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“Stay back,” Melborne warned grimly as he sat forward and urged his stallion on.
Grace gasped as the stallion easily jumped over the fence a short distance away before a pull on the reins turned him toward the park entrance. Horse and rider now galloped thunderously toward the gateway through which the man and Finn had now disappeared.
Someone had kidnapped her beloved pet!
Or did she mean dognapped?
Whatever the correct term, a man had run off with her darling Finn.
Tears stung Grace’s eyes as she wondered why anyone would want to do such a thing. Finn was not even a purebred, but a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a beagle. Nor was Grace a member of the aristocracy, and so wealthy enough to pay a ransom for her dog’s return.
It was pure luck that Alaric Montrose had been nearby and could chase after the thief.
And somehow still managing to look arrogantly ducal as he did so, Grace acknowledged as she hurried toward the gateway through which the thief, Finn, and Alaric Montrose astride his stallion, had now all disappeared.
“Slow down, you silly bugger,” Alaric called out to the man rushing madly down the thoroughfare in front of him.
James Stanley stopped running and turned, a grin on his face that had once been round and jolly, but now still showed the traces of the hardship he had suffered as a sailor forced to work aboard a French frigate for nine months until his recent escape.
Stanley had once been Plymouth’s manservant. He was also the one responsible for bringing them the news that he had seen Plymouth cut down by the sword of an English officer, before Stanley was then captured and sold into servitude aboard the French ship.
Alaric glanced down at Grace Sunderland’s little dog as it wriggled and struggled in an effort to escape Stanley’s grasp.
The idea of having Stanley run off with the dog, and then Alaric riding to the rescue, had come to him after Alaric had finished stroking his own cock to completion the night before, with the image of a naked Grace Sunderland claiming all his thoughts as he did so.
Again.
Because, to Alaric’s self-disgust, he had done the same thing many times during the past three days and nights he had spent keeping his distance from Grace while he tried to think of a way in which he might ingratiate himself into her company.
The fantasies he had of her as he stroked himself were always the same. Grace, naked upon a bed and spread out like a feast before him. Her skin would be that glorious golden color all over her body, her breasts pert, waist slender, hips curvy, the curls covering the mound between her shapely legs the same deep chestnut as the hair upon her head. That beautiful hair would appear as a gleaming cascade of silk spread out upon the pillows behind her.
The fact that she was again looking coolly beautiful today in a gown of sky blue with a matching bonnet and pelisse had only succeeded in causing Alaric’s cock to engorge once again.
Not at all a comfortable occurrence when seated astride a horse as powerful as Caesar.
“Here, hand him up to me,” Alaric bit out as he reached a gloved hand down to take the dog.
Only for that little terror to lunge his head forward and try to take a bite of Alaric’s fingers with his sharp little teeth.
Alaric managed to pull his hand back before the dog succeeded in that endeavor. “You really are a little fiend,” he murmured with grudging respect as he took the dog and held him firmly against his chest.
“Plucky little devil, though,” Stanley admired.
“Caesar, you will cease that behavior immediately,” Alaric commanded firmly as his horse gave a toss of his head at having the small animal brought aboard his back.
Alaric had deliberately allowed Caesar enough rein earlier so that he could lunge at the dog and aid in the plan to abduct the pet Grace obviously doted upon. But Alaric would not tolerate the same brutish behavior from Caesar a second time.
“Better get that dog back to his mistress before she comes looking for him and sees the two of us talking,” Stanley advised with a glance toward the park entrance.
Alaric pulled the reins to turn Caesar before nudging him with his heels to walk back to the park, inwardly wincing at hearing Stanley refer to Grace as a mistress as he did so. Admittedly, in this case, that term was being used in the context of Grace being the owner of the dog in his arms. But it was too close to what she was to Redding not to grate on something primal deep inside Alaric.
Because, Alaric knew, he was no longer playing the part of wishing Grace to become his mistress rather than Redding’s. He wanted it to become fact.
Alaric had never wanted such an arrangement before with any woman, but that did not make him ignorant of what would be expected of him as a woman’s lover and benefactor.
If Grace would agree to become his, Alaric would shower her with dozens of silk gowns and jewels to match. He would purchase a fine carriage for her to travel about in, a suitable horse for her to ride in the park, and a house in a more fashionable part of London, along with the staff she would need to run it.
There was no doubt in Alaric’s mind, after he had spent the past three days and nights pleasuring himself so often his cock was sore and his right arm ached, that he would willingly do and pay whatever he must in order to persuade Grace into becoming his.
