In The Prince's Bed (10 page)

Pure mischief seized him. “Does that mean I get
two
rewards later?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Too bad. Now I’ll have to make the one be worth all my trouble.”

One act of gallantry is worth any number

of compliments.

—Anonymous, A
Rake’s Rhetorick

Now I’ll have to make the one be worth all my trouble.

The words rang in Katherine’s ears as they set off for the Freeman Assembly Rooms. Lord preserve her, how would she endure an entire afternoon wondering when Alec would claim his “reward”? Wondering if he would taste the same as before, if he’d do that strange thing with his tongue, if he…

With a curse, Katherine slanted a glance over at him. He rode his powerful mount with an ease that proved he hadn’t lied about spending a lot of time on horseback. What an intriguing scoundrel. He sat a horse better than any member of the Jockey Club. Just look at those leather-clad hips settled so perfectly into the saddle, those muscular thighs gripping the mare’s flanks and controlling the animal with mere nudges, those gloved hands effortlessly manipulating the reins. Even his choice of breed was unusual. “What sort of horse is that?” she ventured, as they trotted down the street with Molly lagging several lengths behind.

“A Lusitano. I obtained Beleza inPortugal.” He reached forward to scratch behind the horse’s ear, and she nickered softly. “We’ve been through thick and thin together, haven’t we, girl?”

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“Did she cavort her way through the Continent, too?” Katherine teased. He shot her a sidelong glance. “You seem awfully interested in my cavorting. Do you wish you could do some yourself?”

She smiled. “Not the cavorting exactly, but the traveling. I should love to seeItalyandPortugaland… oh, all of the Continent.”

He shifted his gaze back to the road, his smile fading. “There’s not much to see these days, I’m afraid.”

Oh, yes, the war. Which reminded her…

“I’ve been wondering what a young man can possibly do for fun abroad if he has to avoid Napoleon’s armies.”

“Life goes on even in wartime,” he said dismissively. “People still gamble, drink… cavort.” As they approached an intersection, he slowed his horse to a walk. “Which way?”

“Left, I think.”

He glanced behind them with a frown. “Perhaps we should wait for your maid.”

Katherine looked back. For goodness sake, when had Molly fallen so far behind? And why was she letting the pony rattle her teeth right out of her head when all she had to do was post through the trot?

“Are you sure your maid knows how to ride?” he asked.

“She said she did,” Katherine told him, “but she’s a kitchen maid, and I’m afraid they don’t ride much.”

He eyed her closely. “Why didn’t your mother send your lady’s maid?”

Too mortified to admit the real reason, she shrugged. “We left most of our servants inCornwall.”

Though he looked skeptical, he merely shifted in the saddle to gaze back at Molly. “One ofusshould make sure she’s all right.”

“I’ll go,” Katherine said quickly. The last thing she wanted was Molly explaining why the dire financial situation of the Merivale family necessitated a kitchen maid filling in as lady’s maid. As he reined in, Katherine wheeled her horse round and cantered back to where Molly bounced atop the pony, her face frozen in fear. Katherine pulled up beside her, noting the girl’s death grip on the pommel. “Are you all right?”

The maid gave a jerky nod. When that made her horse veer to the left and she grabbed for the edge of the sidesaddle, Katherine grew alarmed. Molly clearly had no idea how to control a horse. Right now he was blindly following the other two, but once they reached the busier streets…

“Molly, perhaps you should—”

The blare of a tin horn cut her off. Seemingly from out of nowhere, a coach thundered down the street behind them. Seeing the two of them half-blocking the road, the coachman blared his tin horn again, this
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time more loudly. Spooked by the horn and possessed of a fearful rider, Molly’s pony bolted. At Molly’s shriek, Katherine spurred her horse into a gallop. As the pony barreled past Alec with a screaming Molly clinging to the saddle’s far edge, he set his mare after it at a run. The coach roared past Katherine with the coachman sawing on the reins and shouting a warning to the pair ahead, but it wasn’t the coach that sent Katherine’s heart plummeting into her stomach. She could see the pony’s reins dragging the ground, and what was worse, Molly’s right leg had slipped off the sidesaddle horn. Only her death grip on the saddle’s edge was preventing her falling. With the coach hot on her heels and the intersection ahead, if she fell, she would surely be crushed beneath it or another approaching carriage.

Helplessly, Katherine watched as Alec’s horse gained on the pony. In sheer astonishment, she saw him shift his body until he rode almost perpendicular to his mount. He came abreast of the pony just as Molly lost her grip on the sidesaddle.

Katherine wouldn’t have believed what happened next if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. Bending nearly to the ground, Alec snatched Molly before she hit, then flipped her up—up, mind you!—across his saddle as if she were no more than a blanket.

As Katherine watched in amazement, he shifted back up into the saddle from his seemingly impossible position at a right angle to the horse. Then he laid a hand on Molly’s back to steady her while he reined in. Despite the girl slung over his saddle pommel and the coach thundering past with its cursing coachman, Alec easily controlled his mount, guiding it to the side of the road as it slowed to a trot. With Molly safe, Katherine galloped after the riderless pony. Thankfully, the little fellow was slowing of his own steam now that the pesky screaming rider had been removed. By the time she’d caught up with him, snagged his reins, and wheeled him and her own mount back around, Alec had halted his horse and was leaping off with the ease of a panther on cat feet.

As she cantered back toward him with the pony in tow, Katherine’s heart drummed madly in her ears, a delayed reaction to the near tragedy of a few seconds before. Yet Alec looked perfectly calm as he reached up to lift poor Molly off Beleza. Molly fell into his arms sobbing. When Katherine rode up, he was cradling her gently and murmuring soothing words while she cried into his shirt. A crowd had formed around them, but it parted to allow Katherine through. While she guided her horse through the throng, all around her she heard offers of help and expressions of concern for the “poor miss”

who’d had “quite a fright.”

“Cor, did you see that gentry cove ride?” some lad close by told his friend.

“Aye. I only seen riding like that at Astley’s Amphitheatre,” his friend said. Her heart still hammering, Katherine reined in and leaped from her horse. As she approached, Alec was setting Molly on her feet. When the poor maid continued to sob, he dug a handkerchief out of his pocket for her.

Katherine tried to imagineSydneyoffering a kitchen maid his handkerchief. For all his gallantry to Katherine and his poetry about lords finding love with lowly shepherdesses and milkmaids,Sydneywas a pure aristocrat at heart.

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Whereas Alec seemed to be one only in name. How many aristocrats rode like
that
? If Alec hadn’t acted so swiftly—and had the riding skills to manage it—Katherine shuddered to think what might have happened.

A member of the Foot Patrol pushed through the crowd to speak to Alec, and Katherine hastened to Molly’s side.

“Oh, miss,” Molly gasped between sniffles, “I’m so sorry I ruined your outing. I swear I didn’t mean—”

“Hush now.” Katherine looped her arm about the girl’s trembling shoulders. “No more of that, dear. We’re just glad you’re unharmed.”

“I nearly fell off that pony!” Molly’s eyes were round as carriage wheels. “I might’ve been kilt if not for his lordship…”

When she trailed off with a worshipful look at Alec, who was still speaking to the officer, Katherine bit back a smile. Alec conquered hearts wherever he went, didn’t he? No doubt poor Molly would relive the daring rescue for days to come. As would Katherine. She couldn’t believe how close the girl had come to death.

The officer began to disperse the crowd, and Katherine squeezed the maid’s shoulders. “Molly, why did you tell Mama you could ride?”

Dropping her gaze to the ground, Molly twisted the handkerchief about in her shaky fingers. “Somebody had to go with you, miss, and your mother’s maid couldn’t be spared and… well… she said it didn’t matter if I could ride.” With a glance over to where Alec seemed absorbed in tending his horse, she lowered her voice. “Mrs. Merivale said to come home once I lost sight of you, so you and his lordship could be alone. She said something was bound to happen and then he’d have to make you his countess.”

Color flamed in Katherine’s face. Nor did it help when she saw Alec go still, apparently having heard every word. But when his shoulders began to shake with laughter, she scowled at his back. Eavesdropping rogue.

She would deal with Mama and her tactics later. “We’d better get you home now,” she told the maid.

“I’ll take her back.” Alec turned toward them. “She shouldn’t go alone, and I know you don’t want to miss the reading.”

“We’ll all go,” Katherine said firmly.

“Please, miss, don’t you do nothing like that!” Molly cried. “Your mother’ll have my hide if she knows I ruined your outing with his lordship.”

The officer walked up, having cleared the street of curious onlookers. “I can see the young miss home, if you like.”

Katherine hesitated, but she didn’t want Molly to get into trouble—unfairly or not, Mama
would
blame everything on her. Flashing the man a smile, she said, “We’d be most grateful.”

She fished in her reticule for a coin, but Alec was already taking care of it. He even arranged for a passing hackney to carry Molly and the officer back. Within minutes, they were headed off with the pony
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tied to the back of the carriage.

Alec faced her, his eyes dark with concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, managing a game smile.

“Do you still want to attend the reading? We’d be late, but if we go now, we should arrive in time for most of it. That is, if you’re not too shaken.”

“To be honest, I could use something to calm me, and the reading would be perfect since it’s a less…

er… adventurous sort of entertainment.”

With a laugh, he strode over to retrieve his fallen hat, which had been trampled beneath the crowd’s feet. He examined the flattened disc ruefully.

“Looks like you’ll have to go without your poor hat,” she said.

“Not a chance.” He balanced it atop his head. “This and my mud-spattered breeches might convince them to ban me from the reading.”

“Don’t count on it. I doubt anyone there would even notice.”

“Right, I forgot.” Eyes twinkling, he tossed the ruined hat aside. “Poets consider poetry more important than fashion.”

“I don’t know how you can joke after what just happened,” she said, as he strode back to her side.

“My heart is still pounding.”

He helped her mount. “If I’d realized that was all I had to do to make your heart pound, I would have arranged a whole day of horseback rescues.”

“You could probably do it, too,” she retorted, as he mounted his own horse, and they started off. This time, as if by mutual consent, they took it slower, walking the horses along the busy street instead of trotting. “You were amazing. I’ve never seen anyone ride so magnificently. And the way you caught her before she fell! Where on earth did you learn such a thing?”

Alec had to stifle his groan. The last thing he needed was Katherine probing into his past. “It was nothing. Something I picked up abroad.”

“That’s quite a something,” she persisted. “When you said you spent your time in the saddle, I never dreamed—”

“You’re not so bad a rider yourself.” He had to distract her from
his
riding. Besides, she did ride well, even in that silly sidesaddle Englishwomen had to use. “You caught that pony in no time.”

She blushed at his praise. “It was nothing, really. Anybody can catch a riderless pony. Whereas you—”

“—are grateful you made the effort.” He had to get her off this subject. “I wouldn’t have wanted to lose her.” Especially since it would have cost him dearly.

They’d reached the intersection, and as he watched her guide her mount expertly through it, he imagined
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her riding across the Cornish heath, her flaming hair unfurling behind her, her firm little behind shifting in the saddle as she adjusted to the horse’s motions. The same way she would adjust to Alec’s motions when he had her beneath him in bed—

He stamped out that tempting image. Riding a horse with an erection was damned uncomfortable. As soon as they’d maneuvered through the intersection, she asked, “I take it you had lots of time to ride abroad?”

Good God, were they back to that? It served him right for letting his imagination wander. “I rode quite a bit. But apparently you did, too, out there in the country. Or so your mother said.”

Flushing, she ducked her head. “I am
so
sorry about Mama and her tactics. I had no idea she would do something so irresponsible in order to… well…”

“Getusalone?” Alec eagerly seized on the change of subject. “That’s not the only reason she sent Molly, is it? Tell the truth—your family didn’t leave all the servants inCornwall, did they?” The best way to deflect unwanted questions was to ask your own.

She shifted her gaze to the road ahead. “It’s just that… I mean…” She sighed. “I suppose you might as well know. Papa’s death leftusa bit pinched for funds. But that will change soon.”