The Frost Fair (19 page)

A brief conference with Roodle revealed that, since the bruised foreleg of the wounded chestnut had nicely healed, either one of the pair of horses she'd “stolen” would make an adequate mount for Meg to ride. All she needed was permission from Geoffrey to use one of the saddles. If she found him in the right mood, she would get that permission … and his company as well.

She found him in the library, seated behind a long table and busily absorbed in studying a number of documents and maps spread out before him. Remembering her conversation with the elderly Mr. Mundey, Meg realized that he was planning the “enclosures” which Mundey had spoken of. “Am I disturbing you, Geoffrey?” she asked hesitantly. “You appear to be thoroughly engrossed.”

He got to his feet at once. “Please come in,” he said politely, although she could see that he tore his eyes from his work most reluctantly. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“I think it's time I took some air. It's such a lovely day that I'd like to ride. May I make use of one of your saddles?”

“Yes, of course you may. And one of my horses, too. Surely you're not thinking of riding one of your chestnuts? I hardly think them suitable for a lady.”

She raised an eyebrow in cold rebuke. “Since you know nothing of my ability to sit a horse, is it not presumptuous of you to assume—”

He cut her off with an impatient gesture of his hand. “I don't wish to argue with you, Meg. You may, of course, do just as you like. However, I've not forgotten that you acquired the animals with the carriage on the night we first encountered each other. You therefore haven't had the opportunity to become familiar with their habits. It seems to me that caution would dictate your choosing a horse of
my
recommendation rather than taking a chance on an animal which neither one of us has tried.”

Meg clenched her teeth angrily. “I've never encountered a horse I couldn't—” She stopped herself in mid-sentence. A dispute with Geoffrey was not at all what she'd intended. “I'm sorry,” she said, suddenly meek. “I'm afraid that caution is not a quality which comes easily to me.”

If her change in tone surprised him, he didn't show it. “Ask my groom to saddle Guinevere for you. And you needn't look at me with such suspicion—the mare is no slug, I promise you. She's quite spirited enough to give you a perfectly enjoyable ride.”

“Are you certain, then, that I won't be thrown?” she asked sarcastically. “After all, you have only my word that I can ride. Doesn't your caution warn you that, with a horse of spirit, I may be in danger?”

“Guinevere is spirited but not wild. Besides, you'll take the groom along with you, of course.”

“Take the groom with me? I shall do no such thing!”

“See here, ma'am—” he said in irritation.

“I shall
not
‘see here.' Having a groom plodding alongside is the greatest bore. If you're so concerned for my safety, come along with me yourself.”

He sighed in barely controlled impatience. “You can see, ma'am, that I'm quite busy at the moment. Why don't you coax Trixie into going along. She sits a horse fairly well. If she spent more time at it, she would make an admirable horsewoman.” He lowered his eyes to his papers, trying to indicate that the interview was at an end.

But Meg was not so easily dismissed. “I would gladly seek her company, but she's gone out.”

Geoffrey's head came up abruptly. “Out? Where?”

“I don't know. Lady Carrier didn't mention—”

“Damnation!” He slammed his fist on the table in fury and then turned and strode to the window where he stood staring out on the sunny fields.

“Oh, dear,” Meg murmured, “is it Lazenby again?”

“I'm afraid so.” He turned around to face her, his temper under control again. “We've not had the opportunity to discuss your opinion of my sister's latest flirt. Now that you've met him, do you still believe I'm tyrannical in trying to halt the affair?”

“To be frank, Geoffrey, I don't. He's a vain, silly, impossibly smug young man, and I think you're quite right in wishing to keep your sister away from him.”

“You don't say!” His expression softened almost to a smile. “Is it possible that you and I have found something upon which we can agree at last?

“Come now, sir, we've not been as contentious as all that. But I must tell you that I
don't
agree with your method of handling your sister. Don't you know that when a young woman is ordered to keep away from a young man, that is the one she will wish to see above all?”

“Yes, I see your point. Women are the most contrary creatures. In that case, Meg, what am I to do? Stand aside and pretend to approve of the match?”

“I don't know. It may be too late for you to employ that strategy now, although if you'd done so earlier, a girl of Trixie's intelligence might have discovered for herself, as her sister Sybil has, that the fellow is a twiddle-poop.”

“Is that what Sybil calls him?” He gave an appreciative laugh. “I didn't think Sybil had so much sense. Very well, ma'am, I admit I was high-handed with Trixie in this matter. What do you suggest I do about it now?”

“I have no suggestion … but there must surely be a strategy you can devise …”

“Strategy? I'm afraid that when it comes to dealing with women I haven't the least notion of how to devise strategies. Now, if it were a military campaign—”

“No, women do
not
behave like armies in the field. But Geoffrey, I don't desire to stand here on my weak ankle and discuss strategy. If you really wish to continue this conversation, why can't we do it on horseback?”

He raised a quizzical brow. “This is what you've wanted to accomplish from the first, isn't it, ma'am? I very much fear that I've been the victim of strategy myself. Very well, I'll ride with you. But if you plan to show me up by outracing me across the fields, I warn you that I was a member of a
cavalry
regiment, and even among those experts I was a hard man to beat.”

She laughed and went quickly to the door. “Good. There's nothing I like more than a challenge. But first, let's see who'll be quicker at dressing. If you're not at the stables in half-an-hour, I shall start without you.”

They raced across the fields with the high-spirited abandon of bred-to-the-bone riders who'd been kept too long from the saddle. They found themselves laughing aloud in pure joy as the wind whipped their faces and the ground seemed to fly away under their horses' hooves. Meg couldn't remember when she'd enjoyed a ride more. Never before had she ridden with anyone so attuned to her rhythms—she was neither forced to hold back nor urged to speed up her mount's gait to match his. They flew over the wide terrain in complete harmony.

Only once during the afternoon's ride did she drop away from his side. She'd become winded and had pulled up, motioning him to take a turn alone. As he'd galloped away down the slope, she'd watched him with wide, admiring eyes. His horse was a beautiful roan he'd brought back from Spain, and the width of Geoffrey's shoulders and his impressive height were in perfect balance with the size of the animal. He seemed, from this distance, to become one with the horse as man and beast moved in remarkable congruity over the landscape. It must have been just such a scene, she imagined, that inspired whatever ancient Greek it was who conceived the idea of the Centaur.

When he came thundering back and pulled up alongside, she felt herself blush. To have been watching—and with such unabashed appreciation—a man's physical form was completely brazen behavior for a lady. She hoped he had not been aware of her rather depraved enjoyment.

“Are you tired, or do you have the stomach to ride up there?” he asked, pointing to a promontory that rose behind them, his eyes shining with the pleasure of his exertions. “It's Hauberk Hill. It's an easy climb to the top, and I promise you that the view is worth the effort.”

He didn't have to ask; if Meg could have her way, the afternoon would never end. The horses easily made the climb, and the view at the top was indeed breathtaking. They could see for miles to the north—Geoffrey pointed out that the group of habitations to her left was Masham. He helped her to dismount, and while the horses grazed she seated herself on a boulder and looked about her, the chill of the wind not in the least troubling her. Geoffrey sat down on the ground beside her, leaning back against the boulder and taking deep breaths of the crisp air. “We haven't yet taken time to talk about Trixie,” Meg said after a few moments of companionable silence. “Perhaps we should try to concoct some sort of—”

“I don't want to talk about Trixie,” he said, “and neither do you. That's not why you coaxed me to take you riding. What have you on your mind, my girl?”

“You can be quite disconcertingly blunt, sir.”

“Blunt, but not wrong.”

“No, you're not wrong. I
do
have something on my mind that I've been wishing to discuss with you.”

“Then out with it. There will never be a better time. I'm completely at peace with the world at the moment and would probably agree to get you the moon if you asked it of me nicely.”

“I don't want the moon. I only want to know why you've been avoiding me since the night of Lady Habish's party.”

He threw a quick glance at her over his shoulder and then turned back to fix his eyes on the toes of his boots. She could almost feel his indecision. He could answer her question and find himself embroiled in a relationship with her, or he could avoid the question by claiming that she was imagining things and take her home—thus closing any doors to future intimacy. Her heart beat rapidly as she waited for an answer.

He was silent for a long, long moment. “I should have thought that a woman of your intelligence—your experience in the ways of the world would have guessed the reason.”

“But I haven't. You haven't provided me with any clues.”

“Come now, Meg,” he said, turning so that he could see her face, “it doesn't become you to play the coy innocent. You
must
have guessed by this time that I've grown terrified of you.”

“Terrified? But, Geoffrey, why?”

“You know perfectly well why. You've played with my emotions since the first moment I laid eyes on you. It's your skill at the game that frightens me. I've had very little to do with ladies of fashion, you know. I'm not familiar with the sort of skirmishing which goes on between the sexes in your London society. I don't know the rules of play. I might too easily find myself the loser.”

She giggled. “Poor, helpless Geoffrey. I might almost pity you, except that you're not a boy of nineteen but a quite clever, very sharp-tongued, completely self-possessed and not-a-bit unworldly man of … of …”

“Thirty-six,” he supplied.

“Of thirty-six. Are you trying to pretend that a man who has faced Napoleon's armies without a qualm is fearful of dealing with a mere female?”

“I'm not pretending, my dear. The prospect of ‘dealing' with you has me quaking in my boots.”

“I think, Geoffrey, that you're putting it on much too rare and thick. What sort of harm can come to you, do you imagine, if a friendship should develop between us?”

“Friendship?” he inquired sardonically. “What has friendship to do with it?”

“Why, everything,” she said, surprised. “What do you think we've been speaking of?”

He gave her a smile of complete disdain and got to his feet. Reaching down, he grasped her hands and pulled her to her feet. Before she realized his full intent, she was locked in his arms. “I'll show you what we've been speaking of, my dear,” he muttered and lowered his face to hers.

Meg had, of course, been kissed before. Many times. And she knew just what to do when a man's passion carried him to extremes of misbehavior. It was quite easy when one saw it coming and could turn the ardor aside by a laugh or a quip. Even when matters became more difficult, as in the present situation, Meg had always been able to control matters. She was quite adept at stiffening, at thrusting the man away and administering a firm and stinging slap to the cheek. But this time she found herself completely unable to act. Instead of stiffening, she seemed to melt. Instead of pushing him away, she discovered that one of her arms had slipped about his neck and the other was clutching at his back with quite the opposite purpose. His lips were pressing down on hers with an almost angry urgency, so passionately insistent on an equal response from her that she wondered why she didn't find the act infuriating. But she was not infuriated. She was exhilarated, quickened, aroused. She'd had no idea that a kiss could affect her in this way. She wanted it never to stop.

But quite soon he let her go. Breathless, they stared at each other, each equally shaken by the effect of the embrace. “So you see, my dear,” he said when he'd caught his breath, his smile gone, “it's not friendship that frightens me.”

“If this is a game, Geoffrey,” she answered softly, “then I don't know the rules either.”

He came up to her again, put his palms against the sides of her face and tilted it up. “I wish you weren't quite so beautiful,” he murmured. “Perhaps then it would be easier for me to think clearly. Confound it, woman, I've no place in my life for these affairs of the heart.”

She didn't know how to answer him. If he truly didn't wish to become entangled with a woman, there was nothing she could do. Besides, her own feelings were in too great a turmoil to make sense of what was happening. She only knew that she wanted him to lower his head and kiss her again. Her eyes closed in dizzy anticipation.

“No, not again,” he said firmly, letting her go. Picking up the reins, he led the horses to the path and lifted her on her mount, remaining abstractedly silent all the way down.