Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] (20 page)

Deverill’s eyes glinted. “A perfectly ordinary girl would have blushed and gone all fluttery, coming upon that little scene, and would undoubtedly have sputtered a great deal of nonsense at me about how we ought to ride on very quickly.”

“Oh.” She thought about that. “I suppose you may be right. Many people nowadays would think it improper for me to watch swans mating, I suppose, let alone to watch them in the presence of an unmarried gentleman, but Aunt Ophelia has always said such prudish behavior is ridiculously missish and absurd.”

“Quite so,” he said. His eyes were twinkling now. “Have you no sense of propriety, Lady Daintry?”

“Of course I have. I just do not happen to agree that watching an act of nature is improper.”

He chuckled. “I would like very much to put that to the test, but I have a strong feeling that the act of nature I have in mind is not one that you would include in that declaration.”

She knew she was blushing, because she could feel the fire of it in her cheeks, but she did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how greatly he had discomfited her. Managing to look him straight in the eye, she said evenly, “No doubt, when you were a member of Lord Hill’s staff, you found seduction to be a lively game as natural to you as breathing, sir, and looked upon the females you knew at the time as no more than quarries to be hunted; however, I am not such easy prey. You will have the goodness to remember that, Deverill.”

To her annoyance, he chuckled and said, “You are almost as skilled with words as you are with a horse, my dear, and if you will permit me to tell you so, you have the finest seat—”

“If you say ‘for a female,’ sir, I will hit you.”

“I am afraid that is just what I was going to say, but perhaps I can make a small recovery by pointing out that it is hard to compare you with, say, the men of my brigade—or other men for that matter—when you ride sidesaddle and they do not.”

“If you think riding sidesaddle is one bit easier—”

“I don’t. Good God, to tell the truth, I don’t know how you women stay on those things, and when I watched your little nieces jumping timber and even thinking of jumping stone walls, it turned me cold with terror one moment and filled me with awe the next. I doubt that I could do it without considerable practice, and I am thought by most to be an expert in the saddle.”

“You could do it easily. It is all a matter of balance, you know, nothing more.”

“Oh, certainly. I remember when you said those two children learned to ride without so much as holding the reins or putting their feet in the stirrups. Something about handkerchiefs and bits of paper, too. I thought you were quite mad.”

“Well, I wasn’t. That is how they were trained. Charley can ride sitting on a handkerchief and never lose it, and Melissa is nearly as skilled. I taught them both, you know, and,” she added with a challenging look, “I can teach you to do it as well, if you really want to learn.”

“That will be quite enough of that, you little cat.”

“Coward”

Deverill stiffened, then looked straight at her with an uncharacteristic look of indecision on his face. They had emerged from the woods and were once again riding on the sandy grass, their path leading toward a timber gate in a hedged field. Beyond it the garden hedges of Mount Edgcumbe could be seen, and she saw him look toward the house, the windows of which were perfectly visible now. He looked back at her.

“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.