“I felt much the same way when I was forced to compliment you the other day, so I feel your pain.” Was it wrong that he enjoyed sparring with her? Or that already he was uncharacteristically comfortable around her? Or that she made him want to smile?
Inch by inch, Guy could sense his guard coming down and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Yet he couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to shore those defenses back up again this morning. She’d be gone in a week, so it wasn’t as if this unlikely friendship that had kindled between them could develop into more, and he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to act on his attraction. Knowing Aunt Almeria, Miss Travers wouldn’t last in her employ anyway, and she’d have a new companion in time for her next visit to Kent, so what was the harm? Irrespective of Bill’s close-to-the-bone teasing, there really wasn’t one, so why was he overthinking things?
“Had Zeus been mistreated?” Her intuitiveness impressed him.
“He was previously owned by an idiot who tried to race him but used the whip too freely rather than learn how to control a horse respectfully.”
She slanted him a knowing glance, as if she saw straight into his soul. “Is that why you bought him? And Hamish for that matter too. Then you purchased Juno for a king’s ransom so that Zeus would have a friend because all the other horses hated him and you couldn’t stand that.”
“I bought Juno as I have lofty ideas to breed champion horses.” An ambition he had never admitted aloud up to now. Yet, somehow, he knew she would understand it and not think him silly for doing it.
“To race or to sell?”
“Both, I suppose. Except my first attempt”—he gestured to the jittery Hercules—“isn’t the sort of horse I could do either with.”
“Hercules is just young and headstrong. With the right training, I think he has the potential to win the Derby. Just look at him.” He knew she would understand because she knew horses. “Look at his bone structure and muscle tone. He has an impressive gait too, and his father’s lengthy stride. I’ll wager he will fly like the wind on a straight track and love it if he’s taught properly.” Her focus shifted from the horse back to him. “I can see you as a breeder and it makes sense to spend good money on good horses.” Then she shot Guy a mischievous glance that went straight to his groin. “But that doesn’t explain why you purchased the arthritic, limping, ancient cart horse that Bill calls Old Nag six months ago for no otherapparent purpose than to allow him to spend his twilight years munching on grass?” She grinned before he could answer. “For all your bluster and the perennial angry storm cloud lingering over your head”—she gestured to it as if she could see it—“you are a softhearted rescuer, aren’t you?”
He wasn’t prepared to admit to that aloud, so he sidestepped. “I simply like horses, Miss Travers. Dogs and donkeys too. Sheep, cows, pigs. Cats at a push.”
“So basically any creature, so long as they have four legs.”
He shook his head, enjoying her company. “I’m not a fan of vermin and they have four legs, but I don’t dislike birds and they only have two.”
“Must you always be so contrary?”
“I fear I must when your accusation holds no substance. I could list several two-legged creatures that I like. Humans, however…” He shrugged with a half smile and let the rest of the sentence hang. “And certain humans, like yourself, for example, have such little to recommend in them and are so tedious to be around that I find them impossible to like.”
“Nobody could find me tedious, my lord. We both know that I am a veritable delight and my sunshine is a balm to the soul.” Zeus thrashed some more and she used that as an excuse to insult Guy again. “You would much rather have me ride you than your unpleasant owner, wouldn’t you, Zeus?” And of course the blasted traitor calmed straightaway at her soothing tone while Guy’s fevered imagination pictured being ridden by her once more. “We both know that you would be an absolute sweetheart for me.”
“It took four months of constant work to convince Zeus to allow me to sit on him. Even now, several years on, he’s still a handful and as you saw that fateful morning in Hyde Park, it doesn’t take much to elicit a tantrum.” He was certainly making Guy work this morning and, right on cue, decided to whinny his disapproval at this unfamiliar situation and thrash his head. “In short, he’s not an easy horse to control.”
She waited until he had settled the beast before she responded. “I notice you still don’t carry a whip though.”
“I value my neck too much to risk one. Or even have one within Zeus’s sight. Bill walked past him once with one idly dangling by his side and got kicked clean across the paddock for his troubles. Couldn’t sit down without a cushion for a week afterward.” A memory that, after the ribbing the reprobate had given him this morning, made Guy chuckle.
“Poor Bill.” But she found the story funny and he realized, with a start, that he enjoyed making her laugh. Had made it a bit of a quest, in fact. Much like he used to do with his father. “Has he worked for you long?”
Was that a conversational question or one that hinted she had interest in Bill, the man? She had certainly been a bit flirty with him this morning. Enough to make Guy pathetically envious of the easy rapport the pair shared. And the flirting, when she had never so much as fluttered her lashes at him. “His father worked for my father, so I suppose we as good as grew up together.”
“Hence all the teasing and door slamming.” Because of course she had noticed Guy fling the stable door back into his smirking groom’s face.
“HenceI am stuck with him because I liked his father and suffer from a misplaced sense of obligation.”
“Really?” She didn’t believe him. “I suspect that you are not a man who cares overmuch for airs and graces and therefore, you not only respect and like him, you consider him a friend.”
“I most certainly do not.” Guy wasn’t sure how he felt about her ability to read him like a book. “Whilst I am very definitelynota man for airs and graces, that scoundrel is not my friend. At best, I feel I must tolerate him. At least until his father dies, of course. Then it will be goodbye, Bill.” As she seemed determined to use this ride to chisel past his protective exterior to the too-softhearted core within, Guy changed the subject again. “Speaking of tolerating, how are you getting on with my awful aunt?”
That made her grin. “Perhaps I am peculiar, but I genuinelydolike her. She pretends to be awful, and probably is to those not made of sternerstuff, but she has such spirit and is unapologetically herself all of the time.”
“Much like you, Miss Travers.” He had never met a woman as unapologetically herself as this Valkyrie. She wasn’t just a dazzling ray of sunshine and a fizzing ball of energy. She was a breath of fresh air too.
Her eyes locked with his again. “Much like you, more like, as her bark is worse than her bite.”
If she thought she was turning the topic back to him again, she had another think coming. “Has she finally run out of errands to send you on?”
“Don’t be silly.” Miss Travers leaned sideways to give the fractious Hercules’s ears a stroke and he calmed instantly. “She has a perpetual list of requests. Some of them necessary, the other half nebulous, and at least a quarter, wholly unreasonable—but I like the challenge. She likes to test me, and because I am ridiculously competitive by nature, I love to exceed her expectations.”
“Aunt Almeria has always been a hard taskmaster. Only she would send you miles and miles to Maidstone just for éclairs.”
