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When would he leave, and how would she cope when he was gone?
* * *
Farley came to attention.
He had been sitting his horse and thinking of taking off his wool riding jacket. The day was warm and he was beginning to sweat.
He had been watching Berkley Grange in hopes that he might find Star Berkley out for a ride. It was a feeble plan, but as it turned out, it had come to fruition.
Damn, but she was a stately wench! With a body like that, how could she have passed herself off as a lad? Perhaps he was wrong after all? Even in her old faded blue gown, she looked a beauty of a lady!
He clucked to his horse and steered him forward and away from the tall evergreen he had been using as cover. His animal was nothing in looks to what she was riding, but then, he hadn’t chosen his horse for looks, but for speed.
He may not have been born and raised a gentleman, but, he wasn’t a fool, either. He had left the orphanage when he was ten years old and he had never looked back. He had learned to be a pickpocket from the best of ‘em, and when he didn’t get enough of a cut from the bloke who fed him for his efforts, he had struck out on his own. He had always been a loner and a leader. He didn’t like to lose and now it was a matter of pride that he beat the young lord at his game. The Berkley wench was the way to it.
He took the open field diagonally for he meant to catch up to her and cut her off.
He was a daring one, he told himself and grinned broadly. What would the young lord do when he was told that she had been accosted in the open? “Aye,” he said to the wind. “Oi reckon he’ll dance to m’tune then, won’t he though?” He clucked to his horse and kicked him harder than was necessary. He hadn’t a heart—no feeling for anything or anyone and he was proud of it. Why should he? No one ever had heart for him. Instead, he discovered that he liked inflicting pain on others, anyway he could. He liked the notion that they would hurt the way he had hurt when he was young. In his mind, it made matters even.
He watched the Berkley chit take a fence and for a moment he lost sight of her over the slope of the rolling hill. He pointed his poor animal in the fence’s direction and took it with little grace, landing hard on the horse’s kidneys. His horse made a sound and dipped, but he yanked hard on the reins bringing the horse’s head up and forced him forward, cropping him hard and sharply for more speed. “Aye,” he murmured, “There ye be missy…there ye be.”
* * *
“Well, this is turning out to be quite a morning,” Sir Edward told his horse as he trotted toward the open gate to Stamford’s back pastures.
He had left his buckskin riding coat at the barn as it was a sultry day and the breeze felt good against the open neckline of his white shirt.
His mind had been racing all night and sleep had been impossible. He hoped the ride would dissipate the cobwebs taking over his brain. Fate, he decided, was a trickster and no doubt a female. Fate had brought him to Rye. Fate had made him run into his good friend and fate had plopped a woman-child, a hoyden, a rough and tumble beauty to play with his resolves to avoid any entanglement at this stage of his life.
He had played at love and had lost badly only a short time ago. He didn’t want to get involved and here he was…what? Involved?
His pride had been wounded by the Lady Babs and although he had, and surprisingly so, quickly recovered from the experience, he had no wish to repeat it.
Jules still seemed to think Star was the light in his eyes, yet he rather doubted it. Jules had rebounded from his sad affair also only a short time ago. Edward was certain Star was only a diversion for his friend and just as certain that Jules’s attention was already turning elsewhere.
Right then, why shouldn’t he enjoy the dark eyed beauty? Her kisses were delicious and there was no denying that when his lips touched hers, something beyond his imagination had been ignited in him. What was that? It hadn’t been the same with Lady Babs. She had said he had yet to fall in love and that he would know it when it happened. Was this love?
He had not wanted to stop kissing Star. He had wanted to go on touching her and for a moment, he thought he would bed her right there in the library on the Oriental rug.
He was jolted out of this reverie by his horse when he jerked his head and pulled on the reins for a run. Edward laughed and patted his neck, “There now, easy lad.”
Wanting to stretch, his horse pranced in place as though begging for release and Sir Edward sighed and said, “Oh very well, you want a run, eh? So be it.”
They took off across the grassy field and Prancer feeling his oats, jumped in the air with a back kick in show of exuberant spirits.
“Aye,” Sir Edward chuckled as he brought him back under him and settled him into a trot. “That was grand and just for fun, eh? Perhaps that is all this is…this feeling I have for the pretty Star—just for fun?”
At that moment, the woman he had been thinking of every waking moment, came into view. He could clearly see her piquant beautiful face, her flaxen hair windblown and framing her loveliness. All at once and with a certainty he could almost see, he knew he wanted her back in his arms. He wanted her lips against his own, her tongue dancing with his and her body.
Damn, but that way led to trouble. She was gentry. He couldn’t bed her and move off. Bedding her would lead to marriage and he was not yet certain that she was the one…was he? Perhaps this was all an illusion?
He turned his horse away. Better not ride toward her…safer to keep away from her.
* * *
Star pulled her horse up to a total stop. Jules Stamford’s estate was not far now. Why oh why had she ridden in this direction? Even if Edward did miracously appear on horseback, what would he think? What could he think, but that she had come to see him…and he would feel hounded. She was in fact, hounding him, riding here hoping to catch him up. She should wait until he came to Berkley to find her. That was what she should do.
She turned her horse about and started for the deer path that led to the bordering wooded trails. Nothing for it but to return home. She had just gone over the ridge of the hill once again and stopped short, but for a very different reason.
