Chapter Two
Dinner with the duke was a special kind of purgatory for Harriet.
Cook had outdone herself—two peers at the table, and one of them their own Lord Philippe!—and Papa tried to recapture the jovial spirit he’d exuded before Mama’s death. Harriet attempted to play hostess, which was harder than it looked for a woman who got out the good china only at Christmas and on the king’s birthday.
Philippe regaled them with tales of polite society’s follies, while Ramsdale was mostly quiet. His lordship’s dark eyes held a lurking pity that made Harriet want to upend the wine carafe into the earl’s lap.
Sorely missing a friend was not the same as being infatuated with a man far above her touch.“If Ramsdale is insistent on being trounced at the chessboard,” His Grace said when the clock struck ten, “then I’ll see myself home. There’s a lovely moon tonight, and I certainly know the way.”
Thank heavens, or thank Philippe’s faultless manners. He was a considerate man, and Harriet would ever regard it as a pity that he eschewed equestrian activities. A little consideration went a long way toward success with most horses.
“Be off with you,” Ramsdale said, waving a hand. “Lord knows, you need your beauty sleep, Lavelle, while I relish a challenge.”
“And you shall have it,” Papa rejoined, rising more energetically than he had in weeks. “It’s your turn to be white, my lord, and if memory serves, you are down five games and very much in need of the opening advantage.”
As Ramsdale politely bickered about the tally of victories, and Papa hobbled off with him to the study, Harriet’s difficult night took a turn for the worse.
“He’s lonely,” she said.
Philippe paused by her chair. “Ramsdale? You are doubtless correct.”
“Papa. He misses this. Misses the company of men, the jokes over the port, the slightly ungentlemanly talk that doubtless flows when he’s at chess with Ramsdale. With the lads and grooms, Papa has to be the employer. With the buyers, he’s the deferential horse master. With you and Ramsdale… he’s happy.”
Philippe bent closer, as he had when last they’d parted. “What of you, my dear? If your papa is lonesome for the company of men, whose company are you missing?”
Yours. “My mother, I suppose.” And the father she’d once known, who’d been gruff but kindly, a hard worker, and a tireless advocate for the equine.
Philippe sighed, his breath fanning across Harriet’s neck before he straightened to hold her chair. “Ada says you hardly ever call at the Hall.”
Harriet never called at the Hall unless Papa insisted. “I am the daughter of a retired horse master, while your sister is a lady and always will be. I’ll see you out.”
“A horse master is a gentleman,” Philippe said, “every bit as much of a gentleman as a steward or a vicar, and this might come as a revelation, but Ada is, like you, a woman living without benefit of female relations and in need of company.”
Lady Ada was also a lovely person who adored her brother and took management of the ducal estate very much to heart. Harriet would endure Ramsdale’s silent pity because she must. Pity from the duke’s sister was unthinkable.
“If her ladyship needs company,” Harriet said, “perhaps her brother should spend less time larking about London and more time where he belongs. It’s a wonder women don’t end every meal cursing,” she muttered, disentangling the hem from beneath a chair leg. “These infernal skirts—”
“Are very becoming,” Philippe said, offering his arm.
“I don’t need an escort to my own front door, and I’ll see you out on my way to the mares’ barn.”
Harriet wanted to elbow His Grace in the ribs, but he and she were no longer children; moreover, her elbow would get the worst of the encounter. Philippe was the duke. Over the past ten years, he’d transitioned from spare, to heir, to title holder. Generations of wealth, consequence, and yes—arrogance—regarded her patiently, until she took his arm simply to move the evening toward its conclusion.
I hate you. That pathetic taunt might have salvaged her pride in childhood, but now it was a sad echo of truer sentiments: I miss you when you’re gone for months. I worry about you. More often than you know, I wish I could talk to you or even write to you.
I read the London papers for news of you. I dread the day I hear of your nuptials. For dukes married as surely as horses collected burrs in their tails.
“You’re worried,” Philippe said when they reached the foyer.
A single candle burned in a sconce on the wall, and when Harriet retired, she’d blow that one out.
“Papa will pay for this night’s pleasures,” Harriet said. “He forgets sore hips when he’s in company or showing a horse to a prospective buyer, and I can’t get him to touch the poppy or even white willow bark tea. I mentioned keeping a Bath chair on hand for the days when he’s too stiff to walk out to the training paddock, and he nearly disowned me.”
“I’m sorry. He’s proud, and that makes it difficult to look after him.” Philippe took Harriet’s cloak from a hook near the sideboard, settled the garment around her shoulders, and fastened the frogs.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and not because he had a sister. Countless nights escorting ladies—titled ladies—to the opera, the theater, or this or that London entertainment had doubtless given him competence to go with his consideration.
Harriet treasured the consideration and resented the competence. “I can do up my own cloak, Your Grace.”
Philippe shrugged into a shooting jacket and donned his top hat. “She’s Your-Gracing me,” he informed the night shadows. “I have transgressed. Perhaps my sin was complimenting my hostess’s lovely attire. Maybe I misstepped when I commiserated about her father’s waning health. Perhaps I’ve presumed unforgivably by performing small courtesies.”
“You are being ridiculous.” Harriet said. “So am I. I’m sorry.” For so much, she was sorry.
“You are tired,” Philippe replied, holding the door for her. “You work, you don’t sit about stitching sanctimonious samplers while plotting adultery. You supervise men, instead of scheming how to get your hands on their coin or their titles. You want for respite, not a new diversion to go with the endless list you’ve already become bored with.”
The moon was full, which meant Harriet had enough light to see Philippe’s features.
The evening had apparently been trying for him too. All those stories about lordlings swimming in fountains, or young ladies whose arrows went astray, that was so much stable-yard talk. The reality was cold mornings and hard falls. Aching limbs and colic vigils. London had left Philippe tired and dispirited. He was bearing up and hiding it well.
“I’m glad you’ve come home,” Harriet said, twining her arm through his. “I’ll walk you to the bridle path.”
“Unlike some people, I won’t grouse at an offer of good company. As a youth, I spent many a moonlit night wishing my true love would accost me under the oaks.”
He referred to a ridiculous local legend: The first person to kiss you under a full moon on the duke’s bridle path is your true love.
“The legend is very forgiving,” Harriet said as they made their way between paddocks. “It doesn’t specify that we’re to have only one true love. I suspect many a stable lad has been relieved that subsequent interests aren’t precluded by that first kiss.”
And maybe many a duke? Tears threatened, and for no reason. What did it matter which squire’s daughter, daring tavern maid, or merry widow had first kissed a young Lord Philippe on the bridle path?
“So who was your first true love?” Philippe asked.
Not a hint of jealousy colored his question. He was merely passing the time while tramping on Harriet’s heart.
“He was tall,” she said. “Quite muscular, a fellow in his prime. Splendid nose, moved like a dream, all grace and power.”
“You noticed his nose?”
Was that disgruntlement in the duke’s voice? “One does, when kissing.”
“Not if one goes about it properly.”
He spoke from blasted experience, while Harriet was spinning fancies. “I noticed his dark, dark hair, his beautiful eyes, his scent.”
“You found a lad here in Berkshire who could afford French shaving soap?”
“He wasn’t a lad, Your Grace. He was quite the young man, and all the ladies adored him.” Which was why he’d been sold as a stud colt and was still standing at a farm in Surrey. “I kissed him good-bye under a full moon on the bridle path, and I will never, ever forget him.”
Philippe slowed as they neared the trees. “You kissed him good-bye?”
“Years ago.”
This part of the bridle path ran between two rows of stately oaks. Nobody knew when the path had come into use, but the oaks were ancient. In places, the path wound beside a stream. At other points, it left the trees to cut along the edge of a pasture. Every square yard of the footing was safe. Every inch of the way was beautiful.
Especially by moonlight.
Philippe stopped at the gap in the oaks. The night was peaceful enough to carry the sound of horses munching grass in their paddocks. Harriet’s slippers were damp—her only good pair. She’d neglected to change into boots, because shooing away His Grace had been the more pressing priority.
Shooing away His Grace, whom she missed desperately even when she was standing beside him.
“May I trust you with one more secret, Harriet?”
In the shadows of the trees, she couldn’t make out his expression. “Of course. We are friends, and friends…”
He took off his hat and set it on a thick tree limb. “I waited in vain on this path. Nobody fell prey to my youthful charms, not on Beltane, not at harvest. Nobody would kiss the duke’s younger son, though I witnessed several young ladies bestowing favors on Jonas.”
That must have hurt. “Lord Chaddleworth was a rascal.” A lovable rascal.
A foal whinnied, and the mama answered. A sense of expectation sprang up from nowhere, and two instants later, Harriet realized His Grace was through waiting for somebody to kiss him.
He touched his mouth to hers. Harriet stepped closer, and then his arms came around her.
The kiss resumed, and while Harriet noticed many things—how her body matched the duke’s differently in the darkness, how the breeze blew her hair against her neck, how warm he was, and how his shaving soap smelled of sweet lavender—she did not notice his nose at all.
* * *
Philippe had gone to university, and thanks to the Oxford tavern maids, he’d learned how to kiss. Those women instructed a fellow without regard to his title or wealth, demanding that he give pleasure where pleasure was offered. Thus Philippe had been introduced to the democracy of the bedroom where all—rich, poor, handsome, plain, young, and not so young—were reduced to common humanity in pursuit of common pleasures.
Then he’d kept discreet company with a young widow who ran a boarding house in Oxford. After university, he’d graduated to the wonders—and horrors—of London. Jonas had lectured Philippe at length about the French gout, fire ships, and other dangers, and a tour of Covent Garden after the theaters let out had underscored the need for caution.
Caution was expensive and tiresome, in the form of mistresses who expected regular visits and even more regular bank drafts. When Philippe realized that he’d not paid a call on his mistress for the duration of three bank drafts, he’d bid her a fond farewell—she pronounced him hopeless at debauchery—and resigned himself to the occasional frolic at a house party.
Two years later, he’d stopped accepting invitations to house parties. As Ada had pointed out, if he wanted to while away a few weeks in rural splendor, the peaceful, debutante-free luxury of his own Hall would suffice.
And all along, from university, to London, to the shires, and back, Philippe had wondered if something wasn’t amiss with him. Intimate congress was pleasurable, but so was a ramble along the bridle path—and a good deal less complicated. Kissing had inspired sonnets and panegyrics in many languages, and yet, Philippe had regarded it as so much folderol to be got through while the lady made up her mind.
With Harriet, he never wanted the intimacies to end. Her kiss was everything—soft night sounds, breezes teasing the leaves that would soon fall to the lush grass, homecoming, joy, warmth of the heart and warmth—blazing warmth—where desire dwelled.
She wrapped her arms around him and shifted, so her breasts rubbed against his chest. He suspected she had no intention other than to be closer, which was a fine, fine idea. He explored the contours of her back with one hand, not stopping until he cupped her derriere and pressed her closer.
She was luscious, eager, artless, and—some vestigial artifact of his gentlemanly scruples shouted—she was Harriet. Harriet, the pest who’d spied on him and Jonas; Harriet, who’d beat Jonas racing on her pony because she’d jump anything without checking her mount’s speed; Harriet, who’d forget Philippe for another year because he hadn’t a mane, tail, or hooves.
Philippe was a duke, a creature of discipline and duty.
His almighty discipline was barely sufficient to inspire a pause in the kissing.
“The full moon always makes the horses restless,” Harriet panted.
What had horses—? Philippe eased his embrace and rested his cheek against Harriet’s hair. The scent of roses was partly her, partly the night breeze.
“A mere kiss is not lunacy, Harriet. Not when we’re on the bridle path. Kissing on the bridle path is what one does in this corner of Berkshire.”
He felt the change in her, felt his attempt at levity fall flat and knock the wonder from the moment. Harriet doubtless had some equestrian analogy handy to better describe the unwelcome return of sanity.
“I thought bridle paths were for riding along,” she said, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I can feel your heart.”
Philippe’s attention was on another part of his anatomy, and yet, his heart was involved as well. He’d kissed Harriet Talbot, his friend, under a full moon on the bridle path. The kiss had been spectacular, but then, he was out of practice, and Harriet brought focus and energy to all she did.
He should turn loose of her.
He really should.
He stroked her hair, which was marvelously soft. “Are we still friends, Harriet?”
She stepped back and handed him his hat. “Of course, Your Grace. We will always be friends, and now when you are asked about our local legend, you can take your place among the village boys and stable lads who’ve at least kissed somebody on the duke’s bridle path.”
Her gaze wasn’t on him, but rather, on the horses at grass under the full moon.
“You came out with me to check on a horse.”
“A mare who has the audacity to be presenting us with an autumn foal. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible, and if winter is early, it’s surely not wise. She got loose, though, and was found the next morning disporting with Mr. Angelsey’s stud. Heaven help the foal if it breeds true to the sire line, for that stud is cow-hocked and… I’m babbling.”
Harriet wanted to see to her mare. Philippe wanted the last five minutes to never have happened, and he wanted to resume kissing her.
“Away with you,” Philippe said, bowing over her hand. “I’ll wait here until you’re at the mares’ barn. Thank you for a lovely meal and a lovely kiss.”
He owed her that. He also probably owed her an apology, except he wasn’t sorry. Confused, yes. Sorry, hell no.
“Good night, Your Grace.” A quick curtsey, then Harriet stooped to remove her slippers, and off she went across the damp grass, her shoes in her hand.
Philippe remained by the oaks even after she’d disappeared into the mares’ barn on the far side of the paddocks.
What had just happened? Harriet had kissed him as if she’d been longing for him to take that very liberty and needed to make up for lost time. Then she’d scampered off into the night—Cinderella taking both of her slippers with her—abandoning him yet again for the company of some smelly equine.
Philippe ducked into the shadows of the bridle path, and made his way back to the Hall, hat in hand.
* * *
“Somebody must have moved my mares’ barn a mile or two down the bridle path,” Jackson Talbot said.
Ramsdale’s mind wasn’t on the game, not on the chess game at any rate. Apparently, Talbot’s wasn’t either.
“Or perhaps,” Ramsdale said, “like any self-respecting equestrienne, Miss Talbot saw a water bucket half empty and tarried to fill it. Or a mare who needed more hay, or a—”
Talbot waved his pipe. “The lads mope if Harriet steals all of their work. They take their responsibilities seriously.”
“His Grace of Lavelle takes everything seriously.” Though, because the duke also took his flirting seriously, and his gentlemanly bonhomie, and his cordial socializing, nobody seemed to notice—including the duke himself.
The front door closed, and a vague worry left Talbot’s eyes. “All’s well in the mares’ barn. We’re expecting a woods colt or filly.”
The game had not yet progressed to the interesting phase. Ramsdale and his host were settling in, exchanging civilities, recalling each other’s strategies.
“A maiden mare?” Ramsdale asked.
“No, but having chosen her swain for herself, I can’t breed the damned horse to another until spring. Every foal counts, and this one, having a disgrace for a father, will be ewe-necked, over at the knee… It’s your move, my lord.”
Ramsdale moved his king’s knight into position to threaten Talbot’s queen. “An occasional outcross can strengthen a bloodline.”
A duke’s horse master had greater responsibilities in some regards than the land steward or house steward. He oversaw the coachmen and carriages, the breeding stock and farm stock, the stables and paddocks, the training and riding, the teams stabled at coaching inns all over the realm, and the money it took to keep that aspect of a dukedom functioning.
Anything associated with a ducal equine fell under the horse master’s purview, and now Talbot was reduced to managing a few brood mares, some youngsters, a handful of riding stock in training…
And one smitten daughter.
“An occasional out-cross makes sense,” Talbot said. “My darling mare chose the worst possible stud though. Damned colt should have been cut before he was weaned.”
Talbot did not see the danger to his queen. “Lavelle is a gentleman.” Which was half the problem. Somewhere along the way, His Grace had confused strawberry leaves for holy orders.
“His Grace is also a man without many close allies,” Talbot said, moving his rook in a completely useless direction. “Harriet is ferociously loyal and unwise to the ways of men.”
“To the ways of scoundrels, you mean.” Ramsdale decided to draw the game out, for he had a delicate point to make, and he and delicacy were not well acquainted. “Lavelle hasn’t a drop of scoundrel’s blood in his veins.”
“But every drop is male, and Harriet’s future is dull enough to inspire her to rash acts. Her mother resorted to rash acts to gain my attention.”
Ramsdale took a pawn with his bishop, a warning. “Her mother’s strategy worked.”
“I was a baronet’s younger son. She was an earl’s granddaughter. We knew what was expected of us, and times were different.”
Talbot fell silent, and Ramsdale gave up on delicacy. “They would suit.”
Talbot moved his king. Perhaps the horse master had begun a mental decline.
“Lavelle might make Harriet his mistress for a time,” Talbot said, “and I’m sure he’d be generous and kind. Harriet was not raised to be anybody’s fancy piece, not even a duke’s fancy piece, not even a good duke’s fancy piece.”
Talbot wasn’t angry, so much as he was bewildered. He’d never envisioned himself the father of a duke’s fancy piece, or perhaps he worried about how to keep a stable afloat without Harriet to run it?
“I meant no insult to the lady,” Ramsdale said. Then too, to be mistress to a duke was hardly the same as walking the London streets. “I meant that they’re very nearly in love, and whom Lavelle falls in love with, he’ll be inclined to marry.”
Ramsdale wasn’t sure what it meant to be in love, but whenever he accompanied Lavelle to the ancestral pile, the duke called first upon the Talbots, even before visiting the family graveyard. For a man who eschewed anything having to do with a horse, Lavelle was uncommonly fond of his papa’s old horse master.
Also of the horse master’s daughter.
“A duke must marry wisely,” Talbot said. “Harriet is in no regard a suitable duchess. She knows that.”
Ramsdale moved his queen again, though the king’s shift by a single square was inconvenient to his intended strategy.
“Lavelle never wanted to be a duke, and every time somebody refers to him as such, he misses his older brother. In London, His Grace is endlessly popular, beloved by all, but known by virtually nobody. They were all too busy fawning over Lord Chaddleworth as the heir and didn’t notice the younger brother. Now they notice him, and he can’t be bothered.”
His Grace was always polite, always charming, and always—to Ramsdale’s discerning eye—bored with the life meant for his older brother. The boredom had become restlessness, and the restlessness was building toward some bad end.
Excessive drink, perhaps, or dueling, or—the worst fate imaginable—a Society match.
“My lord, your move has put us at a stalemate.”
Ramsdale surveyed the board. “Bloody hell. My apologies. My mind is elsewhere.”
“As is mine. Shall we call it a night, and shall I have a gig brought ’round to get you home?”
“I will enjoy a moonlit stroll and the peace and quiet of the Berkshire countryside. My thanks for a very pleasant evening, and I hope you’ll join us for dinner at the Hall on Friday.”
Talbot pushed to his feet. “His Grace left it to you to do the inviting, did he? Harriet would have conjured some excuse had he asked her directly—the mare, perhaps. No harm in a meal between neighbors, I suppose. Until Friday, my lord.”
Talbot’s grip was firm, though his gaze was troubled.
Best beat a retreat before Talbot also conjured excuses. “I’ll see myself out. I promise you better play when next we meet.”
Anything was better than playing to a stalemate, for God’s sake. Ramsdale reserved the pleasure of reviewing the game move by move for the futile hours involved in falling asleep. As he made his way home down the legendary bridle path, a different challenge occupied him.
Harriet Talbot was from good family. Solidly gentry and entitled to a few upward pretensions. Had she been wealthy, a match with Lavelle would have been unusual, but not scandalous. Ramsdale was prepared to spread rumors of the young lady’s magnificent dowry to still any wagging tongues.
A heart full of love, for those inclined to such nonsense, qualified as a magnificent dowry.
Ramsdale had no doubt that Harriet would make a fine duchess, given some time and a few pointers from Lady Ada. The problem was Lavelle.
How could a peer who detested all things equine possibly become a suitable mate to a woman who—save for her interest in the duke—loved horses, only horses, and always horses?