinize each other with the same fervor that men apply to horseflesh and equipage? My sisters maintain that women are the best—and the least forgiving—judges of other women.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip and tried again. “I only meant to ask if you are always so attuned to your companions as you are today.”
“Are we talking horses or ladies now?”
“I think you are determined to misunderstand me,” Claire laughed uneasily.
“Pardon me,” he said gravely. “I ‘inspect,’ as you put it, only where I am in the market.” Again those dark eyes raked her length.
“I, I see.”
“Do you? I think not.”
She looked away this time, conscious that she was blushing again.
“That is not a criticism, Miss Claire, but a compliment.”
“Oh.” Claire tried to steer the conversation into more conventional channels. “You mentioned sisters, Mr. Fitzgordon? Are they still at home?”
/> “My two sisters much prefer town to the country, as most ladies do.” He frowned at her. “They find the hunting there more to their liking than what is on offer here.”
“There is no hunting in London, sir,” Claire tsked. “As you well know.” She couldn’t say why she was allowing this man to unsettle her, but he was doing an excellent job of it.
“True,” Fitzgordon replied. “If you mean foxes and pheasant. But those animals hold no interest for my sisters.”
“Oh.” Toddy tugged at Claire’s arm and she soothed him with a series of shooshes. Turning back to Fitzgordon, she said, “Your sisters do not actually hunt, then? In the field, I mean?”
“Not in the field, no. But they are experienced trackers, if you take my meaning.”
She dropped her gaze “Perhaps we should not be discussing your sisters in this fashion.”
“Perhaps not.”
He turned his horse to head in Claire’s direction.
“I presume the Bobby you expected is Bobby Tressel?” he said.
Claire nodded.
“In that case, we had best begin walking. I saw the young scamp dawdling by the stream as I passed by a half-hour ago. All the Tressels are layabouts. You’ll be back to your stable before you see him leading a fresh horse your way.”
“How disappointing. I was so anxious to be in the village this morning.” She searched his face for signs of displeasure and saw none. “But you were going that way. Please don’t let me keep you.”
“If you are to believe I am a gentleman,” he said, “I should act like one. Just as your purchases can wait a day, so can my business.”
He began walking and she matched her step to his.
Piqued by his assumption, she felt an urge to justify herself. “I was going to inspect a building I’m told would make a suitable school,” she said, annoyed by the priggish note in her voice.
“A school?”
“Yes. I’m told the peer who owns practically half the county hereabouts can’t be bothered to provide more than the basic education for his tenants. It is an appalling lack of responsibility, if you ask me! Promising young people should be given the chance to realize their potential no matter their class, even go to university if they have the ability.”
He said nothing and she warmed to her theme. “We live in an age of progress, Mr. Fitzgordon. Yes, it’s the law of the land that schools must be provided for children, but no one makes it possible for them to actually go. No one can force their parents or their employers to set aside the time. And this lord seems happy to keep his tenants in ignorance. It is a positively medieval, not to say short-sighted!
“Perhaps he never had reason to give it any thought. Perhaps he has been away and allows his stewards to do their jobs without interference.”
“Then he’s criminally negligent besides,” she responded hotly.
“And what gives you the right to trespass on his ancestral privilege?” His words were calm but deliberate.
“A great misfortune, Mr. Fitzgordon,” Claire replied more temperately. “The death of a great man has given me the power to do much good in the world in his name, and this school was one of his dearest wishes.”
“A village school—on my land?” he said in the same clipped tone.
Claire halted abruptly. “Your land? How can it be your land? I thought this was the seat of the Viscounts Montfort.”
“At your service, my lady,” he said with a sweep of his hat and a mocking bow. “Rhys Fitzgordon, sixth Viscount Montfort. As you so aptly observed, our holdings in the county go back to Henry IV.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “But you don’t look anything like Josiah described you.”
“Joss Carter?” He stepped so close now she would have retreated, but Toddy blocked her way. “Just who are you?”
“I’m Claire Burton. I’ve just taken up residence at Oak Grove.”
“Damnation! Fitzgordon thundered. “You are the woman who refuses to sell me my land? You, you’re—”
“I’m what, Lord Mortfort?”
He took a deep breath.
“You are like nothing I pictured,” he said more calmly. “I expected Miss Burton to be somewhat more... mature.”
Claire tugged at Toddy’s bridle and began walking again.
“And what difference does that make, Lord Montfort?” she asked as he kept pace.
“Well, for one thing, I see my agent has been wasting his time. If you will give me the address of your father or the man who heads your family, I will apply to him directly.”
“You will still waste your time, my lord. My Papa has already tried and failed. I mean to make this place my home now, despite my family’s wishes.”
“For God’s sake, Miss Burton, tell me why. Why leave friends, family, a life of interesting amusements and pursuits in town, to bury yourself in the country?”
“I already did tell you. I have been given a great trust and mean to fulfill it.” She turned her candid sky-blue gaze on him. “It seems more than you do.”
Montfort’s brow blackened. “This is my home, Miss Burton. My heritage. I have an obligation to my family to see that what was theirs remains theirs. My late brother never would have sold the property to Josiah Carter if he thought it would go out of the family entirely in this way.”
“Was there some agreement between them then, when the sale was done?”
“On paper, do you mean? No.”
“Then perhaps Mr. Carter thought I would be a better steward than you, Lord Montfort.” Claire raised a gloved hand to her brow and peered ahead. “Just as it seems you misjudge your neighbors. I see Bobby bringing me a fresh horse. I will bid you good day.”
Montfort seldom found himself at a loss for words. But as he watched that infernal woman’s back recede down the lane, he failed to pluck a pithy rejoinder from the welter of thoughts competing for his attention.
The audacity of the woman! By God, the way her hips sway is fetching. What the hell had Carter been up to with her? The idea of his proposing a school was laughable. A school! She must have capital legs under those skirts—see how she springs with ease onto the nag.
He willed her to look back at him as she settled onto the sidesaddle, her wet skirts clinging to her rump and thighs. That arse is as plump as a two nestling partridges... She disappointed him.
Montfort prided himself on discerning what a woman knew. Her eyes usually gave her away. If not, a heightened tension in his presence betrayed the more calculating ones. The uninitiated enjoyed ease in his company through ignorance.
But this one—her veneer of innocence threw off his judgment. He watched until she trotted out of sight and the boy leading the other horse dawdled away across the fields.
The sky darkened and an annoying drizzle began to fall before he mounted and rode in the same direction down the lane. In his mind’s eye he saw her flashing blue eyes again, then imagined how they would look clouded by passion. He wanted to redden her lips with savage kisses and watch her flush, this time under his pleasuring hands.
Miss Claire Burton, indeed. Before he was through, she would utter his name in a far different manner than she had that day. By the time he reached home, he had plotted the opening salvos of his campaign.
“What an insufferable man!” Claire blurted before she saw Simmie was not alone in the morning room. “Lord Montfort is everything I heard. Unfeeling, arrogant—”
“Do go on, Miss Burton,” Edward Latimer. “You seem to have captured the viscount’s character in an instant. But, pray, how did you meet him?”
“To be fair, he did offer to help me,” Claire said with less heat. “Toddy’s bit broke,” she explained to Miss Simms, “and I was walking him back when Lord Montfort came upon me and offered his assistance. I had no idea who he was, of course, and he had the effrontery to conceal his identity.”
“Conceal his identity?” Miss Simms was astonished. In her experience, peers tended to flaunt their titles.
“He was
dressed more like a country gentleman than a lord, Simmie, and he introduced himself as Mr. Fitzgordon.”
“I see,” Latimer said. “That’s easily explained. Montfort is the second son and came into the title only a few years ago, after the tragic death of his elder brother. He does not carry it easily. When he is not in London, he tends to forget himself.”
“You know him well?” Claire asked.
“Yes. I know Montfort about as well as I knew Josiah Carter, dear lady. I’d been down from Oxford scarcely a month when Lord Montfort, that was, presented me with the living here. Joss and Rhys Fitzgordon were only boys then, and they were inseparable in those days. And, thanks to my dear late stepmother, they were also in and out of the rectory like it was their own home.”
“But surely, the age difference gave you little in common?” Miss Simms interjected.
“I like to think they saw me as their elder brother,” Latimer said, “especially Rhys, since his own brother was so seldom at home. Alas, my influence could not overcome the pernicious influences of Oxford and London. He turned into a wastrel.”
His face grew grave. “I do not wish to alarm you, ladies, but do not allow yourselves to be alone with the present lord. It grieves me to say that he once attempted to debauch my young sister.”
Claire busied herself at the window to hide her reddening cheeks. The thought of Montfort’s hasty embrace fanned unexpected heat in her belly.
“Forgive me,” Latimer said behind her, misunderstanding. “This is hardly a fit topic for a lady’s ears.”
“No, Mr. Latimer,” Claire said, turning back to face him. “If it does not pain you, I would like to hear more. I want to be sure I did not misunderstand Lord Montfort’s intentions this morning.”
“He is sly as a serpent,” Latimer said matter of factly. “He approached my sister under the guise of an honorable lover and led her to believe he intended to propose marriage. Fortunately, I saw through his ruse in time and opened her eyes.”