A Prince Among Men (3 page)

He saw it, of course, and his full, finely drawn mouth, which she really hadn't noticed before, curved up in a slight smile.

She gritted her teeth, planted her hands on his shoulders and slid into his grip. His hands closed around her waist. She had a sensation of truly falling, her blood rushing.

In a blink she was standing on firm ground in possession of about half her wits, with a furious fluttering in her breast like the beating of a trapped moth's wings. He was taller than she'd thought. She was at eye level with the careless knot of his cravat, and when he swallowed, the bob of his Adam's apple evoked an answering bob low in her stomach. His hands tightened once at her waist, then fell away.

He turned to Shadow, biting the tip of one tan
glove, pulling it free with his teeth, and running his bare hand over the mare's flank. Gently but firmly he tested the cinch and the balance of the saddle. Ophelia could not look away from the hand sliding over the mare's sides.

"It's fine now, miss," he said, his attention apparently absorbed by the task of putting on his glove.

"Thank you," she said, surprising both herself and him.

She stepped up to remount, and he seemed deliberately obtuse about her intention. She raised her brows, and belatedly he linked his hands, but when she placed her foot in them, he froze, seeming paralyzed. Then, with a phrase under his breath, he tossed her up and turned away.

She was grateful for Shadow's steadiness. Alexander's grip on her foot sent some sensation sizzling through her, and in the aftermath her arms and legs were limp like the padded limbs of china dolls. She recognized the mortifying symptoms of her susceptibility to a handsome face. She should get as far from him as she could and insist that her father find her a groom more to her liking, one who was as plain as porridge.

But if she quit, he won, and there was no hope of escape. She allowed Shadow to walk half the length of the park before she said she thought it was not the cinch after all, but perhaps the stirrup.

He halted Raj.

"Beg pardon, miss, but yer the picture of comfort in the saddle."

"Nevertheless, I would like you to check the stirrup." She lifted her foot and pulled aside the
heavy blue skirts of her habit. He dismounted and approached her side, stopping with his nose not six inches from her thigh. She had the strangest sensation of heat where his gaze met her person.

Taking a deep breath, as if he were making a great effort, he lowered the stirrup below her reach. She shook her head and removed her glove to point. He raised the stirrup so she could rest her chin on her knee. Her mouth twitched, but she merely asked him to try again. He returned the stirrup to its original position. She opened her mouth to suggest another change, but a quick, sharp glance made her say she thought the adjustment perfect.

She had initiated this game, and he dared to play. She could not reproach him for it without acknowledging her tactics.

When he was back on Raj, she allowed them to go at least a dozen yards before she dropped her glove. He swung down, hanging from the saddle, and scooped it up without dismounting.

Ophelia simply stared. Had the man come from Astley's Circus? She stretched out her bare hand to receive the glove, conscious of his gaze on her hand, as if he meant to memorize it. Perhaps she was taking this thing too far. He was nothing like William or any other servant she'd had.

''Thank you," she said.

They started again, Shadow lifting her head, eager for a run. Ophelia patted her mare's neck, in apology for keeping them from their usual gallop, but she didn't mean to give in. They reached the banks of the Serpentine.

"I'd like to have a look at the water, if you don't mind, Alexander."

"The 'orses would like a run, miss," he said through clenched teeth.

"Do you think the horses should be consulted? An odd view for a groom to take."

"A 'orse should do what 'is master tells 'im to."

"And a servant? Should he do what his mistress commands?"

"Foolish
commands do no credit to either,
Miss."

Ophelia studied him. There it was again, the too precise speech of his other voice. "You don't speak like a servant."

The blue gaze slid away from hers. "My father was an educated man."

"Then you needn't put on an accent for me." She didn't mean to sound irked.

"Yes, miss." The blue eyes were amused.

"You think me quite spoiled, don't you?"

"I heard you were good to your horse," he said, dropping the accent so completely, she blinked.

"I am."

His stare challenged her.

"Only
…"
She
smiled. "When my groom is a proper servant." She didn't wait for his assistance but slid from the saddle and strode down to the water's edge.

Once the girl strode off, Alexander could think. He had misinterpreted what little talk there'd been in the stable about the duke's daughter. Clagg had told him his duty was to accompany the young lady and keep their ride
to the park. He remembered Clagg's words. "She has a good seat and never abuses her animal." He had added, with a shrug, "She's spoiled some." It was Alexander, who'd interpreted these remarks to mean he would be escorting a rebellious hoyden of twelve or thirteen. Her habit of riding at sunrise had also suggested a young person, not a lady of fashion who could go from the opera to a ball to a midnight supper in an evening.

The truth was something else. The girl was probably twenty, and though she wasn't a beauty in the common way, the size and brilliance of her dark eyes had already interfered with the measured beat of his pulse.

He hadn't fooled her, exactly. Her eyes were shrewd and clever rather than sweet, and she'd seen through his accent quick enough. He figured she didn't have enough information to unmask him. And she'd been preoccupied with trying to shake his company. Her grip on the riding crop was firm, and he suspected she had little experience in having her will crossed. He didn't know where his own boldness had come from, but challenging her had seemed instinctive.

She stood at the water's edge, looking down, idly stirring the reeds with her riding crop. Her riding habit was the blue of deep ocean when you were nowhere near home. The jacket nipped in at the waist and buttoned up to the lace at her chin, and the slimness of that waist made her vulnerable somehow, in spite of her haughty manner. But he shouldn't be thinking that. He was the lady's groom and he wasn't going to get
himself sacked, as his predecessor had been.

The job had given him the perfect hiding place. A week before, he'd been running like a fox from his particular hounds and found this stable a handy covert. He wouldn't be flushed out of it because the duke's daughter was confined to the park.

Of all the pleasures of his former life, he'd missed horses most in the weeks he'd spent at his desk in the room above the tailor's shop. Then, when his plans seemed to come to nothing and his choices disappeared, he'd wandered the long rows of stables behind the great houses of the West End. There he'd come across Raj, blindfolded and held down by four grooms, idiots with neither sense nor kindness. Enraged at the indignity of the stallion's treatment, Alexander had interfered. His success with Raj earned him a job offer on the spot, and in a moment of madness he'd taken it.

Since then, he'd been talking to the stallion, stroking him, teaching the skittish horse the sound of his voice and feel of his hand. Raj didn't like the city, and he didn't like the clatter of wheels, the surprise of traffic coming from every direction at once. It was plain that the tendermouthed, high-strung stallion had been abused.

Raj he understood; the girl was a puzzle. Spoiled, yes, but something more. When she'd not been looking, he'd caught a glimpse of a face bleak with disappointment. It was not the look of a spoiled child denied her way. He stole another glance at her.

Ophelia welcomed the coolness of the morning mist against her heated face. Her pulse drummed
in her ears. She hardly understood herself this morning. It was true that patience was not her strongest suit, but she'd lost control of a perfectly simple situation. Alexander had made her incautious and had muddled her mind so that she'd hardly been able to come up with a single strategy for getting free. She gazed across the water through the trees. In the distance, riders cantered along the Row; and further south, carriages moved along the Kensington Road, where she'd be if William were still her groom.

Just a few miles beyond the park, her friend Hetty would be sitting down to good coffee and hot biscuits. In Hetty's morning room, Ophelia had a remarkable degree of freedom. Society expected one to choose friends for their titles or wealth or fashionableness. Society expected one to keep a mask in place everywhere, a brittle, polished shell of indifference, but at Hetty's, Ophelia could laugh or frown or say what she pleased.

Eventually, her senses calmed and she could hear the bird calls from the reeds. She could prolong her ride perhaps an hour more, but when it was over, she'd be stuck at home for the day, where she could predict the remarks of every one of her mother's callers. Where all the talk would be of slights and miseries, hem lengths and trim, scandals and suitors. Where ideas were like boxes instead of like doors.

Ophelia looked up to find her new groom watching her. He stood by the horses, keeping them company, his shoulder against the stallion's. She wondered if all his sympathies were reserved for horses or whether she could just tell
him how she depended on Hetty. Would he listen and say, "Of course, miss, no harm in that, let's go"? She dismissed the fantasy. Servants were often as snobby as their employers. Most would not want a duke's daughter to have friends among tradesmen.

She trudged up the slope to the horses. Somehow she had to get the man on her side. "Shall we ride?"

He linked his hands to toss her up. She willed herself to think of him as a ladder, a mounting block, a convenience, but the peculiar melting sensations took hold as soon as her foot touched his hands. She smelled a spicy scent, felt the strength of his arms, and landed slightly breathless in the saddle. She hauled Shadow around and concentrated on working the horse through her paces.

Neither spoke again until they turned toward home.

"Feeling better, miss?" he asked.

"A gallop in the park is not freedom for horse or rider."

"But there is freedom somewhere beyond the park?"

She wouldn't meet that perceptive gaze. She expected Raj to balk or shy at the increase in traffic as London woke up and went about its business, but Alexander kept the stallion moving steadily toward the stable.

Ophelia studied him surreptiously to see if she could detect the secret of his success with the horse. All that she could see was that he was very sure of himself. And he thought he'd won in their encounter.

With his flashing eyes and proud assurance, Alexander had upset one of the fundamental certainties of life. Servants served—instantly, impassively, unobtrusively. They bowed and scraped and kept their opinions to themselves. They could be managed.

In the yard she dismounted without his assistance, tossed him Shadow's reins, and went in search of Clagg, cornering him as he prepared to mount the box of the ducal chaise and drawing him across the yard.

Alexander was rubbing the horses down with brisk efficiency.

"I want Shadow exercised thoroughly," she said. "And groomed. No half measures. Her coat needs the dandy brush. I'd like her mane thinned, her hooves cleaned, and her fetlocks trimmed. And here
…"
She
went on giving orders about tack, grooming, and feeding. She took Clagg to inspect the mare's stall and kicked aside the obviously sweet, fresh bedding. "I want this stall cleaned down to the dirt. It's too damp."

Clagg gave Alexander a swift questioning look, but said only, "Best get to it, lad."

Ophelia waited 'til the coachman was out of earshot. She wanted to hear Alexander grumble, or at least see him glare at her, but he merely moved steadily from task to task, watering, brushing, offering grain and hay.

"Perhaps you're not suited to be a lady's groom, Alexander."

"If you mean I understand horses better than ladies, miss, you're right."

Chapter 2

T
he two things Ophelia most disliked about her mother's gold drawing room were the gilt friezes and the dog. Pet, her mother's brown and white Welsh corgi, lay pressed against Lady Searle on a yellow brocade sofa and appeared in three larger-than-life portraits of the duchess on the silk-hung walls. The dog pricked his ears at Ophelia, regarding her with the malice of a longtime enemy. Ophelia murmured the appropriate excuses for her tardy appearance and kissed her mother's cheek lightly, ignoring Pet's raised hackles.

"Walking sausage," she mouthed at the animal.

Lady Searle's usual coterie of late-morning visitors had gathered—Lady Pomfret and her daughter Anne, Lady Clermont, two gentlemen who purported to be Ophelia's suitors, and Lady Searle's sister and nieces. Besides these few, Lady Searle's drawing room generally attracted people who wanted something from the duche
ss. As Ophelia moved to join Ann
e Pomfret, whom
she actually liked, her cousins Cecile and Emily intercepted her.

"Ophelia, did you hear that your beau deserted you?" Cecile asked.

"I have no beau," Ophelia answered carefully.

"She means the gentleman who was so interested in you last season," Emily whispered, as if Ophelia had forgotten who her suitors were.

Cecile leaned forward conspiratorily. "George Wyatt's pursuing a carpet heiress from Finsbury Square."

Ophelia had to be grateful that her cousins were as tall as they were tactless. They blocked her from the others' view, so there was no one to observe the instant of her unsteadiness and recovery, the first of the new season. Last spring Wyatt had trifled with her, and the more malicious of London's gossips would no doubt watch her reaction to each mention of his name.

"I wish her well." Ophelia fixed her smile and took a step toward the tea table.

"You do?" asked Emily with a puzzled thrust of her chin.

Ophelia nodded. "Tea?"

"I suppose you'll keep Lord Dent to yourself, then," Cecile said, trailing after Ophelia.

"Plain, stupid men are the best sort." Ophelia held her cup to a footman who poured for her.

"She doesn't mean it, does she, Cici?" whispered Emily.

Cecile rolled her eyes.
"Of course
she doesn't mean it." She turned back to Ophelia. "You don't need a rich beau, so you should leave Dent to one of us."

"You're welcome to him, I'm sure
,"
said Ophelia.

Cecile wrinkled her brow.

"Really. I make no claim on him." Ophelia stirred the milk in her tea.

Cecile looked suspicious. "Then you won't mind if Emmy tries to fix his attention this season?"

"Not at all." Ophelia smiled at Anne Pomfret across the room. Anne's mother tended to take over her daughter's conversation, but sometimes Anne and Ophelia managed a good talk.

Not this morning. Before she could escape to Anne, Ophelia was intercepted by Robert Haddington. His favorite topic was his carriage, and to stem the flow of details about the suspension and balance, she agreed to go driving with him on Thursday.

An hour later the others had gone and Aunt Augustine was chronicling her miseries in detail, implying that suffering such as hers could be relieved only by whatever favor she had come to beg. Cecile enlivened the conversation by picking at the trim of her bodice, while Emily smiled fixedly, her lips lightly parted, as if by opening her mouth she might better take in what was being said.

Ophelia sat at the end of the sofa occupied by Lady Searle and Pet. While her aunt spoke, Ophelia entertained visions of her new groom laboring over his tasks. Not that anything she had commanded him to do was that arduous, but the number of interruptions in a busy stable would keep him running from chore to chore. Each time someone in the household called for a carriage,
Alexander would have to stop the extra work she'd given him to help roll the vehicle in or out of its house, or to open the gates. Very likely he would think twice about opposing her will again.

She smiled to herself and received a glare from Aunt Augustine.

Inevitably as Augustine's miseries came to light Ophelia regretted the friezes and the portraits. She had long since memorized the static pattern of golden gryphons with their raised paws holding her father's coronet. And not even Reynolds' art could render Pet appealing.

Lady Searle and her sister had once been considered a matched set, with golden red curls and hazel eyes, but married life had pared the duchess to the bone and puffed Augustine like a meringue. At forty-five she clung to youthful curls and styles, so that as her indignation grew, her red curls trembled and her generous bosom quivered.

"What else are servants paid for, if not to come when the bell rings?" Augustine asked.

"You've not lost your housekeeper again, Augustine?" Lady Searle scratched Pet's ears.

"Lost! If it were only that. I think she's taken some of the silver, and I have such a large dinner party planned. I don't know what I'll do." Augustine's not-so-secret wish was to outdo her sister as a hostess.

Her hint for assistance so moved Lady Searle that she offered Pet a bit of scone. "Use a reliable agency and you won't be reduced to counting the plates when your servants leave."

Augustine, who was leaning forward, sat up sharply. A look of annoyance flashed in her eyes
and was suppressed with scarcely a shake of her curls. "They're all alike. I'm sure I've had housekeepers from every reputable agency, even from Daiworthy."

"Never from Daiworthy, Augustine. You wouldn't be in these circumstances again if you had."

Ophelia wondered where Clagg had found Alexander—not from a reputable agency, surely. Her aunt's account of the sly housekeeper prompted an alternate vision of Alexander. Perhaps he wouldn't move dutifully from chore to chore. Perhaps he would simply shove his hands in his pockets and seek a position elsewhere. His talent with horses could win him a situation anywhere.

Ophelia straightened. The thought of his walking away from their conflict was somehow unsatisfying.

Augustine's bosom quivered. "It's that dreadful annuity for Edgar's mother that limits us so. She'll live to be a hundred, I'm sure, before we ever see a farthing of the Payne money. If I weren't capable of economies, who knows what deprivations the girls would endure?"

"The girls look well enough." Lady Searle did not confirm this opinion by so much as a glance.

Aunt Augustine straightened and looked pointedly at Ophelia. "In fashion and air, I daresay, they're the equal of any girl in society."

Lady Searle's head came up. "Not in that particular shade of pink for Cecile. She looks quite like a confectioner's box. She would do better in
…
russet or bronze."

They all looked at Cecile, whose full mouth
was flatly sullen. Lady Searle was right, of course. Her one talent was an unfailing sense of fashion.

Augustine produced a square of linen from her bag, dabbing at her dry eyes. "Oh dear, sister, what's to become of my girls if you don't help us?" She sniffed. Aunt Augustine always referred to the duchess as "sister."

"It will take weeks to replace Mrs. Walters, and I will hardly have time to spare for anything else. It really is too hard. And the girls should not suffer for it. They need a grand ball. You must be planning a ball this season, sister
…
"

"Me, give a ball?" Lady Searle's hand stilled, and Pet's ears twitched. He wiggled slightly, and she resumed her strokes.

"It's so easy for you, sister. You have a lovely room and an army of servants. You dictate the guest list to your secretary. He arranges the cards. And it's no trouble to send a note round to Gunter's for refreshments."

Augustine returned her handkerchief to her bag. Ophelia thought it the shrewdest move she'd ever seen Aunt Augustine make, but she doubted her aunt would trick the duchess into revealing her entertainment plans. Still, Augustine had enough sense to know that now was the moment to wait.

Lady Searle's hand moved slowly back
and
forth across Pet's belly, lifting white tufts of fur between her fingers. Pet arched his long stomach appreciatively. There was no danger after all to his idle, pampered life. Lady Searle would continue to caress him and feed him treats. She lifted
her hand suddenly, and Pet's eyes opened. He fixed Ophelia with a hostile stare.

"Well, Augustine. A ball. You know, I hadn't thought of it." Lady Searle held out her hand to end the visit. "Do you go to Talhurst's tonight?"

"Could you get us a card?"

"Of course."

Augustine rose and bowed and took her sister's thin hand. The girls dropped curtsies to their aunt.

"Remember, dear, bronze," Lady Searle said to Cecile.

When they had gone, she turned to Ophelia. "At last. It's so wearing to listen to her. Ring the bell for me, dear."

Ophelia rose and crossed to the bell pull.

"Augustine is so transparent. As if she could vie with me on what Edgar has. Really, it's a kindness to spare her the attempt."

"Are you giving a ball, Mother?" Lady Searle's entertainments were usually on a more exclusive scale.

Lady Searle's hands lay perfectly still in her lap. Pet snored lightly. "Yes, for Princess Charlotte and her betrothed."

"Mother, that's an enormous undertaking."

"A princess marries only once. It would be appropriate, too, if you were to use the occasion to announce your own betrothal. A compliment to the princess, following in her footsteps."

"My betrothal?" Ophelia was aware of a squeak in her voice.

"This is your second season. Searle and I agree it's time you settled on someone of a rank not indecently below your own. Searle will drop a
delicate hint here and there with whomever you like."

"I don't like anyone."

Her mother gave her glance that warned against being tiresome. "That's not the point. If you don't want to end like Augustine, you need someone like Wyatt or Dent."

"Dent?" Dent, who never had an idea unconnected to his worth.

Lady Searle stood and clapped her hands for Pet. The corgi yawned and rolled to his feet. "Or Wyatt," she said mildly. "You must marry."

Wyatt, who had opened Ophelia's eyes to the hypocrisy of society, and who was now
courting the carpet heiress…

Lady Searle drifted toward the door, Pet waddling in her wake, while Ophelia tried to summon her wits. Her parents were entirely indifferent to her happiness. They would give her to Dent or Wyatt without distinguishing between the two or recognizing the unsuitability of either man. She didn't know what to say.

"Mother, did you know father sacked William?"

"William?"

"My groom."

Her mother looked puzzled. "You must not ride without a groom, dear."

"I want William."

"They're all replaceable."

"No one else knows my ways."

"As long as you observe the proprieties, what can it matter?"

James, the first footman, appeared, and Lady
Searle entrusted Pet to him with instructions for the animal's outing.

Ophelia was left with the friezes. They formed a tight border around the entire upper edge of the room. There was no escape, they said. The lofty dignity of the house of Searle would be preserved. None of Ophelia's tricks would let her escape marriage.

L
ord Searle's London stables were built along palatial lines and run like a minor kingdom. In addition to sixteen stalls, there were four coach houses for the two chaises, barouche, curricle, and phaeton, separate shoeing facilities, and a room for livery. Straw was abundant, the routine smooth, the equipment clean. Neither drunkenness nor mistreatment of the animals was permitted, and every man had his job. Alexander liked the place.

At least, he had until he'd become Miss Brinsby's groom. Riding with her awakened him to the curious doubleness of his position. There wasn't much deception in working directly with the horses, but as her groom he was actively pretending to be something he was not.

Late afternoon shadows covered the stable-yard when he spread a final layer of sweet straw in Shadow's stall and stabled the mare. He still had chores to do for Clagg, and he wanted time to work with Raj.

He had thought of little besides Miss Brinsby for most of the day, and he'd had plenty of time to think. She was not precisely a beauty, except for the eyes and the skin. If he had to describe her, he would say she was as full of tricks as one
of the night fairies that the hill people loved to tell tales about, and just as likely to tweak a man's nose or knock the stool from under him and send him tumbling. When she'd failed to get away from him at first with the trick in the square, she'd reversed her tactics, slowing their pace, prolonging their ride.

It was clear she'd had some objective other than a ride in the park. He had expected to see a suitor approach and signal the girl for a clandestine tryst, but they'd met few riders and she'd been indifferent to them all. When she'd stopped to linger by the water, he'd had a new feeling about her. Her whole person expressed yearning for something just out of her reach beyond the park, and he had had to wrench his gaze away.