A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (22 page)

“Just this once?”

“No,” Ellie replied, leaving Poultney to return to Hugh.

She curtseyed, noticing a touch of color in Hugh’s cheeks. His eyes glinted with vexation. “How long did you and your sister practice fortune telling?”

“Lord Davenport, you are impertinent,” she hissed.

“Or was that a bit of coquetry gone terribly wrong?”

“What is terribly wrong is the idea that a young lady would wear glasses, fall off a horse, or concoct a fortune to attract a self-centered idiot like you,” she declared.

She sought Chase, her next partner, but found the entire company staring at her. In her anger she’d stopped dancing.

“Excuse me, Lady Davenport,” she said. “I’m afraid my leg pains me more than I anticipated. I’m going to my room to rest.”

It took every ounce of willpower not to run from the ballroom.

“It’s important that I see to my sister’s health,” Ellie heard Claire say. “I’ll be back as soon as she’s settled.”

“Very well,” Lady Davenport said. “I suppose we all could do with a bit of punch and a chance to rest.”

• • •

Ellie hesitated outside the ballroom door just long enough for Claire to catch up. “What happened? You look like you might bite something,” Claire said, taking Ellie’s arm and leading her down the hall.

“Hugh Davenport ought to be confined to the nursery until he learns to behave.”

“My heavens, what did he do?”

“He said we concocted his fortune. He accused me of falsely wearing glasses and of hurling myself off that nag’s back to attract his attentions. The bloody … ”

Claire put her hand over Ellie’s mouth. “You’re a lady now, Ellie. You must act like one.”

Ellie took a few deep breaths. Claire removed her hand.

“We have got to find that pearl necklace,” Ellie said. “Mama will expect to see one of us wearing it tonight at dinner, and she and Papa won’t expect to see me in these ridiculous spectacles. The instant Hugh lays eyes on my face, I’ll be disgraced. Our family won’t survive without the Fitzcarry pearls.”

They heard a noise and turned in time to see Chase walking in the opposite direction. “He heard us,” Claire whispered.

“How do you know?”

“His gait is hurried — urgent.”

“Tell everyone I’m in bed,” Ellie said, rushing down the stairs toward the front door. “There’s not a moment to lose.”

• • •

The dust and grass along the road to Exeter stubbornly refused to reveal the pearl necklace. Ellie zigzagged back and forth batting at the roadside foliage with the tip of her parasol. The sun, high and hot, roughed her throat with thirst, and the hem of her pretty dancing dress, a white muslin embroidered with pink roses, had gone gray with dirt. She found it a bitter irony that her glasses were finally useful because they magnified the ground.

In the midst of giving a patch of grass a deadly whack, she heard hoofbeats behind her.

Through the thick lenses she made out Valaire’s white blaze and Hugh’s broad shoulders. She turned her back and quickened her pace.

As Hugh was about to bring the horse abreast, Ellie ducked through a post-and-rail on the side of the road. Too angry to be cautious, the muslin hem caught on a splinter and tore before she could stop her momentum. Grabbing the bolts of fabric, she hoisted them higher than decorum allowed and marched off across the field. A herd of grazing cows raised their heads to watch.

• • •

Hugh rolled his eyes as she stomped away. Her determined little stride made him want to laugh. He had a good mind to abandon her to the bull he spied raising its horns in the midst of its harem, but the chit might be gored to death. Hardly the sort of thing one wished upon a houseguest.

He sighed and popped Valaire over the fence.

“We garnered from Claire that you’d gone for a walk,” he said, trotting to Ellie’s side. “Your sister claims I upset you during our dance this morning. Now Mother insists I apologize, whether my comments were justified or not.”

“Thank you, Lord Davenport,” Ellie replied, a rancorous catch in her voice. “I accept your apology. You may tell your mama you’ve fulfilled your duty.” She curtseyed, turned abruptly, and headed back toward the road.

Hugh’s ears grew hot. She didn’t act like all the other ladies of good breeding he’d insulted. They’d batted their eyelashes, giggled, and blamed everything on themselves.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the bull start menacingly toward them. He turned Valaire after her. “The bull’s been roused. You need to leave this pasture immediately.”

• • •

Leave, indeed.
Ellie had no intention of obeying Hugh Davenport. The bull trotted toward her, gaining momentum with every stride. It tossed its massive head and snorted a warning. She gritted her teeth. Only one thing scared a beast and that was a bigger, madder beast. In that instant, all the rage and frustration she’d felt, multiplied tenfold by guilt, exploded. She faced the bull and bellowed back, raised her parasol like a sword above her head, and ran full-tilt at the creature. With only yards to spare, she lowered the parasol and snapped the lacy trifle open. The bull swerved in terror. Ellie pursued, roaring and yelling like a maddened drunk, until the brute led his herd in a disorganized scamper to the far side of the field.

“Behave!” she shouted.

She turned her back on the beast and looked Hugh full in the eye. “As for you, Lord Davenport, you are more than a blithering idiot — you are a spoiled brat. Who ever heard of a Peer of the Realm afraid of every woman in silk!”

Hugh’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me there’s no plotting to get me in the marriage bed! You, Miss Philapot, Hester Pitt — you all circle like wolves.”

“I wouldn’t marry you if you dropped on one knee with a pearl necklace in one hand and Manifesto’s reins in the other!”

“You lie!” he blasted.

“Ha!” she retorted, snapping her parasol shut.

Ellie slipped around Valaire and whacked her parasol at an errant weed, stalking back to the lane.
I can’t wait to be away from all things Davenport
, she thought
. When Papa and Mama arrive, I’ll tell them my leg hurts too much to stay, and I must come home immediately.

Avoiding a cow pie, she had a sudden realization of exactly where she was and the thought filled her with despair.
Did I just chase a bull? How can I be so impetuous? So uncontrollable? It’s horrible, I’m willful, careless … and now I have to tell Mama I’ve lost her precious Fitzcarry pearls.

I’ll have to tell her Hugh Davenport would have married me, except he fell in love with a character I played named Toby, and when the farm crumbles, I’ll watch Mama’s heart break knowing that the pearls I lost could have saved us, and if I hadn’t deceived him, the man I love would have married me, and Manifesto will never win the Haldon Gold Cup because I made sure no one else could ride him.
Tears stung her eyes. She whipped her leg with the parasol as punishment. Its dull thud wasn’t enough pain to equal the turmoil in her heart.

The earth trembled — she thought it was emotion until she saw the bull. Bellowing and tossing his head, the beast lowered his horns, and thundered toward her. Her long skirts must have agitated him.

Then Valaire’s soft flank obstructed her view. The horse snorted and shied, Hugh barely managed to steer the frightened horse to her side. “Give me your hand,” he commanded.

She reached up. The ground rocked. Briefly under Valaire’s belly, Ellie glimpsed the ragged coat of the bull only a few feet away. Valaire spun, avoiding the rushing creature, but knocking Ellie. She grabbed the saddle sliding halfway under the plunging horse. Desperate to escape Valaire’s frenzied hooves, she let go and rolled. When she looked up, the bull had its horns pointed straight at her.

The beast charged towards her when suddenly the breath left her body. A firm hand hoisted her by the back of the dress and plunked her on the front of Valaire’s saddle. The horse shied in panic, its withers banging against her stomach.

The bull’s eyes were red. Pawing the ground, he lunged, his sharp horns tearing black strands from Valaire’s tail.

The horse took off, changing direction with each stride.
Why couldn’t Hugh control the bloody animal?
Then she felt something move against her stomach. She was lying on the reins.

Hugh lifted her, trying to free the straps of leather. She took the opportunity to fling a leg over Valaire’s neck and push back into the saddle. Enough rein was free for her to steer the horse.

She put her heels to Valaire’s sides, sending the animal at a ragged gallop toward the post-and-rail. In one mighty leap, the horse cleared the barrier and landed in the lane. And that’s when she realized she could see — far, near, the whole landscape lay before her.
The spectacles! I’ve lost the spectacles!
Panic crushed her chest. She ducked her head, praying Hugh wouldn’t notice.

But light streaked the field ahead, matching the long shadows of trees. The grass blew in arches, bowing to the stronger stems of ragged robin and buttercup. On such a day, when all the world bared its beauty, the dank, moldering weight of her deception bore down.
This is unbearable
, she thought,
and it’s a useless, base enterprise.
Hugh must learn the truth, and not just that Papa’s an earl, but that I can ride better than any woman of any class.

Hugh reached for the reins, but she held them out of his grasp. Valaire was a powerful athlete. For the mile back to the Davenport home she would give this man the ride of his life.

Instead of turning down the lane, Ellie steered the horse over a second post-and-rail into an adjoining pasture.

“What are you doing?” Hugh shouted.

“I’m riding your horse!” Ellie yelled, above the thunder of Valaire’s hooves.

He threw his arms around her waist, bellowing, “Stop!”

Instead, she pushed Valaire toward a small hunter’s hut built into the side of a hillock. “Hold on,” she cried.

Valaire gathered and launched over the hut, making a long airborne arch, descending endlessly to the lower ground beyond it. Without missing a stride, the horse pushed off into a full gallop. A grin stretched her cheeks as she pressed the horse to go faster.

• • •

The girl’s lost her wits!
Hugh thought, panic tingling in every fiber. Challenging a bull and now refusing to relinquish the reins. That they made it over one post-and-rail was a miracle, but at any moment Valaire would be thrashing on the ground, leg broken, just so the baggage could show off.

And then the hunter’s hut disappeared beneath them, taken so perfectly only skill could have put them safely on the other side. Alarm turned to wonder. She didn’t wobble in the saddle, her hands were light, her balance, perfect.
Gad, she’s riding,
he thought,
and quite deftly, at that.
Obviously she’d taken lessons from Sebastian Albright just like Toby.

A stream cut through the field. Ellie headed the horse straight toward it — relaxed, sure of herself. Valaire was confident, too — ears swiveling back and forth as he paid attention to her signals.

The slight mound of her belly and the slope of her waist where it curved to the hip were warm under Hugh’s fingers. He extended his thumbs, circling her tiny circumference. Her bottom came to his attention. Round and firm, it seemed molded to the saddle. He realized with a jolt that his houseguest, the daughter of an earl, had her legs parted over the saddle’s leather. Excitement stirred his shaft against the fabric of his pants.
Gad, what is that about?
Hugh thought, startled by the reaction of his body. What if she noticed the bulge pressing into the valley between her fleshy twins? Guilt over Toby made him sit back until her white hair, escaped now from combs and pins, whipped over him.
Ah well, man, there’s nothing to be done for it
, he thought, and gripped her just a little tighter.

• • •

Valaire took a last fence onto the grounds of the Davenport estate.

“The fun is over,” Ellie said, slowing the horse. She swung a leg over Valaire’s neck and adjusted her skirts to ride sidesaddle as they came within sight of the barns. Hugh took the reins, his arms brushing against her as he held the leather straps.

At the stable yard he felt her stiffen. A rider stood alone by a horse. Another Albright copy: white hair, pale skin, blue eyes. The figure looked male, though Hugh hated to assume anything where Sebastian Albright’s kin were concerned.

“I’ve got terrible news,” the man said, rushing toward them.

Ellie slid off Valaire into the stranger’s arms. “What’s the matter?”

A puzzling wave of jealousy rose in Hugh. “Good afternoon,” he said, his voice clipped and narrow.

“And to you, my lord,” the man replied. “I’ve come on a bit of urgent business for Miss Ellie.”

Hugh dismounted and reached to shake the young man’s hand. “And your name, sir?”

“I’m Toby Coopersmith, Miss Ellie’s cousin.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Coopersmith is the name. Toby Coopersmith.”

Hugh swallowed and looked at Ellie. The tortoise-rimmed spectacles, so prominent they blotted out her features, were gone. Her white hair hung in loose ringlets down her shoulders. There stood his Toby Coopersmith dressed in an aristocrat’s gown.

The weight of her lies landed like a rock between his eyes. “Sir, you say
you
are Toby Coopersmith?”

“Yes, my lord,” Toby replied, “and there’s serious mischief afoot at Fairland. I’ve come … ”

Hugh glared at Ellie. “What have you done to me?”

She avoided his gaze and slid to Toby’s far side.

• • •

Hugh’s eyes frightened her, but the worry pinching Toby’s face was worse. “What’s happening? What’s brought you here?” she asked.

“It’s the mares. Snap overheard Lank talk of stealing them tonight.”

“Did you put the grooms on high alert?”

“It’s no use. He gave them the night off the moment your parents drove out the gate.”

Strong fingers wrapped around her upper arm. “Miss Ellie, a word with you.” Hugh glowered.