He leaned unconsciously forward in the saddle. Was that a thatch of curly brown hair streaming behind the rider? Why, yes, it… it was a woman! She rode astride, her wide-legged split skirt flapping in the wind and her hat fluttering by long ribbons behind her. He swept the terrain again and found no other horses nearby. A runaway!
Without a second thought, Richard’s experienced eyes projected a path to intercept the wayward steed. He put heel to his mount, and they were off in hot pursuit. The leggy brown horse performed better than he had hoped, and in little time at all—though it seemed much longer—they had nearly caught the flying little range pony. He angled a bit more sharply towards it, his hand outstretched to catch the horse’s bridle.
The woman had seen him now. Wide eyes met his own, and her mouth rounded in a single, inaudible syllable just as he closed in on her.
“Whoa, there!” he called, snatching the reins, and giving a firm tug to bring the little pinto into line beside him. “Steady, boy! Miss, are you w—“ he began to ask, but in that instant, she slashed across his face with the long ends of her reins.
“Unhand my horse!” she cried and swung her reins again. “Get back, sir!”
Yelping as if she had scalded him, Richard dropped the rein and jerked away. “I mean you no harm, Miss!” he protested. “I only thought to stop your runaway!”
The fury drained from her features, replaced quickly with wry amusement. “My runaway?” she laughed. “I am glad you informed me I had such a problem, for I might have mistakenly continued to enjoy my ride.”
“You… you were not in any danger, Miss?” he stammered. Naturally, he had known many a bold female rider—why, his mother used to enjoy a splendid gallop as much as any man, and his cousin, Georgiana, followed the hounds whenever she got the chance. The reckless abandon with which this woman tore across the range, however, was altogether new to him. “I… I do beg your pardon. Forgive me for frightening you.” He backed his horse away, touching his hat.
Perhaps sensing her own dishevelled state, she reached to settle her wide hat over her wild, wind-tangled hair. “You are new to the area,” she observed, with a little curve to her brow and an impish smile about her mouth.
Unaccountably shy all at once, he could not stop himself from admiring her before he spoke.How her eyes did sparkle when she smiled!“Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, at your service, Miss. You are correct, for I am only arrived today.”
She lifted her chin in a nod of acknowledgment as her smile widened. “In that case, Colonel, I might suggest you take care of the prairie dog holes when you race your horse off the road like that. Another of your colonels crippled two horses in that way last year.” With a mercurial wrinkle of her nose, she offered him one last grin, whirled her stubby-legged pinto, and darted off along her original course.
Fitzwilliam’s own mount attempted to bolt after the other horse, and had he not his orders, he would have been scarcely less inclined himself. He stared after her. What the devil was a prairie dog? And what a singular young woman!
He remained thus, gazing after the receding wisp of dark hair until she had completely disappeared. Americans were a strange lot.
London
July 1900
Darcygazedstraightforwardin his motor car, his back rigid and his jaw set. How was it that doing the “right” thing somehow always fell to him? He had refused to engage any of his passengers in conversation once they were underway, although he felt the solemn weight of the gaze of the lady riding directly beside him.
“Ah, the Royal Academy! I have it on good authority that the glazing of the windows alone cost in excess of a thousand pounds!”
Darcy arched a brow but otherwise dismissed the American’s ignorant comment. Collins, his name was. A blathering, baby-faced simpleton who spouted useless “facts” of dubious origin about a city he had never visited. A more bumbling, inept, and forgettable chaperone Darcy had never seen.
He pulled up before his own house and hesitated. The temptation of the instant was to turn the steering handle once more and go on, take his passengers to the earl’s house, and wash his hands of it all. Once he invited that doughy American fellow into his own home, and the ladies felt the comfort of his protection, they would be entirely his problem—just as surely as theyshouldhave belonged to someone else.
The taller lady—the prettier one—had ridden in silence just behind him, her hands neatly folded in her lap and her complexion pale. She seemed respectable enough, though he had heard an occasional gasp of uneducated awe at the sights they passed in the street. A raw, simple country girl, but not an offensive one. She could disappear, and he would hardly know she was around. And that pasty fellow on the rear seat beside her could be easily ignored—heaven knew, his house was large enough that he might scarcely see the man.
It was the third guest, the reason he could not turn them all away, who troubled him the most. She rode in much the same posture as her sister, but there was something about her eyes… they seemed to be living, speaking things. They fell on him frequently—he knew this by the way his collar tightened each time they swept his way. He had made the mistake of catching her look only once, and he still could not shake that eerie sense of vulnerability.
She was too free with her expressions. That must be the cause. Her figure seemed to pulse and snap, in contrast to the others who were politely indifferent to one another. Not so with this woman. He could read each nuance of her thoughts as she turned to the window, could perceive her gratitude for her sister’s presence, and her patient disdain whenever her cousin recited another triviality about the London sights. And whenever she looked his way, he felt certain she was some enchantress, endowed with the ability to peer into the hearts of mortal men.
She was staring at him now—Richard’s wife. That was the best he could possibly hope to call her, for either she was an ill-judged “mistake” of his cousin’s, or she was a fraud. Her gaze was steady, her breathing deep and slow as if she were meditating before some great undertaking. Darcy spared her another glance in that last instant before he opened the door. Her eyes never left him.
He stepped down from the motor car to assist the ladies. His shoulders tensed, and the back of his neck prickled when she took his hand, and then she stood on the pavement, her face tipped up to his front door.
He extended a hand towards the steps in the most gracious manner he could affect. “Welcome to Darcy House.”
“Lizzy,didyouseeall the marble?” Jane whispered. “I did not know so much existed!”***
Elizabeth’s eyes had not found one flat or dull surface since setting foot in the opulent house. Surely they were there—they must have been, for there was nothing garish or in poor taste, but the decor was so masterfully wrought that she, with her fresh eyes, had not yet discovered the base tones among the brilliant.
“Look at that mahogany,” she murmured back to Jane. “I have never seen wood so rich.”
“And the crystal! Why, I would be afraid that chandelier would fall on me.”
“Shh.” Elizabeth tipped her head towards the maid they followed. They were being shown to a guest room, and though it was hardly a thorough tour of the house, Elizabeth had begun to wonder how they would ever find their way back to the parlour… or perhaps it was called a drawing-room in such a house. Thebluedrawing-room—as opposed to the white, the gold, and the red, she supposed. Precisely how largewasthis place?
