My Unfair Lady (20 page)

   When the beaters started in earnest, and the rest of the hunters took up their shotguns, Summer's skill seemed to cause an enthusiasm that brought down the largest number of birds the duke had ever seen bagged at a party. He must have shot over two dozen himself before the roar of the guns had stopped.

   The group laughed and shouted as they returned back to the palace for lunch, congratulating each other on the number of birds that they'd killed. Wagers started up again on the total for the day by type, and the duke was tempted to bet on the number of partridge with Lord Ripon, when he suddenly realized that Summer wasn't with them.

   Summer still sat on her horse, staring with dazed horror at the field before her, her own cold shotgun clutched in her hand. Oh, she wanted to fit in with these people, to belong for Monte's sake, but she couldn't manage to shoot with the rest of them. It still felt like slaughter, no matter how she tried to justify it in her mind. She'd killed for food or warmth or defense. This concept of killing for sport was still as foreign to her as the lords and ladies themselves.

   The beaters had taken a well-deserved rest, lounging beneath the shade of an old oak and passing a flask of brew around. Summer could still see movement in the grass before her.

   Byron rode up beside her. "What is it now?" he gently asked, wondering if some creature dear to her had been caught in the crossfire, for she had the same look on her face as the night the little fox had died. Except that now it was combined with something resembling disgust.

   When she turned to look at him, he blanched, and a feeling unlike anything he'd ever known pierced him through the heart.

   Summer stared at him in loathing. "They will be eaten, won't they?"

   "I already told you. The birds will feed a lot of hungry people tonight."

   She nodded with resignation and slipped off her horse, heading for the still-moving grasses. Byron resisted the urge to throw his hands up in the air with exasperation. What was wrong with the woman that she would look at him that way? How dare she? By Jove, he was a duke, and she was nothing but…

   "Summer," he sighed, dismounting and following her.

   She stopped at a patch of moving grass, bent down, and he could hear the soft snap of bones. She rose, scanned the grass again, and headed toward another moving patch.

   He followed. "The beaters will do it," he said.

   Summer turned and glared at him again. "When? They're suffering now, Monchester."

   Another ghastly feeling swept through him at the use of his title name. He'd gotten accustomed to her using the intimacy of his first name. He scanned the grass, spied a moving spot, and headed for it. A pheasant flapped its wings, trying to rise again and again.
She was right
, he thought. The bird was in pain and maddened with fear. He reached down and wrung its neck, moving on to the next patch.

   
Why did she always have to expose him to these kind
of things
, he wondered with annoyance. He'd never given half a thought to the birds he'd left behind, and he'd been to hundreds of shooting parties. For that matter, he'd never given a thought to whether a fox had left behind any cubs. And the woman had him out at night, burying one! And instead of enjoying a delicious lunch and bragging with his fellows, he was tromping through a field wringing bird's necks.

   Frustrating woman!

   He turned and stomped over to the lounging beaters. They quickly lowered resentful eyes and doffed their hats at the lord.

   "The lady wants their necks wrung now," commanded the duke. One of the men had the audacity to grumble under his breath. Ordinarily, Byron wouldn't blame him. They'd always been entitled to a break after the shooting. But the big oaf, like so many others, had judged him by his height and not his station. Nor his reputation.

   "Can't you see what she's doing?" he growled, taking out his frustration on the larger man with a voice laced with such contempt that the huge man winced. "You can lie there and call yourself a man, while a woman does your work? When you tell your children about all the birds killed today, will you also describe to them how you let them lie bleeding and squawking in agony while you got foxed on drink?"

   
There,
thought Byron
. I feel much better now.

   The men rose as one and fled into the field. He stalked Summer, grabbed her arm, and swung her around. Her golden eyes were glassy with horror, and instead of scolding her to let the men do the grisly job, as he'd thought to, he gathered her into his arms and let her soak the front of his shirt.

BYRON PATTED HER BACK, TRYING NOT TO BE AWARE of the feel of her breasts against his chest. Trying to stay annoyed with her. How could she be so strong and yet so weak? Didn't she know how contrary that was? Either you had a heart of stone or wore it on your sleeve for all to injure.

   Byron kept his arm around her and led her out of the field. It was bad enough that he desired her in his bed more than any other woman he'd ever known. Why did she have to awaken long-banished feelings within him as well? Ever since they'd buried her fox and he'd remembered the grief of his childhood over his own mongrel dog, he'd been unable to make the feeling go back to where it had hidden. It had leaped alive again at the pain in her face over the suffering of mere birds.

   In his childhood he'd had to work to harden himself to the stoning of street dogs, the little tortures that the village children inflicted on stray cats. For when he'd told his father about the cruelty, the man had looked at him as if he were dung, and told him not to be such a sissy, and that was probably why he kept getting beaten up. So he'd learned, and although he could never bring himself to join in on the "fun" of stoning street dogs, he'd still managed to watch without any feeling at all.

   Byron frowned at the girl encircled by his arm. He'd thought the awakening of old feelings a gift, but now he wondered if she might be cursing him as well. He'd worked doggedly to become the man he was, and he couldn't let her break him down.

   When they reached the horses, Summer flung her arms around his neck and kissed his breath away. "Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me lately," she whispered. "I don't often cry. And thank you for your help." She then leaped onto her horse, leading them through a stand of forest.

   Byron put his foot in his stirrup and threw his leg over his own saddle and followed. Well, he thought, maybe a
little
chipping away at his heart wouldn't be so bad. "Do you want to announce our engagement at luncheon or after dinner?"

   The girl turned and looked at him as if he'd just announced that the sky had fallen. Could it be possible that she didn't understand the honor his proposal bestowed on her?

   "What?" Summer couldn't believe what she'd heard. Wasn't this the same man who had said he wouldn't marry her if she were the last person on earth?

   "It's necessary," he continued, starting to frown at her. "You hired me to make you socially acceptable to society, and I take my business arrangements very seriously. Ruining your reputation is not an acceptable business result."

   Summer ducked a low-lying limb. "How have you ruined my reputation?"

   Byron's frown smoothed out. So that was it; she just didn't understand about last night. "Didn't you wonder about all the servants at their previously abandoned posts when we returned to the house last night? Do you honestly think anyone would believe that we sneaked out into the garden to bury a fox?"

   Summer laid her head down against her horse's warm neck. So the servant girl Meg
had
known about her and Byron. All the servants knew. And Maria had pointed out to her long ago that what they knew, everyone else did as well. How was she ever going to get presented to the Queen now? Would word of this reach Monte, all the way in America?

   But what bothered her most was the duke's manner of stating his proposal. "So," she managed, "you would marry me so that you can fulfill our business arrangement?"

   "Certainly," he replied, tilting his chin into the air. "I fulfill my obligations."

   Her head shot up, and her mount tossed her own head in alarm, setting off Byron's more spirited stal lion. "And what about mine?"

   The trees had given way to another field of grass spotted with clumps of wild lavender, and both horses fought the reins as Summer and Byron led them into it.

   "Yours?" he asked, pulling on the reigns to bring his horse out of a half rear.

   "Yes, my obligation to Monte, the man I've given my word to return to—and marry. Do you think a woman has no honor?"

   Byron fought the horse. It was unlike his mount to get skittish over an open meadow. Perhaps the tall grass tickling the stallion's underbelly bothered him. "You sound like a suffragette. I should have known… what with your inclination to wear pants and carry a knife."

   "If you mean that I believe a woman has to uphold her honor as firmly as a man, then call me what you like. But I gave my vow, and I'll keep it. I'd never abandon someone that way." She leaned down and spoke a few words in Apache, trying to calm her own mare. Maybe the animals were responding to the angry voices of their riders, because they kept getting more agitated the angrier she and the duke became, and the farther they rode into the meadow.

   "But your American man won't have you, anyway. Don't you see you'll never get presented to the Queen unless you marry me?"

   "That's kind of backward logic, isn't it? If I marry you, it doesn't matter if I get presented." Summer took a deep breath of the scented lavender and tried to keep the anger from her voice. He acted as if he hadn't insulted her by saying that his offer of marriage was to fulfill a business obligation, and that she should be grateful for such a nasty proposal. She couldn't imagine any woman being happy over such a proposal—well, maybe the Lady Banfour. But what she expected from a marriage was different than what the nobility seemed to.

   Or was it? "Tell me, Monchester. After you spent all my money, and I gave birth to an heir and a spare, would you expect me to go my own way?"

   A vision of her face bathed in gaslight, the sound of his name on her lips while he brought her pleasure, made him almost groan aloud. No, he'd never let anyone else touch her but him, regardless of what the rest of his circle allowed their wives to do.

   "No," he answered, his attention again centering on his crazy horse. The stallion continued to snort and prance.

   Summer felt relieved by his answer, but of course, it didn't change anything anyway. She'd just been curious. "If I break my vow to Monte, how could you ever be sure I wouldn't break my marriage vows as well?"

   Byron had had enough of this frustrating woman, and the cantankerous horse he sat. He pulled sharply on the reins and growled, "Woman, don't you understand you're turning down a
duke
?"

   "You'll have to figure out another way to fulfill our business arrangement. I told you, I don't care about…" Summer had lowered her head again to comfort her horse with a hug, when she heard the single shot of a gun seconds before the sound of the bullet whined over her head.

   "Bloody…" Byron looked back toward the wooded forest they'd emerged from.

   "Get down," snapped Summer, sliding off her horse and flopping into the tall grass. The man just stared at her as if she'd gone mad. How could he be so sensitive and agreeable in the bedchamber, she wondered, and be so ridiculously bull-headed and thick out of it?

   "No one would dare shoot at a duke!" he yelled. "Why, the consequences…"

   Another report of gunfire, and he clutched at his shoulder, a look of stunned surprise spreading across his handsome face as he slowly toppled from his saddle. His stallion reared and screamed in terror, trying to bolt, but Byron's leg had caught in the stirrup, and the horse had the sense not to drag his unconscious rider.

   Summer's mare had already hightailed it back into the woods, and she didn't even try to stop her, too busy trying to wrest the duke's leg out of the stirrup. She refused to consider that he wasn't alive. He'd just passed out from the shock of realizing that someone had the temerity to shoot at a duke. If the stallion would only hold still for one second, instead of jumping around in panic. She tried every Apache word she knew to calm the horse, and then a few curse words she'd picked up from miners, keeping low to the ground in case of more gunfire while she stalked the animal.

   She caught hold of Byron's leg and yanked, pulled his foot from his boot and fell backward into the grass, his body half on top of hers. The pounding of the stal lion's hooves faded away while she lay there catching her breath, ears straining for any further sound of a gun's report. The wind swished through the tall grass around her, thrushes started to resume their chirping, and grasshoppers whirred through the air.

   The duke's eyes snapped open. "What happened?" he croaked.