“Of course,” he said in dead earnest. “You should obey your husband in all matters, horse, tattoos, and otherwise.”
Lilith had to stifle a giggle. After all, she was quite irate with him.
“Give me your crop,” he ordered. “You won’t be needing it.”
“I understand that manners are all the rage in those etiquette books you made me read. I remembered it prominently mentioned in The Lonely Suitor’s Guide.”
Her lips trembled, but she refused to give in to his infectious gentle laughter.
“Dearest lady, I humbly beseech you to bestow the honor of your riding crop upon me.”
“If I must,” she said airily, allowing him to withdraw it and set it on the stable ledge.
“There now.” He knelt and placed his opened palm on his knee.
“I prefer you in this groveling position,” she said.
“I know you do. Now I want you to place your foot in my hand. Yes, that’s good. Now put your hand on my shoulder like so. Hold on to me and I will lift you into the saddle. Here we go.” In an easy motion, he lifted her. She released his shoulder as she slid across the saddle, almost falling over the other side of the horse.
“George!” she cried, flailing.
He quickly caught her wrist and then secured an arm around her waist. “Hold on to me,” he said. “I won’t let you fall.”
The heat of his body and the security of his firm grip caused her eyes to water. She tried to blink the embarrassing tears away, but one escaped and slipped down her cheek.
“Lilith.” His voice shook. His hold on her tightened.
“Please say you didn’t mean those words last evening. They really hurt me.” The long, angry speech that she had composed during the night was now reduced to a few plaintive words.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I can’t imagine how it felt to be exiled from your family. I trivialized your pain and I’m sorry. I only want your happiness.” Poor Maude was so squat that George could draw Lilith close, letting his hand trail up and down her back. How could she hate and desire one man so fiercely? Why did she find the safekeeping she had sought in the man she had spent years running from? They silently held each other until the sound of stable hands conversing in another part of the stable drew them apart.
“Now carefully put your right limb around the pommel.” George’s voice was hoarse, laboring with emotion. He patted the hornlike things sticking up from the saddle.
She lifted her skirt, revealing the bottom of her pantalets, and lifted her leg, hooking it around the pommel. “Like this?”
“Lilith!” He glanced about, in case she might destroy some stableboy’s innocence. “Have you heard of modesty?” He chuckled and yanked down her skirts.
“Modesty?” She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know that word.”
Still chuckling, he placed her feet in the stirrups. His hand wandered up her ankles. She enjoyed the pressure of his fingertips even through the leather of her boots.
“Now I’m going to give you the reins,” he said.
“The reins. I can go anywhere! You can’t stop me.”
“Maude will. She knows her master.”
At the sound of her name, Maude whinnied.
“She’s only pretending to agree with you,” explained Lilith. “That’s how we females work.”
“You mean there’s a method to female madness?” he quizzed her.
She gave him a playful swat. “I should never have relinquished my crop.”
“No, you should not have. Now hold the reins with the first three fingers.” He carefully tucked the reins accordingly. “And there you go.”
He patted Maude on her hindquarters and the horse began to walk.
“Look at us, Maude!” Lilith cried as they headed for the corral. “Aren’t we a clever pair?”
George was a patient teacher, if not a little too overprotective. Whenever Lilith began to speed up, he slowed her down, saying he didn’t want to fetch Lord Harrowsby’s physician that morning to see to her broken bones. She had to admit, as much as George carried on like a nervous mother hen, it was lovely to have someone care about her well-being and fuss over her.
After he was confident she could safely ride around the corral without his guiding hand, he had his own horse fetched. Studying him atop his stallion, Lilith felt no better than a fifteen-year-old in the heat of her first spoony crush. His powerful thighs straddled the steed. He sat high, his shoulders broad and strong.
Even Maude stepped a little lighter, no doubt feeling for that powerful stallion what Lilith felt for its rider.
“We are hopeless cases, Maude,” she said.
Lilith laughing in the sunshine. Lilith clowning with her horse. George realized she would never be an excellent horsewoman. She was more concerned with being Maude’s friend than mistress. George wished he could stretch out this moment for the rest of the day, him and Lilith with her eyes sparkling in the light.
“What have you done? What is this?” Charles entered the corral with Mr. Fitzgerald, Lady Cornelia, and Miss Pomfret in his wake. “What kind of mount have you given the fair Miss Dahlgren?” he asked George. “A dull stock horse?”
George watched anger tighten Lilith’s features. Then she quickly concealed the emotion behind a breezy laugh. “Lord Charles, don’t you dare insult my dear Maude. I adore her and if I adore her, of course you should, too.”
Lord Charles’s lips trembled with an unexpressed smile. How deftly Lilith turned him. For years, George had only received the direct heat of her vivid personality. At its most intense, she burned away any thought, any emotion that wasn’t her. But now, watching from outside as she focused her vivid energy at others, he saw how nimbly she moved. Her dance that he once thought chaotic actually responded with perfect precision to the undercurrents of a situation. How tired she must be, always to be dancing on her toes. He wondered who Lilith was in stillness. How could he capture her and keep her still? How did one stop the beating of the hummingbird’s wings?
“Lord Marylewick, do not think that I’m not vexed that you stole my opportunity to teach Miss Dahlgren.” Charles tossed back his head in a casual laugh, but George detected the lurking malice. “Now I shall have to undo all your work and teach her to gallop freely instead of in this safe circle. She cannot be contained. Come, my ladies, Mr. Fitzgerald, let us hope that we all have such fine horses as Miss Dahlgren’s.” Lord Charles winked at Lilith. “Maude is without equal.”
After the guests entered the stables, Lilith leaned down in her saddle. “Don’t listen to him,” Lilith told Maude, but her glance flickered to George. “Charles may be handsome and charming, but he’s an arse. We are not fooled.”
George, concerned for Lilith, guided the party at a plodding pace along the flat fields. Cornelia discussed her favorite flowers and Mr. Fitzgerald entertained Miss Pomfret by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of his favorite cricket players. Meanwhile, Charles pestered Lilith with his usual inane conversation, brimming with lascivious undertones. George gripped his reins, his muscles rigid. Each ridiculous word Charles uttered chafed at George’s already raw nerves. Lilith bore Charles’s flirtation with a charming smile that George, now knowing her better, recognized as feigned. He wanted to snatch her away, put her atop his horse and ride away, both of them escaping this life of pain hidden behind smiles.
“Lord Marylewick, my horse is dying of boredom,” Lord Charles complained. “Let us burst forth in a wild gallop. Let Miss Dahlgren experience the exhilaration of a powerful beast beneath her.”
“Enough!” George thundered. He turned his horse. “That is entirely inappropriate. Apologize to Miss Dahlgren at once!”
“I can tell she is bored to flinders with this humdrum pace—”
“You don’t mean the pace,” George shot back.
Charles smirked like a filthy-minded adolescent. “What did I mean, Lord Marylewick? I would like to know so that I might apologize for it.”
It was Lilith who saved the moment. “This is my first real ride and I pride myself for not having fallen off, ridden into a branch, or knocked someone else from their horse.” The dangerous tone in her voice filled George with dread. “There is nothing Maude and I love more than experiencing powerful beasts. Why don’t all the gentlemen race across the field, and we shall see who is—I mean has—the the most powerful beast?”
“Miss Dahlgren, you are very naughty,” said Miss Pomfret. She and Cornelia broke into schoolgirl-like giggles.
“Lilith—Miss Dahlgren—I don’t think that is a good idea,” warned George.
It was too late. She had already planted the vile seed in Charles’s fertile mind.
“No, it is a smashing idea,” he countered. “Fitzgerald, are you as good on a horse as you are on the cricket field?”
Fitzgerald’s eyes had that glassy look of primal masculine competition. “Bloody hell, yes,” he said, forgetting his company.
The ladies, other than Lilith, blushed.
“I apologize, ladies, for Mr. Fitzgerald’s impolite language,” said George.