To Harry’s stunned delight, she’d chosen him.
It was a whirlwind romance; within a fortnight she’d admitted him to her bed. She’d been his first.
With his mother’s example before him, Harry had treated the local village girls cautiously—he’d flirted and kissed and cuddled a bit, but he’d never let himself lose control enough to compromise them. To compromise a girl meant to marry her in Harry’s lexicon, and he wasn’t interested in marriage.
And then he met Lady Anthea Quenborough . . . delicate, exquisitely beautiful with golden curls and huge, innocent blue eyes . . .
She’d seduced him at a ball, had led him to a small anteroom, where she’d locked the door, and then proceeded to seduce him on a couch. Dazzled by her beauty, in a haze of lust and love, he never even thought to resist, and they’d done it twice on the sofa and once on the floor.
Foolishly, naively, he’d imagined he was her first, too.
The morning after that ball, he’d proposed marriage. She’d laughed and told him not to be silly. And then she’d seduced him again, this time in her coach.
After a fortnight, he decided—young fool that he was—that he was taking advantage of her and should do the honorable thing. He’d applied to her father, the Earl of Quenborough, dressed in his best clothes and with a collar so tight it felt like it’d choke him. He’d been so nervous . . .
He was right to feel that way, only not for the reasons he’d imagined.
He blurted out to the earl that he loved Lady Anthea and that he believed she loved him, and that they wanted to be married.
“Indeed,” Lord Quenborough had said in freezing accents. “We shall see what my daughter has to say about that.” He’d rung a bell and sent for his daughter and his two sons. How long it seemed, that silent waiting period, with the cold, proud earl staring at Harry as if he were a beetle.
And finally Anthea had arrived, dressed in white, with a blue ribbon that matched her eyes woven through her tumbled gold curls. Harry had never seen her looking more beautiful.
“Yes, Papa?” she’d said, as innocent as a lamb.
“This crippled bastard wants your hand in marriage,” the earl had said. “He says you want him, too.”
She’d arched her delicate, dark gold brows. “Marry Harry Morant? Wherever did you get such a ludicrous idea?”
Quenborough jerked his chin at Harry. “From him.”
She didn’t even look at Harry. She pouted in a manner he’d once thought charming. “This is where kindness gets you. You sit out a dance or two with a cripple and he thinks you’re in love with him.”
Harry stood frozen with shock. It was true he wasn’t much of a dancer. His bad leg made him self-conscious on the dance floor, so he avoided it wherever possible.
But he and Anthea had made love while “sitting out” the dances she spoke of. Tender, beautiful love. Or so he’d believed.
She laughed. “Lord, Papa, when the time comes, I’ll choose a gentleman—one with all his working parts, thank you.”
The earl had nodded. “I thought as much. Run along, my sweet.” She’d left the room without so much as a backward glance.
Harry closed his eyes, trying to drive out the memory of what happened next.
“We’d better teach this presumptuous upstart a lesson, boys,” Quenborough had said.
With the aid of a couple of sturdy footmen they’d knocked Harry half senseless and dragged him from the room. They’d taken him to the stables and stripped him roughly, ruining his best clothes. Then Anthea’s father and brothers took it in turns to horsewhip him. Thoroughly.
At one stage Harry opened his eyes and saw Anthea peeking around the doorway. For a second he imagined—fool that he was!—that she would run to him and stop the beating, crying out that she loved him, that it was all a mistake.
But she’d stayed silent, watching with bright eyes and a smile he’d never forget . . .
Finally they’d dumped him, half naked and bleeding, on the front steps of his father’s Mayfair mansion, then rung the doorbell. It was the middle of the day. People came to stare, but Harry was beyond moving. Quenborough had demanded the Earl of Alverleigh come to the door.
It was the first and only time Harry ever saw his father close up. He’d cracked open one swollen eye and stared. It was like looking in a mirror, only thirty years on. His father was the image of himself and his brother Gabe, only with a harsh, severe countenance.
The Earl of Alverleigh stood on the steps, flanked by his two oldest sons, Harry’s half brothers, Marcus and Nash. Harry and Gabe had known them for a short time at school. Known them and hated them. They stared, Marcus with a cold expression that Harry would remember till his dying day.
“Your bastard, I believe, Alverleigh,” Anthea’s father had said. “We’ve had to teach him his place.”
Harry’s father had taken one long look at Harry, bruised, bleeding, and heartbroken, then said the words Harry would never forget, or forgive. “Glover,” he said to his butler, “there is a mess on the front step. Have it removed.” He turned and went inside. Marcus and Nash followed without saying a word.
Lady Anthea’s father and brothers departed also, leaving Harry to the tender mercies of some footmen who carried him to his father’s stables, cleaned him up, and sent him off in a hackney cab to his aunt’s house.
Shortly after that, Harry had gone to war, not caring much whether he lived or died. There had been a few close shaves, but somehow his brother Gabe and his friends had looked after Harry until he recovered.
He’d sworn off love and ladies of the
ton
for life.
So why had he proposed to another earl’s daughter? It had nothing to do with Lady Anthea, he was certain.
He’d seen her last year. Married now to Freddy Soffington-Greene, she’d turned up at the party for his brother’s wedding, poured into a golden dress, falling half out of it.
He hadn’t felt the least pang, had even felt mild disgust that he could have fallen so passionately in love with such an obvious woman. Watching her in the company of his brother’s friends and relatives Harry realized how very young he’d been all those years ago . . . and what a fool love had made of him.
He’d loved Lady Anthea with all his boyish heart.
Comparing Nell to Lady Anthea was like comparing a dove to a snake.
So whatever he felt for Nell, it wasn’t love. It was something more . . . ordinary, and yet . . . better.
He kicked Sabre into a gallop again and rode pell-mell along the ridge of the hills, moving in a semicircle around the town below.
Aunt Maude was wrong about his motives for wanting Nell. It was despite her title, not because of it, that he wanted her.
He was certain of it . . . almost.
A
movement below caught his eye. A small figure in a brown hat walked briskly along a path that ran between a dry stone wall and a small coppice. There was something familiar about that hat. Nell had worn one very like it when she’d arrived at the Pump Room. It didn’t suit her in the least.
He cantered closer.
“Good afternoon, Lady Helen,” he called.
She stopped, then turned and asked bluntly, “Mr. Morant. Are you following me?”
He frowned. “No. I was taking a ride to get a breath of fresh air. I assume you were walking for the same reason.”
“I was.” She made to move on.
“Can’t you stay and talk a moment?”
She hesitated. “I cannot stay, I have only an hour or so free and I’m due back shortly.”
“May I walk with you?”
“Yes,” she said after some consideration, “but only if you promise not to renew your offer. Or, or do anything else to put me to the blush.”
He grinned. “If you mean kiss you again, may I remind you that there is a wall between us.”
She blushed. “I know, otherwise I would not have agreed. I will agree to general conversation, and that’s all.”
“I give you my word.” He lifted his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. “We shall walk and talk of things general, and Sabre will enjoy what may well be his last taste of fresh grass before winter sets in.”
She took a deep breath. “The air is so fresh and clear up here, isn’t it?” She took a few more steps and added, “It might be my last fresh air for some time. We leave for London tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” he said, startled. “I thought you had two more days.”
“Mrs. Beasley is bored with Bath. She feels London entertainments will prove more to her tastes.”
From her tone, he was sure she felt as he did about the city. He said casually, “Don’t you like London?”
She gave him a narrow look, as if to warn him off raising forbidden subjects again, and said, “I remember the London fogs from my season, that’s all.”
“I hate London,” he said. “I don’t go there if I can help it. I can’t breathe there.”
She didn’t respond, just leaned over the fence and watched Sabre cropping grass. Harry watched the expressions that passed over her face.
“How I would love just one good gallop over the fields,” she said.
“I’ll take you if you like.”
She pulled a comical face. “Bundled up in front of you like a parcel, or behind you like a piece of baggage? It’s a kind thought, but no, thank you.”
He promptly offered her the reins. “Then ride him on your own. I’m sure you can.”
She laughed. “On that saddle? In this skirt? The amount of leg exposed would be indecent.”
His mouth dried at the thought. “You have ridden astride, then?”
“When I was a wild, hoydenish girl,” she admitted with a laughing, mock guilty expression. “I had a skirt especially made for it and wore breeches underneath, but Papa was horrified when he found out. He made me promise him I wouldn’t ever do it again.”
“And you never did?”
“No. I’d promised. Papa knew I didn’t break my promises.”
There was a slight emphasis on the “my,” Harry noticed, as if Papa’s promises were something quite different. And he supposed, if the man had gambled everything away, they would be.
“You’re still a girl,” he reminded her.
She made a wry grimace. “No. No, I’m not. When I was a girl, I was such an innocent, and so naive. I thought everything would go on and on forever, just as it was.” She added ruefully, “I lived in a silly dream world, you see; a beautiful, rose-colored bubble.”
The bubble had well and truly burst, he saw.
She sighed. “I must get back. Mrs. Beasley went to bed with one of her heads, but she’ll be up soon.” She broke off with a chuckle. “That’s what she calls the headache—‘one of my heads’—but every time she says it, I imagine her opening a box and selecting one from a number of severed heads.” She gave him a mischievous glance. “Silly, I know.”
He shook his head, unable to think of a word to say. When she looked at him like that, her lips primmed with mirth and her eyes dancing, the only thing in his mind was to leap the wall and kiss her senseless.
She looked away. “Sabre is a beautiful creature. May I give him a treat?”
“Yes, of course, but be careful; he’s not always a gentleman when it comes to food.”
From her skirt pocket she pulled out a slightly browned apple core. She saw his look and explained. “Habit of a lifetime, I’m afraid. I’ve always saved my apple cores. I keep forgetting I don’t have horses anymore.” She held out her palm, crooning in a low voice, “Sabre, you handsome brute, look what I have for you?”
At her words Harry felt himself hardening. Thank God there was a wall between them. Sabre responded almost as eagerly, stretching out his head to sniff greedily at the morsel. Harry kept his hand on the halter, just in case, but Sabre lifted the core delicately off her palm.
“Oh, what a slander, not a gentleman indeed. You have beautiful manners, don’t you?” she told the horse, rubbing his nose with one hand and reaching up to scratch his ears with the other. “You like that, don’t you, darling?”
Harry was tempted to point out he’d like it, too, but he knew she’d walk off on him.
“Those beautiful manners of his are the result of many long hours of training against his own nature. His breed has been encouraged to bite any but their master’s hands since time immemorial.”
She looked up, her brow furrowed. “His breed? The only horses I’ve heard of that are still bred to fight are Zindarian warrior horses, and they’re supposed to be a myth.”
“Then a mythical horse just ate your apple core,” he told her.
Her glorious eyes widened. “You mean—” She turned to examine Sabre more thoroughly. “He is different from any other horse I’ve seen—I remember admiring him that first time in the forest. Is he really a Zindarian warrior horse?”
“Yes, and there are seven more like him in the stables at Firmin Court.” Harry couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice.
“Seven more?” she exclaimed. “However did you manage that?”
“My brother is married to the princess of Zindaria. Sabre was their gift to me. My business partner, Ethan Delaney, owns the other seven. He threw himself into the path of a bullet meant for the little crown prince and saved his life. As a reward the prince regent granted Ethan the gift of his choice of seven horses from the Royal Zindar stables for the next seven years.”
“But that’ll be forty-nine Zindarian horses,” she gasped.
“Yes, and nobody has a better eye for horses than Ethan. He’ll choose the cream of the crop, and by breeding them with the finest and fleetest English Thoroughbreds, we’re hoping to build a stud with a reputation throughout Europe.”
“Zindarian warrior horses,” she breathed. “I never even believed in them until now. Sabre’s very fast, I saw that when you were galloping along the ridge earlier.”
“Yes, I’m planning to race him next season.” So she’d been watching him, Harry thought, repressing a smile. So much for her accusation of him following her when he’d first ridden up, the minx.