Bringing Down the Duke

“Would you accompany me on a walk through the stables tomorrow morning?” he asked.

She gave him an opaque look.

“The stables are warm,” he said. “And the horses are some of the finest in England.”

She was silent for a long moment. “It will depend on the state of my health.”

And even more so on the state of her mood, presumably.

He offered her his arm to ascend the steps to the terrace. With some hesitation, she placed her hand on him. What had happened in the greenhouse had unsettled her.

What had happened in the greenhouse?

Nothing had happened. Wanting was a perfectly normal reaction when a man looked at a beautiful woman, wasn’t it?

Chapter 13

It had been an unusually pleasant morning: clear skies and a good yield of birds. Sebastian hadn’t expected to get a good shot after spending half the night at his desk outmaneuvering unruly party members. His contentment spiked when he saw a slender figure approaching the stables from the direction of the house.

“You seem improved, miss,” he said, greeting her over the whining beagles swarming round his feet.

Her eyes swept first over him, then over Stevens, who was wearing the pheasants they had shot on strings around his neck.

“It occurred to me I owe your horse a treat,” she said, and opened her right hand, revealing a small apple in her palm. “For carrying a double burden the other day.”

The other day, when he had had to all but drag her back to Claremont. He could almost feel her weight in his arms, the softness of her hair against his face.

“That horse is working with McMahon in the paddock, miss,” Stevens said.

Sebastian handed him his rifle. “Meet us at the paddock, then.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and he knew he had guessed correctly—she preferred not to be alone with him today. And yet she had come.

They walked the first minute in silence. It was easy, walking with her, as she had naturally fallen into the long stride of a country woman. Because she is a country woman. He studied her even profile and wondered how much of her French blood was blue. His report said her maternal ancestors had come over from France with a count during the Terror, and the French had a reputation for fathering bastards on their staff.

“Do you enjoy hunting, Your Grace?” She sounded polite. Conversational.

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s one of the few pleasures of being a landowner.” There. That was almost as if he hadn’t been inches from kissing her beautiful neck just yesterday.

“What are the other pleasures of owning land?” she asked, a trace of irony in her voice.

“To put the right management practices into place. To know that the land will yield sustainably and profitably rather than go to waste.”

Her gaze locked with his for the first time this morning. “I thought that was the stewards’ responsibility.”

“They report to me,” he said. “Ultimately, the responsibility is mine.” For all one hundred twenty thousand acres. The first week after his father’s sudden demise, when he had locked himself in the study to scour stacks of ledgers and letters and contracts, he had been at an utter loss as to how his father could have been drinking, gambling, and spending time with his mistress while tens of thousand of acres lay ravaged by poor management. Another week and countless cigarettes later, he had concluded that his father had taken to drink and cards because of the estates—coupled with the poor liquidity and a few dismal investment decisions, their houses had become bottomless pits. Across Britain, more land holdings than not had steadily turned into white elephants since the industrial revolution. And he couldn’t expect Annabelle Archer, clever as she was, to know such a thing; after all, the aristocracy itself pretended not to know that its names rested on feet of clay.

The paddock was busy; a few of the retired horses were on the far end, grooming each other. His horse was cantering circles on a lunge line around McMahon, the sunlight gleaming off the powerful muscles working beneath the white coat.

Annabelle curled her hands around the banister, her eyes riveted on the stallion. “He’s magnificent,” she said, “so strong, and yet so graceful.”

“He was bred to be so,” he said. “The Andalusian horse is a cross of European warmbloods and the Arabian thoroughbred, the best of both worlds.”

That made her smile, one of those small smiles that left him wondering.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

He rattled off the official, very long, very Spanish name that was recorded on the stallion’s papers.

“Goodness,” she said, “and what do you call him?”

“I don’t,” he said, and when he saw her bemused face, he added, “It’s a horse.” A man might name a dog, but a horse?

The cogs were still visibly spinning behind her eyes.

“Out with it, miss,” he said. “I can tell you have named him already.”

She looked back at the horse, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun with her hand. “He looks like an Apollo.”

The Greek god of light. Why not? It actually suited him.

One of the retired horses came trotting over, his ears twitching back and forth with interest.

“And who are you?” Annabelle crooned at the animal, and he couldn’t help the stab of awareness that her tone was considerably warmer now than when she was speaking to him. The gelding nuzzled at her palm, nostrils flaring as he picked up the scent of the apple.

She glanced up at him, worry creasing her brow. “Why is his coat so patchy? Is he ill?”

“No. He’s old, nearing thirty.”

She patted the eager gray muzzle. “Isn’t he too frail to work, then?”

“He’s not working anymore, he is retired.”

She stilled. “You keep retired horses?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they served me well and there is no need to turn them into soap before their time.”

She was silent for a beat. Then she resumed stroking the horse and murmured something that sounded like “but it would be so much more efficient.” The words could have annoyed him, but her tone was as tender as when she had greeted the decrepit horse. Something in his chest responded, a sudden bloom of warmth in the cold. He swallowed. He hadn’t drunk in near two decades, but this was not unlike the heated sensation of Scotch burning down his throat. Could one become drunk on the presence of a woman?

She peered up at him from the corner of her eye, and whatever it was in her gaze made his head spin.

Yes. Yes, apparently, one could get drunk on a woman. Damn the obedient Stevens for putting an end to their cozy twosome.

* * *

“Annabelle, you must give me your measurements before I leave today,” said Hattie.

Annabelle raised her eyes from her correspondence.

The gray light of the afternoon filled the parlor. Hattie was lounging on the settee like an empress, a bowl of grapes on the low-legged table before her.

“And why is that, Miss Greenfield?”

“Because I have a feeling that you will be invited to Montgomery’s New Year’s Eve party, so you will need a ball gown.”

“That’s hardly likely.”

“You’re going to Lady Lingham’s Christmas dinner.”

“Because I’ll still be stuck at Claremont when that takes place.”

“Very well. Just imagine another unlikely situation occurs that leads to an invitation to the biggest house party of the year, and you have to decline because you have nothing to wear.”

“Imagine I ordered a ball gown and wasn’t invited to the party.”

Hattie popped another grape into her mouth. “Then you would have a ball gown, which is never, ever a bad thing.”

Annabelle sighed. “Catriona, say something.”

Catriona, curled up in a large armchair, obligingly looked up from her notebook. “I’d stay away from any ball I could, but since my father insists I go, I’d rather we all go together.”

Annabelle narrowed her gaze at her. “You’re not helping, dear.”

“Celeste has a new emerald silk in store,” Hattie said. “My sister told me.” She waved at a letter next to the fruit bowl. “You would look splendid in emerald.”

Celeste. The Bond Street seamstress who was so famous, she could afford to go simply by Celeste, and people like Annabelle only knew her from the high-end fashion magazines Hattie smuggled into their college’s common room. Her silks flow like water . . . her creations do for a lady what a gold setting does for a diamond . . .

Annabelle glanced down at her letter to Gilbert, where she claimed that she was convalescing in Catriona’s Oxford residence at St. John’s College. If she announced that she was spending Christmas with the Duke of Montgomery and was discussing silks by Celeste, they’d suspect her mind had derailed after a mere three months in higher education, and she’d be ordered back to Chorleywood quicker than she could say Merry Christmas.

She lowered the pen back onto the paper.

“You won’t even think about it?” Hattie sounded disappointed.

“I cannot afford a ball gown.”

A delicate little pause ensued.

“I was wondering what to get you for Christmas.”