“Your recklessness almost killed me! I could have broken my neck when you unseated me!”
Using just her trim thighs—thighs showcased outrageously in a tight buff pair of men’s breeches and weathered riding boots—shemaneuvered the fearsome and snorting black stallion out of the painful sunlight. Turned to face him and something odd happened to Guy’s innards.
They instantly bunched up inside him and then seemed to sigh in unison as they immediately relaxed, as if they had been waiting his entire life for this moment. For this woman. Even the muscles in his jaw gave way and he felt it hang in bemused wonderment.
Bloody hell, but she was stunning!
Even with her golden curls tucked into a tatty brown cap and her rich, honey-colored brows furrowed as two striking big blue eyes glared at him in disgust, she fair took his breath away.
Not that he had much left to steal after his abrupt collision with the ground.
Which was probably why he felt so lightheaded again.
Why peculiar things were happening in his chest.
He was too world-weary and jaded to be irrevocably dazzled by a woman’s beauty anymore and after his fall, it was hardly a surprise that his heart kept skipping a beat either. Thanks to her, he’d almost had a brush with death, so it wasn’t any wonder he was suddenly more off-kilter than he had ever felt in his life.
“You were unseated because you lacked the skills necessary to stay in your saddle, sir. Because you bought yourself a horse that you haven’t the first clue how to control. If anything was at risk of dying this morning, it was that poor animal. Spooked, and running wild like that he could have been severely injured on the back of your ineptness.” She wagged her riding crop at him with such vigor it made him blink and take a step back. “If he had been, I can assure you that you’d have felt the sting of this!” The black stallion she sat astride—astridewhen all ladies rode sidesaddle—snorted his agreement and began to dance on the spot ominously as if he were about to lash out too. Then instantly calmed when she smoothed his neck. The taut, equine veins softening beneath her touch, almost as if she possessed magical horse-whispering powers.
It took Guy another moment of gaping at her elegant fingers stroking the now docile behemoth of a horse before he could haul his jaw back up. “I beg your pardon!”
Had she really just threatened to whip him? After insulting his prowess as a horseman and knocking him on his arse?
She waggled the whip at him some more. “An animal like that needs to be treated with care and respect,sir.” The respectful addition of “sir” couldn’t have been more disrespectful if she’d tried. “Frankly, a grown man who can afford to purchase such a magnificent beast should also have the good sense to know how to handle one! Whoever sold you this horse should be shot because your lack of skill in the saddle just now was as shocking as your lack of concentration.”
Guy wanted to argue. Almost did—but that blasted whip sliced the air again before he could find the right words to convey his outrage.
“For the sake of your poor horse, and any pedestrians unfortunate enough to collide with you while you attempt to ride him, I suggest you immediately invest in some proper lessons. If you are too proud or too stupid to do that”—her expression left him in no doubt she believed he was the latter—“I genuinely think you should consider buying yourself a slow nag to ride instead—as a feisty, energetic Arabian is obviously beyond your inferior capabilities. While you are about it, you might also learn some manners, you rude oaf!”
“I-I… um…” It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize despite his outrage because there was something about this veritable Valkyrie that brooked no argument. But the words wouldn’t come and he instead gaped at her like a fish. Completely dumbfounded. Because he honestly could not remember the last time someone had spoken to him like that.
“I think the complicated sentence you are struggling to spit out,sir,is ‘Thank you for rescuing my horse.’” That defiant chin tilted again, drawing his gaze to the swanlike curve of her neck. “I would say that it was my pleasure to fetch him for you—but it isn’t, because I am not sure that I have done your horse any favors in returning him!”
With that terse admonishment issued, she turned her snorting stallion sideways with the merest nudge of a shapely, breeches-clad knee, and set off again at a gallop toward the Serpentine.
Slim shoulders lifted, graceful spine stiffened in righteous indignation, and without so much as a backward glance. Forcing him to watch her delicious peach of an arse bouncing in the saddle in perfect synchronicity with the giant horse beneath it while he wondered what the holy hell had just happened.
And why it felt quite so profound.
ChapterTHREE
Georgie was a beautiful bride. Despite all Lottie’s inner turmoil, made worse after her unfortunate near collision with that insufferably rude, ungrateful, incompetent, but ridiculously handsome horseman in the park this morning, the wedding had been lovely. Made all the lovelier by its unconventionality.
With no blood relations, the bride had been walked down the aisle by Miss P, which had felt fitting. It did not matter what you did, and Lottie could personally vouch for this, Miss Prentice always welcomed you back with open arms until you were in a position to leave again. Once a student of her school, you were also always part of the sisterhood it created. That was why Georgie’s lack of blood relatives hadn’t mattered today one jot. Her side of the aisle had been filled with a sea of smiling family made up of past alumni and present students. Even the first-years, who were all only sixteen, had been invited to the nuptials and the wedding breakfast along with the groom’s young nieces and nephew, giving it all a wonderfully inclusive feel.
The addition of three boisterous children had certainly made the usual matrimonial formalities livelier, even if some of the guests had raised some disapproving eyebrows at so many breaks with tradition.
Now, bellies stuffed thanks to the excellent wedding feast, the amassed guests were milling about and sipping champagne in Miss P’sdrawing room, some spilling into the hallway while they all awaited the bride and groom to reappear ready to leave for their honeymoon.
Portia and Kitty were upstairs with Georgie, helping her change to leave and no doubt reliving the best bits of the day. Lottie hadn’t gone with them. As delighted as she was for the new Captain and Mrs. Kincaid, seeing them disappear on their honeymoon in a shower of rice and rose petals suddenly couldn’t come soon enough. Maintaining the cheerful façade was exhausting and Lottie couldn’t wait to be able to strip off this constricting silk bridesmaid’s gown, along with its even more constricting undergarments, and be all alone with her worries in her bedchamber.
Dan’s letter had still played in her mind despite her best efforts to do her usual and postpone worrying about tomorrow until tomorrow. While it was true that worrying was usually a futile pursuit, this problem seemed insurmountable. Lottie hated feeling impotent, and despite her eventful morning gallop and no matter how hard she had racked her brains, she still hadn’t come up with anything that would help her family through this latest crisis. In the absence of no better plan and no money to help her papa, she had decided to head home to grieve the demise of this year’s barley crop in the bosom of her family. It was too late to leave for Kent tonight, but if she caught the early morning post with Portia, whose current employers were spending the summer with family in Gravesend, she’d be back in Aylesford before supper. Maybe then she’d be able to think of a solution.
“Do you see that lady over there?” Miss P’s sudden whisper beside Lottie’s left ear made her jump.
“Which lady?”
“The old lady sitting on the chair directly to the right of the fireplace.”
