Page 15

Lottie hadn’t realized that she had veered from the path until she came up against the fence, she was so transfixed.

By the powerful but lithe build of the animal literally chomping at the bit, it could only be another Arabian.

Except by the way this one fought the line, he was clearly an unbroken one.

“How old is he?”

“Two and a half,” said the handsome groom, happy to chat. “And a proper handful.”

“Arabians can be. Especially in the wrong hands.” Except one look at this modern stable complex and she already knew that she might have misjudged the vexing viscount’s knowledge of horses. “Bred here?”

“Aye, miss.” The groom let out the rope, giving the frustrated horse the opportunity to let off some steam. Instinctively it began to gallop around the exercise field in a circle. “Was it you I saw arrive yesterday with the dowager?”

“Yes. I’m her latest companion.”

He offered her a pitying look. “Then I tip my hat to you.” He did so with a cheeky wink. “For you’re a braver soul than I am.”

“I don’t frighten easily.” Her gaze followed the horse. “What’s his name?”

“Hercules.” The groom gestured to a pasture beyond, where another, much fairer-coated Arabian grazed amongst a scattering of different breeds, including a giant Shire horse and a tiny Shetland pony.

“That’s his mother over there—but Juno is as gentle as the breeze and he’s inherited none of her calm temperament.

He’s every inch the son of the tempestuous Zeus, so being a handful is in his blood. ”

“Which is Zeus?” She squinted at all the horses in the distance, and none looked as majestic as this fine specimen or his beautiful mother.

“Out with the master. He’s the only one with patience enough to ride him.”

As the concept of patience jarred with the ill-tempered man she had met twice and didn’t like, she frowned. “I don’t suppose Zeus is the exact color of whiskey but with a jet-black mane and tail?” That horse had been so jumpy and combative he would try the patience of a saint.

“Aye, miss. That’s him. Snorts and bucks like it’s going out of fashion.

This one’s the same.” Right on cue, Hercules took issue with the line and tried to twist out of his bridle.

“Resents the rope and it still takes three of us to put him in a harness after five months of trying. We daren’t strap a saddle on him as he’d likely break your neck soon as look at you.

But he’s a work in progress, as they say.

We’ll either break him eventually or he’ll break us. At this point it could go either way.”

“Maybe he’s still a bit too young to train. Arabians have a great deal of energy and are often stubborn.”

“That they are—even after they’ve been broken.

The master has to saddle Zeus himself as that demon will only allow a chosen few to touch him.

I’ve had bruises aplenty that prove that I am not one of them.

” The groom chuckled without any malice toward the animal.

“More’s the pity as I’d love to take him out and put him through his paces.

But maybe Hercules will let me one day.”

He slackened the line as he approached the horse and released it, then quickly opened the gate by swinging his whole body out with it.

Hercules needed no encouragement to fly out of the confines of the exercise yard and gallop into the other field straight to his mother.

Within moments, he went from an uncooperative devil to an angel as they watched the transformation in companionable silence.

His chestnut tail swished as he munched on the grass beside the mare.

“He’s always a different beast out there.” The groom secured the gate. “Makes me wonder if he’s just one of God’s creatures who is meant to be wild.”

Much like Lottie was.

She always tried her best to conform to the rules but something inherent and unstoppable within her made her break some.

Being here in Kent, for example, amongst all the horses and lush, open fields made the urge to jump on the back of one of these horses and gallop so strong it made her heart race.

But not today, Satan! While she worked for Lady Frinton, she was determined to be all restraint and decorum.

Restraint didn’t mean that she had to be disinterested though. If she couldn’t ride a horse, surely it couldn’t hurt to just talk about them. “Was Zeus as boisterous and uncooperative at that age?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? The master brought Zeus home fully grown one day four years back. Went to Maidstone to buy a new plow and came back with a face like thunder, a black eye, and an angry Arabian instead. The hows and whys of the transaction remain shrouded in mystery and we all know better than to inquire. Ask anything that his lordship considers an invasion of his privacy and you’ll likely get your head bitten off. ”

Much to her chagrin, Lottie found that story intriguing. But it did make her feel slightly better about the master of the house to know that it wasn’t just her he was bad-tempered with. “And Juno?”

“Bought for a king’s ransom a few months later—especially for Zeus—because none of the other horses dare go near him and, frankly, I don’t blame them.

But there’s no accounting for taste in matters of the heart, is there?

All that matters is that she seems to like him and him her.

” The groom sent a smile Lottie’s way, his gaze now one of masculine appreciation.

“I’m Bill, by the way. It is lovely to meet you. ”

“Lottie,” she said smiling back with the merest hint of flirtation. Not really because she was drawn to the groom in that way, but because she always made a habit of keeping grooms on her side. Just in case she felt the overwhelming urge to…

No!

She was not going to ride any of Viscount Wennington’s excellent stable. Especially not when he had it in for her.

“How come a pretty lass like yourself knows so much about horses?”

“I grew up with them. On a farm not ten miles from here.”

“That explains why I immediately took a fancy to you.” Bill folded his big arms, no doubt to impress her with the size of his muscles. “You’re a Kent girl and Kent grows the best ones.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to flatter his ego by telling him that Kent grew the best men too, but she bit it back and forced her eyelashes not to bat, because harmless flirting had always come as second nature to her, particularly where horses were concerned.

However, as she was a changed woman, she smiled politely and ignored his blatant smoldering like a prim and proper lady’s companion should.

“I don’t suppose you could point me in the direction of the henhouse please, Bill?

Only I have to find the perfect egg for Lady Frinton or society might crumble.

” Not flirting didn’t mean that she shouldn’t be friendly.

Bill leaned one muscular elbow on the gate this time, leaning closer to her as he did so. “Can’t I tempt you with a tour of the stables first? Knowing Lady Frinton, she won’t be up for hours and I’m sure Juno would love to meet you.”

It was her laughter that Guy heard first. Earthy and unabashed, just like the woman herself.

How he knew it was Miss Travers he could not say beyond an odd lurch in his gut as he wandered into the tack room to get what he needed to brush Zeus down.

He rubbed a porthole in the dusty window and there she was.

As bold as brass in his pasture, looking all effervescent and pretty while being adored by tiny Hamish, his usually grumpy old Shetland pony who never gave him the blasted time of day.

Because that was just bloody typical!

Why he’d been compelled to rescue the ungrateful equine curmudgeon from that traveling menagerie where he’d lived in a cage was one of life’s great mysteries.

Because after liberating him from incarceration at some not insubstantial cost, Hamish had hated him for it ever since.

Now, to add insult to injury, the ingrate had taken a shine to that clumsy shrew!

And she wasn’t even feeding the traitor any carrots so the adoration was given for free.

Totally gratis when he had to earn every scrap of notice from the most pointless horse he had ever owned.

It was enough to boil his piss.

And on the subject of adoration…

Guy’s gut lurched again when Bill, his head groom, suddenly invaded the scene and said something apparently so hilarious that Miss Travers threw back her pretty golden head and roared.

The smug smile on Bill’s face and the way his ludicrously beefy shoulders rose with pride made clear that he had taken a shine to the woman too.

The besotted fool reached for her hand to help her up, held it for far longer than was necessary, and she beamed at him in return.

Offering Bill a smile so breathtaking, Guy found himself holding his.

With gritted teeth.

What the blazes was that all about when she boiled his piss too?

Furious at himself, he gave Zeus a vigorous brush down, then made sure to check out of the tack room window that the minx was gone before he ventured out. He was in no mood to face her just yet after she had decorated him in soup, and he still hadn’t decided what he wanted to say to her.

Something definitely needed to be said about their collision in Hyde Park.

Something that set the record straight, righted the one wrong he wasn’t proud of, cleared the charged air, and reinstated some of his battered pride.

She’d made a fool of him twice now and that left him so off-kilter he honestly could not escape fast enough last night.

Afterward, the image of her disdainful cornflower eyes was seared onto his mind. Tormenting him. Even while he’d slept.

Bloody woman!

He was leading Zeus out to join the rest of the herd when she and Bill appeared at the entrance of the stable. They both stopped dead, horrified to see him, which in itself spoke volumes. She offered him a wary curtsy as Bill doffed his cap.

“Good morning, my lord.”

He acknowledged that with a nod. “Miss Travers.” Then, because she made him inexplicably tongue-tied, decided to carry on doing what he had been doing and lead Zeus out.

“I’m just giving Lottie a quick tour of the stables.

” Bill smiled as Guy passed them, secure in the knowledge that he wasn’t the sort of employer to get annoyed that he wasn’t doing his duty every minute of every day, yet was blissfully unaware that the fact he was allowed to call the minx Lottie annoyed him anyway.

Because of course the stable’s most enthusiastic stud hadn’t wasted any time charming the vixen so that they could drop the formalities.

Lottie.

He rolled the name around in his head as he crossed the yard and decided it suited her far better than Charlotte.

Charlotte was such a conventionally proper name.

Charlottes did not wear breeches and ride astride.

They did needlepoint and played the piano, and she didn’t strike him as the type for those calm pursuits.

In fact, he’d lay good money that she’d never picked up a piece of embroidery in her life, and the piano…

Well, that might provide him with an opportunity to get a bit of his own back.

He might innocently request she play them all something tonight after dinner and then he could enjoy how badly she did it.

Dent her abundant pride some to even the score.

Not that he was one to enjoy another’s discomfort normally—but he’d make an exception in her case.

Maybe.

And most likely maybe not.

Sabotage wasn’t gentlemanly.

Annoyed at her, himself, and blasted Bill, he released Zeus into the pasture and, with a huff, closed the gate.

“I should have been on the bridle path.” Her voice so close to his shoulder made Guy jump.

As he spun around, her expression was contrite, long, delicate fingers clasped before her like a naughty child before her governess.

“I also should have apologized for spooking your fine horse that morning when I galloped right in front of him. I was in a bad mood… distracted… and never slowed to look properly, so what happened was entirely my fault.”

Of all the things he’d expected this whirlwind of a woman to say, an unsolicited apology out of the blue wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately for her, he was too jaded to believe it was genuine. Not when she had been openly disdainful last night and was employed by his ornery aunt. “I see.”

She stared at him for several seconds before she smiled. “This awkward silence is the part where you are supposed to apologize for not thanking me when I retrieved Zeus for you.”

She really was a brazen one, even though he conceded she did make a valid point. “Thank you for retrieving Zeus for me.” Why the blazes was his heart racing? Why did his skin not seem to fit his bones properly? What was it about this woman that unnerved him so?

“And…,” she said, turning her hand like a wheel, smiling.

“I am sorry for being a rude oaf, Miss Travers, but you caught me in a foul mood too.” Her cornflower eyes twinkled with amusement as she dared him to elaborate while providing him with an excuse for his ungentlemanly behavior.

“Or is that too hard to say, when here I am, standing humbly before you, admitting all blame and desperately trying to meet you halfway?”

Currently, with his innards bunched and his stomach doing somer saults, everything was too hard to say, but thanks to his stubborn pride alone he managed to find his voice.

Except what came out of his mouth wasn’t at all what he wanted to say nor at all what he should have.

“If you are worried that I will insist that my aunt dismiss you because of your recklessness, then don’t.

She’ll probably do that soon enough without my help anyway. ”

Her smile melted and he instantly missed it.

Apologize, idiot! Take it back. Don’t be a lion with a thorn in its paw.

But no words came out of his paralyzed mouth.

“Very true, my lord.” Then she curtsied. Properly this time, with all the expected deference and respectfully dipped eyes that his stupid title supposedly warranted, and he hated it. Hated that he had crushed her olive branch with curt words and pessimism. “Thank you for listening.”

And then she was gone.