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“Really wish...? My dear girl, I have thought of nothing else since that moment you defied everything and jumped onto Saracen. You filled me with fear that you might kill yourself before I could make you mine.”
“But... but... you have been avoiding me - throwing me into company with Mountjoy and Edwin...”
He grinned rather ruefully.
“I know - stupid thing to do, isn’t it? I should have mounted Saracen, swept you up into my arms and galloped away with you.” The thought of that made my heart pound even more violently and my head spin. I could not get my breath. Could it be true? Could Stanhope have been struck so suddenly with the same overwhelming emotions I had felt since we met? He was still talking. “But I am the oddest creature... when I get myself leg-shackled, I want it to be to a woman who loves me as much as I love her, and I wanted that woman to be you. I had to be sure that you felt no tenderness toward your two damnably persistent suitors.”
“Credit me with a little taste,” I said, my unruly American tongue speaking before I could think of a socially acceptable response.
“I have a respectable fortune,” he said. “So you needn’t think I am courting you for your money.”
“I know. Your sister mentioned your wealth several times.”
“My sister is a love, but hardly subtle. It is a wonder she has not dragged the two of us in front of the parson. That is,” he added with a slight laugh, “quite a compliment to you. She has been bossy all her life, but ever since she married George and became a Duchess, she has made what seems like a lifetime commitment to detaching me from the grip of young females.”
“Eligible ones? Or not?”
Stanhope smiled at me with an expression that could have melted the stoniest heart.
“What do you think of me? Both, of course.”
“But she has been all but throwing me at your head,” I said in a small voice.
There was not enough air in the world to let me breathe.
“I know - and she is a darling for doing it. You must not think that I have been safe from her blandishments, either. Every day she has run on to me about how I must approach you, how I must court you, that I wasn’t doing enough to fix my interest with you... I did try to explain my reasoning, but she refused to credit that you could take any man but me seriously, and would urge me the harder to get to the point.”
I took my courage in my hands and looked straight at him.
“And is this the point?”
“Almost.”
Standing, he walked to the edge of the terrace and called out.
Immediately at the sound of his voice a groom came around the corner of the house... a groom leading Saracen. Brushed and polished, in the glowing, crepuscular early evening light, the huge horse looked like a creature of legend. He held his head high and I vow he looked right at me.
“Saracen?” I breathed, rising, but suddenly unable to walk.
“Indeed. I bought him as a wedding present for you, should you accept me, but-” and here his voice sounded almost embarrassed, “-I became convinced that such a thing was dishonourable... a kind of bribe that no decent man would make. So, my dear Clarissa Wentworth, I hereby present you with Saracen for your very own. No strings, no promises, no obligations, nothing but a simple token of my esteem. Besides,” he added in tones more like his own, “it would be quite a blot against my reputation for it to be known that I had to give a horse to a woman to make her take me seriously.”
Helpless, I giggled, but quickly righted myself and walked, however unsteadily, down the terrace steps. Saracen bent his head to accept my caress and seemed most content. Mine! This magnificent animal was mine, but even as my heart sang, I was uncomfortably aware that it was not enough. Saracen was indeed a prize, but he was just a horse and, greedy creature that I was, I wanted more.
“And we must guard your reputation, mustn’t we?” I said with an unfamiliar hesitation. I was standing on the edge of a cliff, and whatever I said it would change my life forever. “I would not want to cause the name of Stanhope any damage. It is such a lovely name.”
I could say no more.
There was no sound, no shadow, but I knew he was standing behind me, so close that I should have been able to feel his breath on my neck.
“Lovely enough to take as your own?”
“If it were offered,” I murmured, unwilling to do his work for him.
“Do you really mean that? You would give up America and your life there for me?”
I gulped. As distressing an idea as that was, there was really no question.
“If I must.”
