Page 29 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

To gallop was exhilarating, but soon there were woods ahead, their edges bare and weatherworn where the winds from the sea had battered them, the dim interior filled with elder, ash, sycamore, and hawthorn trees, their trunks wrapped in bryony and the clinging ivylike stuff known as broomrape.

As they passed beneath the first branches, Daintry slackened the gelding’s pace, and the gray slowed beside her.

Minutes later they were deep in the woods, where the air was cooler, though still not chilly.

The path was easily wide enough for them to ride abreast, and firm enough underfoot to let the horses canter until they came to a wide stream, where they slowed again to a walk.

About to urge her horse into the stream, Daintry caught sight of two swans displaying in a nearby sunlit pool, and reined in instead to watch.

Like mirror images, the birds stretched their necks upward, then curved them and dipped their heads under the water before repeating the movements.

They were magnificent, like sensuous dancers, and she watched, mesmerized, scarcely noting that Deverill had drawn up the gray beside her.

The dance continued, the swans teasing each other, then moving in unison.

After several minutes, they added the rubbing of their sides with their beaks and heads to the first movements, moving faster and faster till finally they were touching each other.

Then, possessively, the cob put his neck over the pen’s when he immersed his head.

Shortly after that he mounted her, and when it was over, they both seemed to stand right up in the water, facing each other, rubbing heads affectionately.

Daintry said quietly, “It is intriguing to see how much interest they show in one another after mating. So many birds part immediately afterwards and just fly away.”

“People, too,” Deverill said in an oddly strained tone.

Glancing at him, she saw that he was not watching the swans. He was watching her, and the look in his eyes brought heat to her cheeks. She could not look away. “Swans,” she said in a voice not at all like her own, “mate for life, you know.”

“Do they?” He was still watching her, his expression making her unusually conscious of his nearness. The woods were silent.

“Yes.” She licked suddenly dry lips. “Yes, they do.”

The groom behind them coughed, reminding them of his presence, and Deverill said in a normal tone, “Although that pool is warm and sunny, this is certainly not spring. What do they think they are about to be mating in the middle of October?”

Recovering with more difficulty than he had seemed to experience, she said, “Aunt Ophelia calls it bonding behavior, a renewal of their loyalty to each other. We have a number of swans on the river at Tuscombe Park, and they molt in July, August, and September, you see, so in October they …”

“I do see,” he said quickly, turning the gray’s head and urging it across the stream. Flashing a look over his shoulder, he said, “You really are an amazing young woman.”

“Nonsense, I am perfectly ordinary.” She followed him, bringing the gelding alongside the gray.

Deverill’s eyes glinted. “A perfectly ordinary girl would have blushed and gone all fluttery, coming upon that little scene, and would undoubtedly have sputtered a great deal of nonsense at me about how we ought to ride on very quickly.”

“Oh.” She thought about that. “I suppose you may be right. Many people nowadays would think it improper for me to watch swans mating, I suppose, let alone to watch them in the presence of an unmarried gentleman, but Aunt Ophelia has always said such prudish behavior is ridiculously missish and absurd.”

“Quite so,” he said. His eyes were twinkling now. “Have you no sense of propriety, Lady Daintry?”

“Of course I have. I just do not happen to agree that watching an act of nature is improper.”

He chuckled. “I would like very much to put that to the test, but I have a strong feeling that the act of nature I have in mind is not one that you would include in that declaration.”

She knew she was blushing, because she could feel the fire of it in her cheeks, but she did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how greatly he had discomfited her.

Managing to look him straight in the eye, she said evenly, “No doubt, when you were a member of Lord Hill’s staff, you found seduction to be a lively game as natural to you as breathing, sir, and looked upon the females you knew at the time as no more than quarries to be hunted; however, I am not such easy prey.

You will have the goodness to remember that, Deverill. ”

To her annoyance, he chuckled and said, “You are almost as skilled with words as you are with a horse, my dear, and if you will permit me to tell you so, you have the finest seat—”

“If you say ‘for a female,’ sir, I will hit you.”

“I am afraid that is just what I was going to say, but perhaps I can make a small recovery by pointing out that it is hard to compare you with, say, the men of my brigade—or other men for that matter—when you ride sidesaddle and they do not.”

“If you think riding sidesaddle is one bit easier—”

“I don’t. Good God, to tell the truth, I don’t know how you women stay on those things, and when I watched your little nieces jumping timber and even thinking of jumping stone walls, it turned me cold with terror one moment and filled me with awe the next.

I doubt that I could do it without considerable practice, and I am thought by most to be an expert in the saddle. ”

“You could do it easily. It is all a matter of balance, you know, nothing more.”

“Oh, certainly. I remember when you said those two children learned to ride without so much as holding the reins or putting their feet in the stirrups. Something about handkerchiefs and bits of paper, too. I thought you were quite mad.”

“Well, I wasn’t. That is how they were trained. Charley can ride sitting on a handkerchief and never lose it, and Melissa is nearly as skilled. I taught them both, you know, and,” she added with a challenging look, “I can teach you to do it as well, if you really want to learn.”

“That will be quite enough of that, you little cat.”

“Coward”

Deverill stiffened, then looked straight at her with an uncharacteristic look of indecision on his face.

They had emerged from the woods and were once again riding on the sandy grass, their path leading toward a timber gate in a hedged field.

Beyond it the garden hedges of Mount Edgcumbe could be seen, and she saw him look toward the house, the windows of which were perfectly visible now. He looked back at her.

“I dare you,” she said provocatively.

His lips twitched as if he was suppressing laughter, and he relaxed. “You don’t believe I can do it. Confess now, you simply hope to watch me make a fool of myself.”

“On the contrary, I am perfectly certain that you can do it, but I also believe that it will teach you to have more respect for women who ride well, particularly for those of us who hunt.”

He looked intrigued. “Do I ride your horse, or do we attempt to put your sidesaddle on mine?”

“You ride mine,” she said, surprised but oddly pleased. “That way you can’t blame the horse if you do fail.”

“You misjudge me,” he said, dismounting. “I should never employ so paltry an excuse for my own failure.”

Chuckling, she waited until he had tossed his reins to the astonished groom, then allowed him to help her down.

His hands at her waist were a minor distraction, his nearness a worse one, but she managed to ignore both and keep her mind on the lesson at hand.

When he moved to the gelding, she said quickly, “Before you mount, there are certain things you should know.”

“Patience, my dear. I am merely going to adjust the leathers for my longer legs. That saddle,” he added, eyeing it askance, “is too big and too cluttered up with pommels and such.”

“You will get used to them, and you will be glad of its greater size. Are you ready?”

He looked back at the groom. “One word of this, my man, to anyone, and I will see you get turned off without a character.”

The groom grinned at him. “Do you require assistance to mount, my lord?”

“I do not. Speak your piece, worthy instructress.”

“Very well. There is nothing at all odd about mounting, but instead of beginning with your left hand on the pommel, as you are accustomed to do, you must use your right. Your reins and whip must be in your right hand, too,” she added.

Deverill gave her a speaking look. “My dear girl, I have no skirt to manage, and I am perfectly capable of climbing onto that saddle without the aid of a groom’s shoulder. It’s what I am to do after I get there that concerns me.”

She watched doubtfully, but he was right, and she envied him the ease with which he put his left foot in the stirrup and still managed to slip his right leg past it into the proper position to lift himself onto the saddle.

He grimaced as he pressed his left knee into place, and she recalled that the leaping horn had been specially fitted to her much less muscular leg, but a moment later he was settled, looking only a little uncomfortable.

He called the groom to adjust the leathers again, and Daintry held the man’s horse and the gray while he did so. When she saw him hide a smile, she glared, and he sobered at once.

Even knowing Deverill to be highly skilled, she was astonished at how easily he managed the strange saddle and how quickly he found his balance.

She had only to tell him to keep his left knee firmly in the angle between pommel and saddle flap, with his thigh and calf close to saddle and stirrup leather.