The portrait of a duches.., p.7
The Portrait of a Duchess, page 7
She nodded, and she was not sure if she was affirming her wish for a lesson or giving him permission to look at her like that—like he was also overwhelmed by a memory that had far more to do with attraction than it did with horsemanship.
He winked at her. “Come into the stables. I have a horse for you. A gentle, sturdy mare.”
“You don’t think I can handle a stallion?” she asked, before she could think better of it.
Oh dear. Was she turning into Thaïs?
Rafe gave her a long look. “Oh, I think there’s very little limit to what you can handle.”
She laughed, then bit her lip, regretting the innuendo. It was she, after all, who had shied away from him last night. She shouldn’t encourage flirtation.
Rafe led her inside, where his fleet of gorgeous horses idled in their stalls. He walked her past them to a tall, chestnut-colored mare near the back.
“This is Nelly. She’ll be gentle with you.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Nelly,” she said, stroking the mare’s head.
“When did you last ride?” Rafe asked.
“Oh, a decade ago, I’d think.”
He nearly dropped the saddle. “A decade ago?”
She shrugged. “I live in London. I walk. And when I don’t walk, I take hackneys.”
“Well, luckily, riding’s not a skill that’s easily forgotten.”
“I recall it’s a question of balance, staying on the horse?”
She knew it was more complicated, but she did not want to betray the fact that she was nervous.
“It’s a question of gripping with your seat and calves and keeping tension in the stirrups,” he said.
“Gripping with the legs. Oh my. How redolent of . . . other pursuits.”
She definitely was turning into Thaïs.
He ignored her comment, which must have taken a not inconsiderable amount of self-restraint. He finished tacking Nelly and led her out of her stall and toward a mounting block.
“There,” he said. “You’ll want to climb into the stirrup and swing your leg over her.”
Cornelia hopped onto the block—no easy task, given her petite stature. She was annoyed at herself for the flash of fear she felt as she vaulted onto the horse. She didn’t like riding. She’d avoided it as best she could her entire life, knowing her parents had died because of a spooked horse that overturned her father’s speeding barouche.
Besides, Nelly was very tall, and Cornelia was quite short.
“It’s all right,” Rafe said. “She won’t hurt you. She’s gentle as a lamb. But you have to communicate your authority to her, so that she trusts you.”
“I don’t feel particularly authoritative toward an animal ten times my size.”
“Cornelia,” he said with a slight laugh, “few people I’ve ever met are as naturally authoritative as you. You missed your calling as a general.”
The words made her smile. Not because she particularly wished to be thought of as suited to the military, but because Rafe’s compliments gave her a rush of pleasure.
“You’re good at this,” she said. Meaning at flirtation.
He winked. “I know. I’m good at many things involving mounted ladies.”
Before she could counter with a dirty witticism of her own, his arm was around her waist, bracing her into place against his massive side. He was warm and smelled like leather.
“I’m sure you’ve had many willing students,” she said. She was curious about his love life. She wondered if he had a lover now.
He chuckled. “I stay busy. Now steady your weight and take the reins,” he said, placing them in her hands.
Cautiously, she did as he instructed. The saddle shifted a bit as she adjusted herself, and she yelped, pulling involuntarily on the reins. Nelly tossed her head at the sudden movement, and Cornelia yelped again.
“Steady there,” Rafe murmured. “Be careful not to pull the reins unless you wish for her to stop or turn, otherwise she’ll be confused.” He drew closer and raised his arms up toward her. “May I help you?”
She nodded. He put his huge hands sturdily on her hips to balance her. Oh heavens, the feeling of him holding her. She relaxed into it, nearly enjoying herself despite her nerves.
“You’re fine,” he said in a soothing tone. “Now remember, it’s your legs that support you, and your feet in the stirrups—not the reins.”
She wobbled. She had never found riding to be an intuitive task.
“I don’t remember much of anything, except that I do not enjoy sitting on beasts large enough to kill me.”
“Nelly would sooner sprout wings and turn into a sparrow than kill you.”
“I did not say she would mean to. But I shall fall if she moves.”
She’d wanted to ride so she could roam about the estate while she was here, without relying on others to drive her. She had not expected to be so genuinely terrified.
Rafe put one of his large hands on the small of her back. She reached out and grabbed his shoulder, fearful she might fall.
“Cornelia,” he said kindly, “we can take a barouche. Let’s get you down.”
But she was embarrassed to be having this reaction. She did not want him to think she was the kind of woman who gave up so easily. Not when he must remember her as the fearless girl with a will as immovable as a stone wall.
Besides, she wanted him to touch her again.
“Not a chance,” she said. “I won’t be defeated.”
He looked at her with concern, but she ignored him. “How is my posture?”
“Not particularly good, I’m afraid.” He came close again and tugged her left ankle backward. “Feel the difference? You must remember to keep the balls of your feet in the center of the stirrups to stay steady. Your toes should point up, your heels down. Use your weight to help you.”
“Like this?” she asked cautiously, shifting forward.
He grimaced. “Not exactly. Here, steady yourself with your backside. You should feel it in your stomach and legs, if you’re doing it properly. Do you remember the day I taught you?”
How could I forget?
“Oh, I remember.”
She’d felt it in her stomach and legs indeed.
Chapter Ten
Before
“I have one condition,” Rafe said, as he and Cornelia plotted out their predawn escape.
“Very well,” she said. “Name your price.”
“I don’t want money,” he protested, taken aback that she would think he would extort a desperate eighteen-year-old girl for funds.
“You needn’t be offended. It’s a reasonable request. And I do have money, though not much beyond what it will take to reach Florence.”
“What I mean,” Rafe said, “is that you must pretend to be a boy while we travel.”
“How forward,” she drawled, as if he’d suggested something naughty.
He ignored the implication. He was not flirting in the slightest. It was imperative that she be disguised.
“A woman in a fine gown in a carriage is exactly what Rosemere’s men will be looking for if they pursue us,” he said. “But two men on horseback can ride quickly, off the carriage roads. We’ll have a better chance of remaining undetected if we alter your appearance.”
“You’ll have to style me as a young man, in that case,” she said dryly. “I neglected to bring my valet.”
“I’ll find you something to wear,” Rafe said, rising to go to his own wardrobe. “Friends have left things here before.”
“I’d hope you don’t intend for me to wear your clothing. I’m quite a bit more petite than you, sir,” she said, looking him up and down. She was tiny, and he was very nearly a giant. He could lift her with one hand.
A fact he should not be thinking about, given her age. It was bad enough he was asking her to clad herself in breeches.
He went and collected a few stray items left behind by his last paramour. Luckily, Luke was small of stature and had liked to stay the night when he could get away.
“Here you are,” he said, producing a pair of breeches, a leather jerkin, and a linen shirt.
Disguising Cornelia as a boy was easy. Her slim figure was well suited to men’s clothing. In her breeches and coarse linen, with her hair tucked into a hat, she could have been a farmer’s son.
“I feel quite spry in knee breeches,” she said. “Perhaps I will dispense with gowns entirely.”
“They suit you,” he said, and then regretted it. He should not be commenting on her body any more than he should be noticing it at all.
“I believe we may have a bigger problem than my choice of garments. I only know how to ride sidesaddle.”
“Of course,” he groaned. “I should have thought of that.”
Ladies of Cornelia’s class rarely rode astride, as a man would. He would have to teach her, and teach her well enough that she could ride quickly and efficiently on rough terrain.
“I believe a rain-soaked predawn lesson in equestrianism is in order,” she said. “Our first adventure of the day.”
Her cheer seemed to dissipate when she saw the horse he intended for her to ride. The broad, quiet mare was his gentlest horse, but also his tallest.
“Are you ready?” he asked Cornelia quietly, not wishing to be overheard in case his neighbor’s servants were awake.
“Of course,” she whispered, with what he suspected was false bravado.
“Up you go. A leg over her back, your rear square in the saddle.”
He blushed at mentioning her rear, which he had taken pains not to stare at when she’d emerged from his bedchamber in Luke’s old breeches.
She squeezed his hand and launched herself from the mounting block and into the stirrups.
“Very good,” he encouraged her.
“I straddle like a natural,” she affirmed.
Did she mean . . . ? No, he would ignore that. She may have had an affaire de coeur with her painting tutor, but he doubted she was so worldly as to make off-color jokes that crude.
(Though if she was, she was awfully clever.)
“Feet in the stirrups now. Press the horse’s belly with your calves gently to urge her forward,” he instructed.
Cornelia complied capably enough. But when she shifted her weight, the saddle moved on the mare’s back in a way that unnerved the rider. Cornelia gasped.
Poor girl. He could see real fear on her face.
“If the saddle shifts, slightly adjust your weight,” he instructed. “You want to sit up long and straight and balance on your rump.”
She nodded, but each time the horse moved, she flinched and went clutching at the reins, turning the horse’s head left and right in a way that could get her killed in the wrong circumstances.
If she could not find her grip, she would not be able to maintain so much as a trot on the rough forest roads without risking an injury. And trotting was not going to allow them to elude her uncle.
He led her slowly around the practice ring, holding the mare by its reins, but every time the saddle moved, Cornelia resisted—fighting it rather than balancing herself.
“It’s hopeless,” she said after half an hour. “I don’t understand.”
There was not much time to teach her. The first shimmer of dawn was gleaming behind the clouds, and it was imperative they leave at first light.
He thought for a moment, then offered her a hand.
“Here. Get down. We’ll try something else.”
She looked relieved when she stepped down onto solid ground.
Rafe took a saddle blanket and spread it on the wet earth. He lowered onto his hands and knees.
“Climb onto my back,” he said.
“On your back?” she repeated slowly.
Her incredulity was merited. What he was asking would get him called out for a duel in most circumstances. But no one was here to shoot him, and they didn’t have much time.
“You need to know the proper grip, and if you’re frightened, we’ll do it this way.”
She raised a brow at him. “Some might argue that climbing onto your back is obscene.”
She said this in an amused tone, not a shocked one.
He was beginning to see she was rather worldly, at least for a sheltered eighteen-year-old girl.
“Cornelia, if this is too difficult, we can try our luck in my carriage. But it will be riskier—”
“Hold still.”
Before he could even brace himself, she swung her leg over him and attempted to find her seating on his back.
Luckily, she was a slight thing, nothing compared to his bulk. He liked the feeling of her weight on top of him. It made him feel strong.
“Put your rear on the small of my back,” he told her, refocusing on the task at hand. His voice was oddly normal, failing to display any of the tension he felt with her seated on top of him.
She adjusted herself, moving backward as gingerly as she could. He chided himself for being a schoolboy about this, but he could not help but think of the parts of her intimately in contact with parts of him.
“Now sit up as straight as you can. Hold yourself up from your middle, like there’s a string from the ceiling pulling up your head.”
Cornelia adjusted herself, and he tried not to think of bedchamber acts.
He felt horrible for even thinking of thinking about such things, given this girl’s innocence. Or, at least, her age.
“Now put your feet on the ground, with your weight on your heels, as though you’re in stirrups,” he said. “Your toes should point up to my ears.”
“Like that?”
“Yes, good,” he said. “Now grip the sides of my back with your legs to show me it’s time to ride forward.”
No. Bedchamber. Acts.
She gripped him with all her power.
“Tighter,” Rafe instructed, keeping his voice as firm as he could manage with a beautiful woman gripping his midriff with her thighs.
She squeezed him until he groaned. She laughed.
“You did say as tight as I could.”
“You don’t want to suffocate your horse. Or me, in this case.”
“No, my intention isn’t to suffocate you. It’s to ride you,” she said in that wry tone that left him uncertain if she was stating a fact or making a bawdy joke.
Pondering that was inappropriate. Instead, he bucked. She yelped and fell off his back.
“Excuse me!” she cried.
“I’m sorry, but it had to be done. If you don’t want to fall off, you have to be prepared to react. Climb back on.”
She did, and this time without the slightest hint of suggestive humor. He was not sure if he was relieved or disappointed.
“Put your hands over your head, so you aren’t relying on them for balance.”
She did. He shifted his weight suddenly to the left.
In return, she shifted hers to the right.
“There you are,” he said. “How does that feel?”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Sensational.”
He willed himself not to dwell on her touch or the double meaning in her words. She had come here for protection. Not to be lusted after by a grown man who could easily violate her trust.
“I think you have the hang of it,” he said briskly. “Let’s try it on the horse.”
She stepped off of him and he rose to his feet. He caught her looking at him.
“A fine piece of horseflesh,” she said approvingly.
Fucking hell.
He clenched his teeth, offered her a hand, and jutted his chin at the horse. “Up you go.”
She climbed up on the horse’s back. This time, she looked more natural, and her feet found the proper angle in the stirrups.
“Your form is good,” he said. “Looking stable. How does it feel?”
“Less desirable than your back. I’ve never liked riding horses. But I find I enjoy riding men.”
She winked at him, confirming he had not imagined the tinge of flirtation in the way she spoke to him.
This, he realized, was going to be an excruciating trip.
Chapter Eleven
“Take a lap around the ring,” Rafe instructed Cornelia, breaking his own reverie.
He’d been thinking back to the day he taught her to ride astride.
It was making him emotional.
Again.
Damn it.
He knew he had gone too far last night. He should not repeat the mistake this morning. He was trying to win her trust—not drive her away. Especially when she seemed relaxed around him, like she was willing to forgive the previous evening’s awkwardness.
She pressed her feet into the horse’s sides and trotted slowly around the ring.
He watched her as, seemingly all at once, she remembered how to ride.
“How does it feel?” he called to her.
She gave him a smile childlike in its pleasure.
“I forgot what a joy it is to ride this way,” she said.
“Are you ready to try it outside the ring? We should leave while the weather holds.”
The sky was the color of iron, though there was no sign of rain.
She nodded. “Where are we going?”
He told her of the meetings they had scheduled as he mounted his horse and they set off across the lush green downs.
“Ah,” she said. “You intend to prove to me your bona fides as a progressive landowner this morning.”
“Yes. I think you’ll like me better in a few hours.”
She gave him a look that conveyed we’ll see.
“Where are we headed first?” she asked.
“To the ragstone quarry. We’ve heard concerns about its safety.”
She gestured at a turnoff to the carriage road that led through the woods. “Let’s cut through the forest. It’s faster than going over the downs.”
“I knew your knowledge of this place would be of use.”
Rafe had lived on the estate for years, but the intensity of his work—and double life—had kept his peregrinations around the place limited mostly to the stables, his cottage, and the village. The surrounding miles and miles of countryside were as foreign to him as if he’d been a stranger.
He rode slowly, setting a gentle pace that would not challenge Cornelia’s skill. The woods were cooler than the meadow, and dark without the sun shining through the canopy.
