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“Will you think me sadly unsportsmanlike if I repeat, ‘not particularly’?”

“Decidedly,” Henrietta laughed. “Those worthy gentlemen who spoke to you last night about drains would not approve.” She shouldn’t have made the mistake of meeting his eyes. They were so full of devilment that she momentarily forgot that she was holding Parsnip’s bridle. The horse immediately took advantage, throwing his head up and pawing the air like the ill-mannered beast he was. Darby was remarkably swift for someone who appeared to be lazily contemplating her vehicle. He wrenched the horse down in a second, earning an approving smile from Jem.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times,” Jem scolded Henrietta, with the familiarity of a longtime servant.

“These here horses are too tetchy to be stroked like barnyard cats.”

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“You’re absolutely right,” she said apologetically. “I’m afraid that I was so taken by showing off Parsnip that I forgot his temperament.” She walked around the horse toward the small perch of the curricle. Darby noticed with surprise that she had a slight but distinct limp. Had her gait been uneven when they first met? He couldn’t remember seeing her walk before this moment.

“May I help you into your vehicle?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she said. “Jem and I have been driving together since the days of my first pony cart, and he is quite used to assisting me.”

Jem picked up his small mistress and placed her in the driver’s seat, handing her a long whip once she had her skirts in order.

“These horses are on the fast side, Mr. Darby. I trust that you are not distressed by speed?”

Darby clambered into the curricle. “Not at all.”

A moment later he felt a little less confident. The horses were either extraordinarily fresh or they were friends with Old Scratch himself. They tore off down the drive from Shantill House with a matched toss of their heads. No wonder Henrietta had a limp. It was a miracle she hadn’t been killed rather than just lamed. She seemed unbothered by the fact her horses were out of control, slipping them around the corner into the high road as if she were driving a pony cart. It was only when they were tearing along the high road that Darby realized that he was grinning like a fool. His hat was threatening to blow off, so he removed it. His hair had whipped out of the ribbon that held it at his neck, and he was braced for what he considered a likely spill in the ditch, but he was grinning. And Lady Henrietta Maclellan? Well, she was sitting bolt upright in that prim manner of hers, but as he watched she cracked her whip and caught the tip, as adroit as Fool for Love

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any Corinthian with a stolen mail coach and a bet on the books at White’s.

“Where the devil did you learn to drive like this?” he shouted over the wind.

Lady Henrietta turned her head and smiled at him as she adroitly feathered the curricle around the very edge of a curve in the road. “My father was a member of the Four-inHand Club. Since he had no son, he taught me to drive.”

“Most unusual,” Darby commented.

She slowed down just a trifle to give a plodding landau an inch or two on the left. The driver waved, clearly used to seeing Lady Henrietta driving herself. “My father was one of those who bribed public coach drivers to let them careen madly down the road, terrifying all the passengers, I have no doubt. He had a great love of speed.” She smiled apologetically at Darby. “I’m afraid that I inherited it. My family considers me to be dangerously prone to taking risks.”

Darby laughed again. She was such a prim bundle of womanhood, a petite little female with her bonnet and gloves. Henrietta pulled the horses to a walk. “We’re nearing Limpley Stoke,” she explained, “and I do try not to put anyone out of consequence in the village. Some of the villagers are so limited in their thinking about what a woman should and shouldn’t do. I generally leave Jem outside the village with my equipment.”

“I thought you said that you were not good at physical sports, Lady Henrietta,” Darby observed, wishing she would look at him.

They had reached the outskirts of the village, where the road narrowed and turned to cobblestones. Henrietta pulled the curricle to a halt as a traveling carriage lumbered down the middle of the road. “I am not good at games, I assure you.”

“Have you ever tried archery?”

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She nodded, smiling. “I can’t shoot straight. You’d fear for your life if you were near me.”

“That suggests that I’m not in fear of my life now,” he said with a crooked grin.

The curricle was at a stop, as the traveling carriage was followed by a succession of vehicles loaded down with trunks and boxes. Darby glanced back at Henrietta’s groom, Jem, and jerked his head.

Jem blinked at him, and said, “Shall I get the horses’

heads, miss?”