Page 13 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

“You may sit, since you have already flattered me.”

“I live in gratitude.”

He crossed to Ellen’s side and took her hand. His lips touched her knuckles and lingered a half-second past what propriety required. Then his thumb moved once along the inside of her wrist where the glove ended and the skin began.

Ellen forgot how breathing was meant to proceed.

“There,” he said, releasing her hand as if nothing in the world had happened. “I have been pardoned.”

“You have not.”

“No?”

“I am considering it.”

“Then I shall behave with exceptional charm until judgment is rendered.”

He sat without being asked, the way he did, and stretched his legs before him with the ease of a man who had no intention of leaving soon. Ellen wished, with a sudden foolishness that warmed her from throat to fingertips that the chair might keep him there by some defect of carpentry.

“Now,” he said, settling back, “you will not have heard about the colonel’s grey.”

“I will not.”

“Then my lateness has bought you something.”

“That depends upon the quality of the story.”

“It is a story of horsemanship, military dignity, and aquatic defeat.”

Mrs. Dalton’s quill paused. “Aquatic defeat?”

“Madam, I could not exaggerate the matter if I tried.”

Ellen bit the inside of her cheek. “Pray, continue.”

“You are aware,” Vance said, folding one hand over the other with absurd solemnity, “that the colonel keeps a grey gelding he cherishes a good deal better than either of his sons.”

“I was not aware, though I am prepared to believe it.”

“Seventeen hands of pure malice. A beast with the soul of a disappointed dowager and the temper of a French artilleryman.”

“Lieutenant,” Mrs. Dalton murmured, “do not malign dowagers. We have long memories.”

“I speak only of foreign dowagers, ma’am, and those safely beyond my acquaintance.”

Ellen laughed, though she tried to make it small.

Vance looked at her. “No, no, Miss Middleton. You must save your laughter until the colonel enters the trough.”

“The trough?”

“I have spoiled nothing. The trough was inevitable from the moment the horse was saddled.”

Mrs. Dalton set down her quill. “Now I am listening.”

Vance leaned forward a little, delighted with his audience. “This morning, as we passed the low gate by the paddock, the band struck up. The grey formed the settled opinion that the trumpet was a personal insult. The horse went one way at speed. The colonel went the other.”

“Over the gate?” Ellen asked.