Page 11 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

Daintry chuckled and, getting to her feet, moved to hug Susan. “I do, don’t I? Threw my first temper tantrum before I was three, got my own way, and never looked back.”

Susan shuddered. “Which just goes to show how different things were for you than for me. The one time I told Mama that I would do something she had told me I could not do, she snatched me up across her lap and beat me with her hairbrush till I screamed. That was not the only time, either, I can tell you.”

Daintry grimaced. “She never did such a thing after Aunt Ophelia came to live with us, did she?”

“Not like that.” Susan sighed. “But I never stopped being afraid she might. With you, it was so different. Even Papa—”

“Oh, come now,” Daintry said, chuckling, “you are not going to say Papa never punished me, for you know perfectly well—”

“Oh, I know he did, but he never seemed to become so angry with you as he did with me—or with Charles, for that matter.”

Daintry shrugged. “I suppose it was because you both were older. He expected more from you than from me. And, too, when I was small, I was nearly always with Aunt Ophelia if I was not with my governess. Aunt would not permit Mama to strike me, and even Papa respects her wishes. And as for Charles, I can understand anyone’s wanting to smack him.

I do myself, quite frequently, and I utterly feel for Davina, though I do not think she ought to flirt with other men the way she does. ”

“No,” Susan said, “and speaking of other men—”

“Yes, I know,” Daintry said, picking up her whip from among the clutter on her dressing table.

“Not that it wouldn’t do that man a world of good to have to wait a few moments.

He has become entirely too accustomed to telling others what to do.

If I am going to marry him, that must certainly change. ”

“You do like him then,” Susan said, getting up to follow her when she moved to the door.

Daintry looked back over her shoulder. “Like him? Pooh, he is just a man like any other, though not so bad as I’d feared he might be,” she added, remembering a singularly attractive smile, warm golden hazel eyes, and the bemused way he had looked up at her that first moment after entering the hall.

“He is very large,” Susan said as they walked along the corridor together toward the stair hall.

Daintry remembered his asking if she was disappointed to find him taller than his uncle.

She had nearly given her most private thoughts away then.

How could one be disappointed when a man’s figure was precisely the same as that possessed by the hero of every romantic novel one had ever read?

For regardless of the general disapproval of such reading material at Tuscombe Park, no one had ever forbidden her to read what she liked, and she did enjoy reading a pleasant Gothic romance from time to time.

Realizing that Susan was waiting for a response, she said, “I suppose he is rather large, and he is much too arrogant and overbearing in his manner to suit me. I can tell you, I did not care for the way he took it upon himself to remove my cloak, or the way he invited himself along on our ride, either.”

“I should not care to see him angry,” Susan said quietly.

“Oh, pooh. Much I should care for that.” They had reached the gallery, and peering over the railing, she saw that the two little girls were waiting—one patiently, the other pacing.

“Oh, good, the girls are there.” Glancing toward the drawing-room door, she added, “If Penthorpe thinks I shall fetch him, or wait while he procrastinates, he has another think coming.”

She had started down the stairs before she realized that Susan was no longer with her but had in fact vanished in the disconcerting way she had perfected as a child.

Then the sound of the drawing-room door caught her attention, and she turned, sighing at the sight of the large man coming out of the room.

“I hope you were not trying to sneak away,” he said.

“At least you did not bring Papa along to insist that I let you accompany us on a nice, sedate ride toward the moor, sir. I promised the children I’d take them to ride on the shingle to see the smugglers’ caves, and I do not break my promises.”

“None of them?” He was beside her now on the stair, his hand firmly at her elbow.

She could feel its warmth through the material of her sleeve, and though she did not require assistance to get down the stairs, she decided it would be unseemly to pull away.

Few of her friends in the neighborhood treated her at all protectively, although, in London, gentlemen frequently offered such assistance—generally with a great deal of pomp and flourish that she found most disagreeable.

To Penthorpe’s credit, he managed the gesture so neatly and naturally that she found, to her own surprise, that she rather liked it

“There you are, Aunt Daintry,” Charley exclaimed. “We thought you were never coming. It does not take me nearly so long as that to change a frock. Hello, Lord Penthorpe. Are you really going to ride with us, sir?”

“I am—part of the way, at least—and I promise I shall not try to talk you into riding toward the moor.”

“Oh, good,” she said, laughing. “Not that I was afraid you would, of course, for Aunt Daintry promised, but I did fear that Grandpapa might insist, and then, of course, we should have had to obey. Not that Melissa would mind. She likes riding on the moor. But today,” she added, turning and giving Melissa a nudge toward the front door, “we are going to ride on the shingle and see the caves. Will you come that far with us, sir?”

Daintry stiffened but, determined to avoid outright rudeness in front of the children, managed to hold her tongue.

His smile was extremely attractive. “Not today, I think,” he said, then added to Daintry in a lower voice, “I did not speak merely to foist my company upon you, you know, but to keep your estimable parent from forbidding your outing altogether.”

She said in the same tone, as the children vanished through the doorway, “I am not ungrateful, sir, and will certainly acquit you of any other motive. My father would not have forbidden the ride, but he might well have insisted that we ride to the moor, and the girls would have been disappointed.”

“Where will you ride, exactly?”

“St. Merryn Bay. There are several caves there reputed to be used by smugglers, though I daresay the men are as likely to have been wreckers as free traders, when all is said and done.”

“I know those caves from my childhood,” he said, frowning. “The path down from the cliff is extremely steep, is it not?”

Feeling her temper rise at the implied criticism, she kept her tone even with difficulty. “Both girls are excellent riders, sir. Charley could ride down that trail blindfolded and sitting backwards, and although Melissa is a more nervous horsewoman, she will not have any trouble, I assure you.”

“Nevertheless, I think now that perhaps I’d better accompany you,” he said. “That path will be slippery from the drizzle, and even though you will certainly take your groom, you will be glad of more help than his, I think.”

“That is hardly your decision to make,” she said, annoyed.

He was silent until she looked up at him, and there was an enigmatic look in his eyes when she did, but it vanished, and he said sternly, “Our betrothal gives me the right to make it.”

She bit her lip, then said, “You go too fast, sir, if you think to give me orders upon such short acquaintance.”

“Do you deny my right? I heard you say you had given your word to honor this betrothal, or is your word worth no more than that of most females?”

Indignation threatened to overcome her. “I do not break my word once I have given it, but if you think to run roughshod over me, my lord, you had better think again. I will make you wish you had never been born if you try it.”

He smiled. “Shall we catch up with our charges before they ride off without us?”

She gritted her teeth but made no objection.

The girls were already mounted, Charley on Victor, her favorite bay gelding, and Melissa on a pretty little gray mare.

Daintry’s wiry groom held the reins of the silver-dun gelding she favored, and of a large black-roan stallion with a white blaze between his eyes.

“Oh, what a beauty,” she said, moving to stroke the black’s silky muzzle. “So tall and powerful, yet so dashing and alert.”

“My horses have to be large to carry my weight,” he said. “That is Shadow. But come, my dear, your charges grow restless.”

She felt his hands at her waist before she realized his intent, and there was a brief, exhilarating sense of weightlessness before she was deposited on her saddle.

Handing her the reins, he said, “Do your leathers require some adjustment?”

“No, thank you. Clemons knows just how I like them.” She watched as he swung effortlessly into his own saddle, and she was amused to see that, despite the presence of the groom following at a discreet distance, he kept an alert eye not only on the two little girls as they rode down the drive but on herself as well.

She was proud of the children. Both had light hands on the reins and excellent, firm seats in the saddle.

She saw at once that Charley was impatient to gallop, so she said gently, “We will walk the horses for fifteen minutes, my dears, but then you may have a gallop if the road is not too mushy from the rain.”

Her escort looked at her with raised eyebrows but made no comment. Sighing, she said, “I suppose you think they ought to be riding with leading reins, Penthorpe.”

“Not at all,” he replied, smiling back at her in a way that made her look swiftly ahead at the gravel drive. “I might, however, have waited a bit before tendering hope of a gallop. The roads are bound to be in too dismal a state for one.”