A Prince Among Men (5 page)

Chapter 3

O
n Thursday, as the first streaks of a red dawn lit the undersides of the clouds, Miss Brinsby came directly to Shadow's stall. The mare leaned her head over the gate, whickering softly, and allowed her ears to be scratched. Alexander's grip tightened on the feed pails he carried. There might be nothing in it except a girl's fondness for her horse, or it might be Miss Brinsby's way of asserting her mastery of the situation between them. She could come and go freely, step in and out of his realm as her whim moved her. He could only stand and serve.

Alexander gathered the tack and opened the stall, moving in a smooth, automatic sequence he knew by heart. Miss Brinsby stepped in after him and the stall enclosed them in warm, hay-scented air in which there was some indefinable influence of her presence. He paused for an instant, forgetting what came next. She took the bridle from his unmoving hands and turned to Shadow, murmuring softly and rubbing the mare's neck and ears.

Alexander blinked, recovering the faculty of
motion, and laid the blanket on the mare's back,

A tiny "mmm" from Miss Brinsby made him glance her way.

"Are you sure she has no bruises or tender spots?"

Their eyes held, hers testing not his competence, but his patience. She knew he'd checked. From the other end of the stable came the clang of someone collecting the empty feed pails.

"You may see, miss, whether I've overlooked anything." He stepped aside, and she took his place and began an expert examination of Shadow's back and shoulders. It was a mistake to watch. A helpless stillness took hold of him, narrowing his attention to her hands. Incongruously he wanted those hands skimming his body. The erotic thought evoked an image of Miss Brinsby in his narrow bed above the tailor shop. When she shrugged and stepped away, he had to force himself to move toward the horse, to return to saddling the mare.

His hands seemed detached, part of a machine separate from himself, doing the familiar work while he tried to bring his mind to order. As he hefted the saddle, she stopped him with a touch on his arm, as feather-light as air, but the sensation of it sank through him like a stone settling in the unresisting waters of a pond, and he paused, letting the shock ripples dissipate.

"Make sure the cinch doesn't slap her side."

He gritted his teeth. "I know my business." With exaggerated care he settled the saddle in place.

As he leaned down to do the cinch, their shoulders brushed, sending another current of
awareness swirling through him. He sucked in a deep breath that filled his senses with her fragrance, a sweet contrast to leather and horse and dust.

"You'll cinch slowly, won't you? It must not pinch her."

He let out his breath, incapable of reply.

While she watched, he slid the flat of his unsteady hand along the mare's belly under the cinch. His hand grew hot, his pulse pounded. He straightened and stepped back, gaining some distance from her, and murmured his need to saddle Raj.

When he'd got the horses to the mounting block, she paused with one hand in his, the other on Shadow's saddle.

"It's going to rain," she observed, looking not at him but at the clouds.

He hardly heard her, his mind absorbed in memorizing the feel of her small palm in his "Yes, miss."

"I don't think I'll ride this morning, after all. Thank you, Alexander."

She slipped her hand free and walked off without a backward glance, as if he were a stair rail, a fence post, a stile. He stood fighting anger, humiliation, and most of all, desire.

In an hour she was back.

"It's going to hold off. I think I should like to ride after all."

Silently, he invoked the Virgin of Laruggia, Queen of Patience. "Begging your pardon, Miss Brinsby, but are these false starts fair to the horses?"

She tilted her head, the curve of her cheek soft
and pink against the deep blue of her bonnet, her expression conscious of another victory. "I hope you're equal to
the demands of the position, Al
exander.
"

They rode out in a light rain.

He clamped his jaw shut, his gaze locked on her small form, his grievances against her bottled up inside him. No one else, not Clagg, not the duke, made him feel the humility of his position. On Tuesday she had appeared at the stables so early that he went without breakfast. He swore that she had been prepared to turn back until she heard his stomach growl. Instead, they rode for two hours, stopping and starting more times than a hackney cab plying Fleet Street.

On Wednesday she had come so late he'd despaired of her coming and been irked with himself for waiting. They did not stir above a walk. He'd gone to Clagg, acknowledging Miss Brinsby's pointed dislike, offering to do some other service, and been treated to a sermon on the virtues of order. Neither Miss Brinsby's displeasure with her groom nor his reluctance to serve her would alter Clagg's arrangements. Jasper Brinsby's purchase of a difficult horse and the abrupt dismissal of Miss Brinsby's former groom had unsettled Clagg's kingdom. In Clagg's not too flexible mind Alexander solved both problems neatly.

In truth, Alexander admitted to himself he might not like Miss Brinsby, but his body craved her presence. It was his peculiar misfortune to respond most eagerly to women who were ut
terly indifferent to him…
unlike Lucca, who seemed to smell a responsive woman.

By the time they entered the park, he had worked out an explanation for her singular effect on him. His mind was empty. For weeks he had filled his head with Trevigna's problems; now there was room for other thoughts to come crowding in. And as she was the first female he'd encountered, inevitably thoughts of her obsessed him.

There certainly wasn't any other female in his life. He wasn't a monk, but he'd never kept a regular mistress in England. Kings' mistresses were notorious for intrigues and favorites, two ills of government he wished to avoid.

He was pleased to understand his condition; now he would master the feelings she stirred in him and be able to regard her with calm indifference.

Inside the park gates they set off at a decorous, rolling canter down a stretch of deserted track. It was the most ordinary thing his troublesome mistress had done. Then Miss Brinsby leaned into Shadow's neck and the mare shot forward, a black arrow of a horse. Alexander, a length and half behind, holding Raj's reins lightly, was caught off guard. But Raj reacted instantly, answering the mare's challenge, reaching out with his forelegs, hooves striking the ground, consuming it. The wind whipped tears from Alexander's eyes, but he kept his gaze on the girl.

When Raj came abreast of Shadow, the brief blazing mile came to an end in a spray of gravel and a dance of hooves. The horses blew, tossing their heads. As they settled to a cooling walk, Alexander wiped his eyes.

"
Is there some criticism you wish to make?
Some rule of ladylike behavior you'd care to remind me of?" she asked.

He wanted to shout. She was beautiful. She was mad. He made his dry throat work. "No."

"Good, because then I'd have to remind you that a lady's groom stays a length and half behind." She said it seriously, but an impish delight sparkled in her dark eyes.

They continued at a walking pace along the drive toward the Serpentine. Where the path curved to follow the edge of the little lake, she wanted to dismount. There was a brief awkward moment when her hands were on his shoulders, his at her waist, but he mastered himself and let her go. Then they were walking side by side, leading the horses. She looked about the park, apparently undisturbed, while he attempted to slow the heated rush of his blood.

At the end of the lake where the ground fell away to a dell, a flock of ducks and moorhens bobbed in the water. She halted to watch the birds, the yearning look back in her eyes.

"I think I'll bring bread for the ducks tomorrow."

Alexander looked away. If he let himself feel any sympathy for her, she'd get the better of him for sure.

O
phelia had accepted Haddington's invitation to ride in the park as a matter of policy. He was the least tedious of her supposed suitors, and if she wished to avoid marriage to Wyatt or Dent, she had to have some alternative. All she required was a man sensible enough to manage his estate and her inheritance. That was if the man
were not cow-fisted or a poor rider. At the moment, she had her doubts about Haddington.

He was insisting upon the merits of his horses and his equipment as they headed for the afternoon crawl through the park. Though he lashed his team of showy bays, they moved sluggishly.

"My pair doesn't re
ally show to advantage in town,"
he said. "Real goers need the open road."

"London is always difficult for horses," Ophelia said mildly, as a smart curricle passed them briskly, going in the opposite direction. The park lay ahead, the drive already clogged with low, open carriages, ladies waving to one another, plumed hats nodding. Ophelia put her hand on Haddington's arm as he was about to lash the horses again. "Why don't you take them out of town a ways, just to show me their paces?"

"Certainly, Lady Ophelia." He turned his pair, and with a smart crack of his whip, sent them into a trot. As they headed north, leaving the city behind, Ophelia discovered that Haddington had not exaggerated the horses' speed, after all, but he had failed t
o mention their jouncing, bone-
jarring gait.

When they slowed at last and Ophelia could release her grip on the seat, she looked about at the landscape with its first hints of spring, green spears of grass poking up along the banks and puffy balls on the catkins in the ditches. The sun, descending on their left, bathed the fields in soft golden light
.

Suddenly Ophelia sat up straight.

"What is it?" Haddington asked.

"That's my brother's horse," she said. Raj stood in the middle of a close-cropped field, his
ears pricked alertly. He was without a bridle or lead of any sort. Ophelia twisted on the carriage seat. "Stop, Haddington."

He reined in his pair.

"I wonder how he got away?" Ophelia said, gathering her skirts to descend from the carriage. "Haddington, do you have something I could use as a lead?" She had no idea how to recover the beast, but she had to try.

Across the field Raj lowered his head and took a few slow steps forward. He poked his nose into a clump of grass, and in a fluid streak of motion Alexander came to his feet, grasped a handful of mane, and leapt to Raj's back. For a moment Raj danced with a springy step, as if neither his rider nor gravity had a hold on him, then he checked and stood perfectly still. Instantly, Alexander slid from his back, offering the stallion something from his pocket, stroking the beautiful proud curve of the horse's neck. After a minute he turned and walked away.

A very unladylike term came to Ophelia's mind. Of all the cocksure, irresponsible idiots who went by the name of man, Alexander had to be one of most conceited. She pressed her lips together. She couldn't shout or she'd startle the horse, but she couldn't allow Jasper's prize to get away.

Then, like a puppy or a duckling following its mother, the stallion trotted after Alexander.

Ophelia could not prevent the little "O" of surprise her mouth made.

"Now, that's a tame horse," said Haddington. "Thought your brother bought that beast of Plimpton's that smashed his rig to bits."

"
You must be thinking of a different horse,"
said Ophelia, smiling sweetly.
"Will you take me home now, Haddington? You know what a stickler my mother is."

"Of course, Lady Ophelia." He slapped the reins against his team's rumps.

Ophelia caught one last glance of her groom and the chestnut stallion, walking side by side through the quiet evening, like friends.

F
riday morning Miss Brinsby stalked into the stableyard, clutch
ing a paper bag he thought must
contain bread for the ducks. He'd dreamed of her hands on him and wakened taut and aching.

"Do you know how much my brother paid for that beast?" she asked, as he led Raj out into the yard.

"He's worth every guinea, miss."

"Then explain to me what you were doing with him yesterday afternoon in an open field without a lead."

Alexander could not help smiling at her. "Teaching him to like being caught."

Her mouth puckered, and Alexander found himself staring at her lips, pink and soft looking. She spun away.

He saddled the horses, watching with a wary eye as a footman entered the stableyard dragging a short, fat dog on a leash. The magnificent, liveried footman clearly regarded the dog as an encumbrance beneath his dignity. He stopped inside the gate and pulled a pipe from one of his pockets. Draping the dog's leash over his arm, he cupped the pipe in his palms and nursed the
tobacco to light with a bit of burning straw.

The dog looked around fiercely, saw Miss Brinsby, and bristled just as her idle glance turned his way.

"Good morning, Pet, you vile creature," she said.