Читать книгу Unbefitting a Lady - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 7

Buxton, Derbyshire, March 1817

He was magnificent. Lean-flanked through the hips, well-muscled through the thighs of his long legs, his face framed aristocratically with the darkest, glossiest of hair that was perhaps a bit too long for convention, giving way to the strength of his broad chest. There was no doubt he was a male specimen beyond compare. Only the fire in his dark eyes belied his perfection. But Phaedra Montague liked a little temper.

She could ride that body all day long. Already her own body was anticipating the feel of him between her legs, her thighs tightening around him, urging him on. He turned her direction, eyes locking on her in the crowd. His infamous temper was rising. She could see it in the way he held himself, tense and alert as if his strength might be required of him at any moment. That temper had led him to the auction block and it would lead him to her. Today, she would bid on him and she would win.

She already thought of him as hers.

Her colt. Warbourne. She would have him and no other.

Impatiently, Phaedra shifted on her feet beside her brother Giles in the auction tent, the smells of beasts and men evidence to the mounting excitement as the horses were led in. Warbourne was fourth. He stamped and snorted from his place in line, tossing his glossy black mane as if in protest of being made to suffer the indignities of an auction.

The first three horses went quietly and respectably at middling prices. Then it was Warbourne’s turn. He pranced elegantly on the end of his handler’s lead rope, preening for the excited crowd. Phaedra tensed and nudged Giles. ‘Are you ready?’

Giles laughed gently at her nerves. ‘Yes, my dear.’ She elbowed him harder this time in sisterly frustration and affection. He knew very well it was killing her to stand there and let him handle the business when she wanted to bid for herself.

‘I see no reason why a woman can’t raise a paddle as well as a man.’ Phaedra fumed. But she knew very well even if women could bid, Giles wouldn’t allow it on her behalf. She was the daughter of the Duke of Rothermere and it simply wasn’t comme il faut. The family dignity must be preserved, especially since that dignity had been somewhat under attack recently.

Giles chuckled at her pique. ‘Women are too emotional.’

‘Kate would lay you out for that,’ Phaedra scolded good-naturedly. ‘So would Lily for that matter.’ Their sister, Kate, was an avid activist for equal rights and Giles’s betrothed, Lily, considered herself the match of any man.

‘Yes, my dear, but they’re not here.’ He gave her a wide grin but they both sobered immediately when the auctioneer introduced the next horse.

Warbourne.

Phaedra hardly needed to listen. She knew his pedigree by heart: sired by Noble Bourne, who’d won several races at Newmarket in his day and distinguished himself at stud since, his foals going on to prodigious careers, and Warrioress, the dam, equally famous for her ability to produce plate winners. But Warbourne had broken the mould. He’d not gone on to success like the others. He’d thrown every rider at the start and then some. That was why he was here so close to racing season, unrideable, untrainable, an outcast. Of course, the auctioneer didn’t mention that. But Phaedra knew. She knew every inch of his three-year history and that of his line. It gave her reason to hope where others had despaired.

‘We will start the bidding at one hundred pounds!’ the auctioneer cried. Half a room of paddles went up. Phaedra counselled herself to remain calm. At one hundred pounds, Warbourne was a bargain. It was natural anyone who could would bid on him, she reasoned to keep her nerves in check.

By the time the price hit two hundred fifty, the bidders had thinned out. Phaedra tried to look calm. After all, he was an excellent horse and she’d known they’d have to do more than simply raise their paddle and claim him.

The bid hit three hundred. Giles reluctantly raised his paddle. Phaedra scanned the room. At this price, the field had been narrowed to three bidders. She would have thought the battle for Warbourne nearly over at that point if one of the remaining bidders hadn’t been Sir Nathan Samuelson, a neighbour but no friend of the Montagues. He’d outbid Giles just for spite if he could.

‘Three hundred and fifty!’ the auctioneer called with vigour, well aware he had a bidding war on his hands. The third bidder dropped out. Now it was a duel between Giles and Samuelson. Phaedra sucked in her breath. Giles’s paddle went up slowly one more time. That it had gone up at all was a testament of brotherly love. Finances were finally stabilising for the Rothermere coffers thanks to Giles’s efforts over the past year but that didn’t mean there was money to burn on an untried colt with temper issues, no matter how much her brother loved her.

There was hope still. If Rothermere had been hit by post-war economic issues, Sir Nathan Samuelson had been hit too, and he’d not had the advantage of a ducal coffer to start with. Five hundred pounds would finish him, close him out of the bidding. What had Giles said just yesterday? That Samuelson had been forced to sell off his bottom land to pay the bills? Nonetheless, bottom land notwithstanding, Samuelson’s paddle went up. He glared across the room at Giles. The man was bidding on malice now.

‘Do I hear four hundred?’ The room held its collective breath. Phaedra fingered the pearl pendant at her throat.

Both paddles went up rapidly.

‘Four-fifty.’

Samuelson’s paddle went up.

Giles remained motionless. Phaedra stared at him in disbelief. ‘Giles!’ she whispered urgently as if he’d merely had a lapse of attention and needed to be jarred back to reality. But Giles remained stoically impassive.

‘Giles!’ Phaedra whispered louder, really it qualified as a low hiss. People were starting to look.

‘Going once!’

‘Giles, please!’ Panic edged her voice. Her dream was slipping away.

‘Phae, I can’t.’ Giles shook his head ever so slightly.

‘Going twice!’

Across the room Samuelson was gloating in pre-victory triumph.

‘Since when have Montagues given way to the likes of Samuelson?’ Phaedra argued hotly.

‘Things are different now, Phae. I’m sorry. I gave it my best shot. It has to be enough.’

The past three years of struggle and loss flashed through her mind: her brother Edward dead at Waterloo, her father retreating from the world and a host of other calamities that had plagued them.

‘No,’ Phaedra said in not so quiet tones, startling Giles.

‘Phae?’

‘No. No, it’s not enough.’ Phaedra flashed Giles a smile. There would be hell to pay for this. She might as well start buttering him up for forgiveness now.

‘Going three times!’

Phaedra seized the paddle from Giles’s lax grip and raised it high. ‘Five hundred!’ she called out, effectively drawing all eyes her direction. A stunned silence claimed the tent. She lifted her chin in a defiant tilt, daring Samuelson, knowing full well to go higher would beggar him.

The silence seemed to last an eternity. She saw and felt everything in those moments. Giles drew himself up beside her, widening his stance, feet shoulder-width apart, his military training conspicuously evident. Only a fool would gainsay him. It would almost be worth it for Samuelson to try, Phaedra thought, just to see Giles plant the man a well-deserved facer.

‘Sir?’ The auctioneer turned to Samuelson. ‘The bid is at five hundred. Will you raise?’

Samuelson shook his head in slow defeat. The battle was over. The auctioneer pointed the gavel at Giles. ‘Five hundred, sir, is that correct?’

‘Five hundred, it is,’ Giles affirmed unflinchingly, letting the whole tent hear his confirmation of her bid and subsequently of her. She understood. He was publicly supporting her. He would scold her in private for this latest wilful act but in public he would not tolerate anyone’s disparagement of his sister or the family.

‘Sold! For five hundred pounds.’ The gavel banged. Congratulatory applause broke out. The colt was hers! A rush of joy swept through her but Phaedra tamped it down. She could not celebrate yet.

Giles led her aside away from the eyes of the crowd. ‘You’ve got your colt, Phae. How do you propose we pay for him? I thought we’d agreed only three hundred or three-fifty at the very most.’

‘With these.’ Phaedra tugged without hesitation at her earbobs. ‘They will bring the difference.’ She lifted her hair from the back of her neck and turned. ‘Help me with the clasp.’ She didn’t want to think too hard about what she was doing, what she was offering. She couldn’t lose her courage now.

‘These were Mother’s.’ Giles offered a modest protest, working the clasp of her pendant.

‘And Warbourne’s my dream.’ A dream she believed in so thoroughly she would trade her mother’s legacy for it. Phaedra turned back to face him, meeting his grey eyes while her fingers nimbly worked the clasp of her bracelet. ‘I know what I am doing.’ She knew in her bones Warbourne was made for her. She could save him and, in turn, he could save her.

She dropped the bracelet in Giles’s hand. Giles favoured her with a half-smile. ‘Your colt had better be the most plated horse in racing history.’

Phaedra smiled and closed his fingers over the jewellery. ‘He will be. Now, go settle the account like a good brother. I’ll wait outside. Considering the circumstances, I think that would be best.’ Besides, she didn’t want to lose her nerve, didn’t want to watch Giles hand over the pearls, one of the only tangible reminders she had of a mother she could barely remember.

She was magnificent! Bram Basingstoke followed the honey-haired woman with his eyes, watching her exit the auction pavilion and, in his opinion, taking most of the excitement with her. How anyone could bid on the remaining horses after her claiming of Warbourne was beyond him.

Of course it was a fool’s claiming. Anyone who knew anything about Warbourne knew the colt was a failure. Nonetheless, her bravado in the face of certain defeat was to be admired along with much else about her person. It would be an understatement to say she was pretty. She was a beauty of rare comparison, all honey and cream with her dark gold hair, rich and thick where it brushed her shoulders beneath her hat, and the ivory of her skin. Truth be told, he’d been watching her from the start long before the bidding war had begun.

He’d been drawn by her poise, the elegant set of her head and the intensity of her gaze when she looked at that horse. Men would slay armies to garner such a look. There was no question she was a lady. It was there in her stance, her well-tailored clothes, her very attitude, even in her chagrin that someone would challenge her over the horse. She expected to win, as if it were her right. She wasn’t spoiled. She was confident. There was a difference.

The larger question was whether or not he could expect to admire her at closer range. That depended on who the woman’s escort was. Brother? Husband? Betrothed? Bram hoped not the latter. It boded ill for the marriage if fiancés allowed their intendeds to yank auction paddles out of their hands. Husbands too, because then it was too late to rethink one’s matrimonial position. Bram pitied the poor bastard if he’d married such a haughty virago. But Bram didn’t think that was the case. The image of being a henpecked husband didn’t fit with the man’s commanding, military presence. Not a husband, Bram decided, or a fiancé.

He could admire her up close, then, not that husbands had ever stopped him before, at least not until recently. Mrs Fenton’s husband hadn’t taken kindly to Bram’s expression of ‘admiration’ for his wife. Now, Bram was here in the middle of Derbyshire on a repairing lease for the lengthy duration of the Season—a Season, which he was none too pleased to note, hadn’t even started and wouldn’t start for another two months. That meant six months of exile in Derbyshire.

What did one do in Derbyshire for a week, let alone six months? He would be bored to tears, bored unto death; it was to be a miserable existence. Which was precisely what his father had intended. But his father hadn’t counted on her. Bram grinned to no one in particular; a madcap scheme was starting to shape. If she wanted to tame the colt, she was going to need help. Fortunately he knew just the man for the job.

Bram whistled a little tune as he removed his jacket of blue superfine, his waistcoat of paisley silk and rolled up his shirtsleeves, cuff links deposited ignominiously in a pocket. He’d go find her chaperone and get his plan under way. He felt better than he had all week.

Things were improving in Derbyshire.