Page 18

Rowden’s stable, since, while the Baron bought horses at his pleasure, the mews housing the carriage and the horses were Rowden’s property. This was not the matter at hand.

“You cannot go riding in a strange town alone.”

She tilted her head to the side and regarded him steadily. How well he recalled that expression, Sophronia looking at him as if he were daft. Hounds of hell, he missed her. She turned up in his life after he’d tried to avoid her for years, and there was so much about her so utterly familiar to him that his young soul was yanked across time and space into the man’s body, as if he’d never become wiser, never had moments of forgetting her, had not done his damnedest to free himself of her hold on him.

Who was he fooling? There had been no moments of forgetting her. This woman was indelibly branded into his life.

And now she was here, in all her warm and rounded flesh, and he battled the agonizing urge to pull her into his arms, though she was as prickly as ever. Just in a more refined, womanly way.

“I have often been riding in Green Park,” she said, reminding him that in the years they’d been apart she’d lived an entire life, been married, Devil take it, and there were swathes of things he didn’t know about her now. Like if she’d tenderly loved and missed her husband. She didn’t wear mourning any longer, but that didn’t mean her heart wasn’t broken.

“And I am bringing Nate with me,” she said, nodding to the young groom who patted the flanks of the chestnut gelding. Nate offered a cheeky grin, already besotted.

People tended to fall under Sophronia’s spell instantly, as Rowden had occasion to know. It was a combination of those bewitching eyes, her managing way, and her calm, brisk confidence that she knew how to go on and it was best for others simply to comply with her directions. He’d improvised his share of pranks and stunts in their notorious days together, but Sophronia masterminded the more intricate ploys. She had the ability to think three steps ahead, while Rowden could rarely see past what was directly in front of him.

Like Sophronia, full-grown and as managing as ever.

He gritted his teeth. “I will escort you, though it cannot be more than a minute past dawn⁠—”

“It is eight of the clock, Rowden.”

“—and I will ride my own horse. Nate, bring round Dulcinea.”

Sophronia scowled at him as he strode forward and took the reins of the gelding. She stepped away quickly, and a rush of lavender rose from her skirts. “I do not require your company. I will be perfectly safe in a royal park.”

“I shall have to answer to Aunt Dobbs as well as Aunt Edmons if something should befall you, and I fear nothing in life more than the displeasure of those two estimable ladies.”

She held quiet for a beat longer than he expected, and he realized why. He still referred to her aunt as easily as if Emily Edmons were his own relative. She had been as good as a mother to Rowden, keeping a bedchamber at Foxleigh fitted up for him for holidays, summers, all the times Rowden could not remain beneath his uncle’s roof. Aunt Edmons held in reserve a small jar of sugared almonds just for Rowden, which she would not allow Sophronia to plunder, and she knew never to serve eel when Rowden was dining at their table.

Aunt Dobbs was less doting but in her own way was as accepting of Sophronia. Witness the fact that Ro was here, in his house, sleeping in the velvet bedchamber, so named for the distinctive wall hangings.

It was an outrage, how easily she was able to slide back into his life after how deeply she’d hurt him, how thoroughly and desperately she’d betrayed and destroyed his heart.

She adjusted her hat, which sat perfectly tilted on her head. “There haven’t been highwaymen in Green Park for decades, Rowden. Not since the reign of the first George.”

“This time of day there’s likely a duel going on, and you’d be caught in the middle of it. Besides, Hercules is bad-tempered. Dulcinea here is more the mount for you.”

Nate led up a pretty Spanish jennet with a dappled gray coat and a small, gentle face. She was at least two hands smaller than the gelding and her gait was so even and soft she was like riding a cushion. She swished her long tail, and Sophronia melted instantly.

“Oh, you beautiful creature,” she cooed. “Why did they hide you from me? You are lovelier than my own Daisy, though you must not tell Daisy I said so.”

Daisy had been Ro’s first horse, gifted to her by her father when she turned fourteen. Rowden had picked out the mare after a long and careful selection process, since Mr. Edmons, while quite canny in matters of trade, had never developed a gentleman’s understanding of horses.

“Daisy must be fifteen years old by now,” Rowden said. “Surely your husband gave you many horses?”

“All the horses I wished, but Henry did not ride with me. He preferred to be drawn in a carriage.” Sophronia rubbed the velvety muzzle of the jennet, who nosed into her hand and nickered, already infatuated.

Rowden tried to ignore the savage sense of satisfaction it gave him to learn that Sophronia preferred his horse, the one he had given her, over the more expensive mounts her husband had no doubt furnished her.

If her husband did not ride, then he had failed to share with Sophronia in one of her favorite pastimes. Soph counted a day wasted if she did not spend part of it atop a horse. From the minute Rowden had conducted her first riding lesson, seating his new little friend atop the sturdy cob that he himself had learned to ride, Soph had been entranced with the creatures.

“So you still ride every morning,” he said, his voice oddly rough. Seeing her looking around for the mounting block, he laced his hands and bent a knee. She hesitated a moment.

“Of late, I do. I did not have much opportunity when Henry was alive. He often wanted me for something in the mornings.”

She placed a light hand on his shoulder, and though he had braced himself, Rowden nevertheless felt slammed by the impact of her soft touch. She stepped into his hands, as trusting as she’d always been with him. Like everything else about her, she was more solid now, more sure of herself. Lavender and rose petals filled his nose as she hoisted herself into the sidesaddle, then arranged the skirts of her habit in a graceful scoop.

Rowden straightened. “Your husband did not ride, and he kept you from it?”