The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Read online

  “Not enough to live on,” Sutton countered.

  “Enough to buy a nicer horse on. And now I have the nicest horse I have ever had, and it is time to put all my skills to work. I am keeping Reynard, Lord Sutton.”

  “I will give you enough to keep you in style for a year, Fawkes,” Sutton drawled, affecting a bored look, as if such riches meant nothing to him. And, indeed, they didn’t. “And buy another hunter to play with and sell on, if that is your game.”

  Fawkes shook his head. “You are very generous. But I am done training hunters. I am a racehorse man now. And I am going to start with Reynard.”

  “You are going to lose everything,” Sutton predicted cruelly. He tapped his walking stick on the cobbles, startling the dapple gray mare behind him. She darted back into the recesses of her box, and Fawkes watched her sharply, brow creased with concern. God! The man was sick with horses. Sutton shook his head, disgusted. “Come to me when you are down to your last sou, Fawkes. Your time with the Archwoods will not last forever. They grow weary of your impinging upon their hospitality, do they not?” He peered closely and saw that he had struck a nerve. “Ah, I was right. They are two married people, Fawkes, they do not need a third wheel.”

  “We are family,” Fawkes said stoutly.

  Deluded fool, Sutton thought. “If you say so.”

  There was a pause.

  “I have another horse to ride,” Fawkes announced in a changed tone, as if he had decided to shove the sobering conversation aside and not think of it again. “Is our business concluded?”

  “You have my offer,” Sutton replied. “Think on it.”

  Fawkes nodded curtly and turned on his heel, making for the tack room where the stable lads congregated. A likely place for him to socialize, Sutton thought curtly, setting off across the yard and the gate. Fawkes would be a stable lad himself before this business was concluded. He’d be out the chestnut colt and the fortune Sutton was willing to pay for the beast, and then there’d be nowhere left to go but down.

  ***

  “Lord Sutton, what a surprise!” Lady Archwood beckoned to him from across the morning room, where she was pouring tea. “We are just waking ourselves up, you see. Both of us woke uncommonly tired.”

  Sutton smiled at the ladies, making sure to give Miss Dean a particularly rapacious look as he settled down in a cushioned wing-chair across from the divan. Lady Archwood had had the chairs reupholstered in a midnight blue, which was a strange choice for a morning room, but, she said, it hid the horse-hair when she came into warm up after a chilly ride. The sun pouring in brightened the yellow walls and gave the contrasting colors a pleasant glow. Clever woman, Lady Archwood. Sutton liked her, though he thought she was foolish to the point of insanity over her horses.

  “Miss Dean, you look lovely this morning,” he murmured, watching the maid through hooded eyes, and smiling when she colored and looked at her lap. He admired the way her hands were neatly folded, the way her back was ramrod-straight, the way her ankles were crossed beneath her. Here was a well-trained young lady, a perfectly biddable wife. He thought about ripping the modest chemisette from her bodice and throwing her down upon the dark divan, spilling her white breasts from the light blue constraints of her gown — she always dressed in such pale colors, as if forever playing at being a spring goddess — and he barely restrained a satisfied sigh. Soon enough, soon enough, he would have his little innocent.

  Miss Dean seemed to tremble a little, as if she was not entirely innocent of the thoughts running through his mind. He smiled and accepted a cup of tea from Lady Archwood with admirably steady hands. “My thanks, my lady,” he said graciously.

  “And have you been riding this morning?” Lady Archwood asked, leaning back in her chair and stretching her legs before her. “I am abominably sore after coming off of Toulouse yesterday. The devil! He saw a rabbit and went straight up in the air — I thought he was going to go straight over. I came out of the saddle but didn’t land as cleanly as I would have liked. I am sadly out of practice.”

  “Out of practice at falling, my lady?” Miss Dean asked, seeming alarmed at such a possibility. Well, she hadn’t even been on a horse and she’d already been toppled and dragged, so this probably wasn’t going to encourage her riding. Sutton didn’t give a damn if she rode or not, so long as she bred. But he would be kind and encourage her; it was the gentlemanly thing to do.

  “Knowing how to fall off is not often mentioned by riding masters,” he explained smoothly. “But when riding young or excitable horses it is a necessity. I do not think Lady Archwood would mount you on such a horse.”

  “Oh, of course not!” Lady Archwood laughed. “Lydia, dearest, I can assure you if you fall off of Tilly this afternoon it will not be a very terrible thing. Nothing like me and Toulouse — we were having a very serious disagreement, you see.”

  This did not appear to cheer Miss Dean up at all. Sutton decided to continue his slow seduction of the girl — what else did he have to do? “I will be there, Miss Dean, to pick you up if you should fall,” he told her gently, and waited for her worried blue eyes to fix upon his face. “I should never be far away from you.”

  “Thank you,” she said in a breathy voice barely above a whisper, and he smiled to himself as he sat back in his chair and took a sip of tea. He could feel Lady Archwood’s eyes upon him but chose not to look up just then. “Lady Archwood,” he began instead. “I met Mr. Fawkes in the stable yard.”

  “I am sure you did. He rides every morning for several hours.”

  “So I noticed. I am beginning to think he is employed as your trainer.”

  Lady Archwood laughed. “What nonsense! I have no need of a trainer. I am more than capable of training my horses. He does it for love, and since he rides so many, we brought in a few more so that I would not be quite without anyone to ride myself!”

  “He ought to look for employ as a horse trainer,” Sutton suggested coyly. “I have heard his father did not leave him much.”

  Miss Dean put down her tea cup with a rattle. “I’m sorry,” she apologized when they both looked at her.

  Lady Archwood smiled gently at her and shook her head. To Sutton, she said, “He does not have much, it is true, but he has hopes of making a go of it for himself. He need not go into service, not while he has friends.”

  Sutton cocked his head. This was not the impression he’d been getting from the Archwoods of late: their behavior towards their old friend and long-time guest had seemed to be one of gentle tolerance. They were growing more and more wrapped up in one another, he had realized; perhaps Lady Archwood was finally with child. It might not be worth his time to encourage a suspicion in either party that Fawkes was in loves with her. But there were other routes to spoiling the hanger-on’s party. “It is not always good for a man to rely on charity, however friendly,” he suggested gently. “I hope this does not weigh too heavily on Mr. Fawkes’s mind.”

  Lady Archwood looked at him sharply. “I do not think any of us see it as charity,” she replied a trifle crisply. “He was a comfort to Lord Archwood after his father’s death. Neither of them have much family — Mr. Fawkes’s cousins do not give him much joy. And I have only my father in Ireland. We must make our families, Lord Sutton. Surely you understand that — you have no parent living?”

  “Ah, but I have a wealth of godmothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles to make my life interesting,” Sutton said, backing off. “I see that it must be very different when you have no such diversions. My apologies.”

  “Not at all,” Lady Archwood said, but her voice was still frosty, and when he looked at Miss Dean, she was still staring down at her folded hands, her tea growing cool on the table next to her. Well damn, Sutton thought. None of this went at all as I expected.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lydia went out to the stable yard feeling rather like a lamb on the way to the butcher’s block.

  And really, after that uncomfortable conversation in the morning room earlier, how
could she not? It had been bad enough when she had come down for breakfast, rather late, it must be admitted, in an early-rising household, and found Grainne frowning over the sausages and massaging her right shoulder with her left hand. It was unusual to meet anyone for breakfast, and Lydia had been startled enough to blurt “Is everything alright?” instead of just saying good morning like a normal person, and receiving a startled stare from Grainne in response. Apparently it was quite a normal thing for Grainne to be nursing some injury after a morning ride, she knew now.

  And then to find that she had fallen off a horse, and then to have the whole thing explained in alarming detail in front of Lord Sutton! Lydia honestly had had no idea that horses could fall over backwards. To realize that they were not only capable of such misdeeds, but that a rider needed to know how to fall off before the horse fell on them — well, Lydia just did not feel capable of getting on Tilly after this information. Add in that she still had a livid red mark across her cheek and a swollen weal across her palm from yesterday’s dragging incident, and Lydia was really ready to pack it in and head back to London. Yes, even without a husband.

  As for that — she shook her head. Lord Sutton’s hostility towards Mr Fawkes was evident enough, and his talk of Mr. Fawkes going into service made her very unhappy indeed. They had shared something yesterday, she and Mr. Fawkes, and it had only made her feelings towards him more certain. She wanted to stand up and shout at Sutton, she wanted to tell him to mind his own business, and not to worry about other gentlemen who hadn’t as much money as him. How dare he be such a bully and try to tell Lady Archwood that Fawkes was an imposition upon them! Really, what did Lord Sutton know about anything? Nothing, that was all — he knew nothing about Mr. Fawkes and the Archwoods.

  Neither did Lydia, really, except that they had been very close and that, as Grainne had told Sutton in the morning room, he was like family to them. That was good enough for Lydia, at least. She could live here at Tivington and let him ride his horses with Grainne every morning. Assuming the countess didn’t break her neck riding one of those crazy horses — Toulouse was it? She would have to avoid that horse.

  Yesterday, she and Mr. Fawkes had looked at one another and understood each other. It was the second time he had rescued her from a horse, and she was not unfeeling of that fact — that he was always there to save her. And, judging by the warmth in his eyes, the raw emotion she had seen in those hazel depths, he was not unaware of it, either. But what were they to do about it?

  “Miss Dean!”

  She looked up and saw him in the drive before her, mounted on a splendid — even she had to admit it was splendid! — black horse who curvetted and wheeled beneath him. “Mr. Fawkes!” she cried. “I am come for our riding lesson!”

  “Is it that time already?” The horse spun in a circle, its mouth dripping foam, and he gave it a kick in the ribs with his heels. “Let me put away this monster — he has been splendid today, but he does not know when it is time to stop running. If I let him he would stay on the gallops all day long, racing back and forth.” The horse gave a little hop, like a bird, and Lydia could not help but gasp — oh God, what if he was hurt, what if the horse went up in the air as Grainne had said Toulouse had done? But Mr. Fawkes never stirred in the saddle — it was as if the horse never moved.

  “Be careful,” she called, but he was already trotting away, rising in the saddle with every stride so that he would not be jounced by the jarring gait. She watched him, so graceful in his buckskins and boots, and thought thoughts that made her blush.

  “He’s a pretty man,” Mary said darkly from behind her, and Lydia jumped — she had forgotten Mary was there, a few paces behind her, acting as put-upon as possible without being outright disrespectful in front of the Tivington staff. “I suppose that’s what has you all a-twitter.”

  “It’s not just that,” Lydia argued, without bothering to deny that she was all a-twitter. “He is a lovely man in every way. His face is handsome but so are his manners, and he is gentle and kind. What is wrong with any of those things?”

  “Only one thing,” Mary replied crisply. “He isn’t rich.”

  “Lord Sutton is rich,” Lydia said, low. “And you do not like him either.”

  “Nay, and neither do you, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “Such a thing to say! Of course I like him.” Lydia stopped walking; they were a few paces from the yard and she did not wish to risk being overheard, but Mary was being too awful and she had to correct her. “He is a most amiable man. I do not know you can think I don’t like him. We spend plenty of time together.”

  “And how would I know that, miss, unless you were to entertain him in your bedchamber?”

  “Mary!” Lydia spun around and stared at her glowering maid. “You really go too far!”

  Mary shrugged her shoulders and gazed off into the woods in the distance. “I’m tryin’ to look out for you, miss. Same as I’ve always done.”

  “How is this looking out for me? I’ve done nothing untoward with either Mr. Fawkes or Lord Sutton!”

  “It’s not your being untoward that worries me, miss. It’s that you’ll lose your head and marry one of them.”

  Lydia blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  Mary took a breath, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “I’ve heard things in the servant’s hall about Sutton. That he’s a hard man. I’ve done some thinkin’, miss, and what I think is… what I think is, you ought to put him off you.”

  “What? Mary, two days ago you were throwing me into his arms. You wouldn’t even let me take a nap after we traveled for two days straight to get here!” Lydia shook her head. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Just listen to me, miss! We both know your ma wants Sutton for you. Fair enough. But what I know now — he’s no good for you. And we both know you want that Fawkes fellow. But he’s no good for your ma. You mustn’t marry either of them, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. You ought to go back to London, start over again.”

  Lydia sighed. “I know you think you ought to have been born the heiress, Mary, but sometimes I think you don’t know the first thing about my responsibilities and who I must marry.”

  Mary was silent. She kicked at the dirt a little sullenly, like a child, and Lydia was suddenly filled with exasperation. “Mary, this is hard enough without your disrespect, do you understand? If you still wanted to be my friend, as we were when we were younger, that would be different. But this has become something else with you — you think since we were friends, you can be constantly disrespectful and speak out of turn. But that’s not the same thing as being my friend!” Lydia shook her head. “And, well you can’t. And you mustn’t. And you won’t. Because when I am married — to Lord Sutton, mind you — the entire staff will have to respect me. And you’ll be one of them. If you don’t, my husband will dismiss you, and I won’t be able to say a word to save you.”

  Mary flushed red and bit her lip, and Lydia saw that she’d struck home. But instead of feeling triumph, she just felt a bit sad. They were friends, weren’t they? That hadn’t actually stopped, had it? Maybe she’d read the whole thing wrong. “Mary, I’m… I only met…”

  “No, stop,” Mary interrupted, looking up with a fierce look on her face. “Don’t apologize. Don’t you see? You’ve never been in charge of your own self. Your ma has done everything, and the only way to get out from under her thumb is to get married… but then your husband will be in charge. You can’t even keep a servant if you husband doesn’t like it! You’ll never be free… you’ll always be in service, just like me…” Her words trailed off and her eyes seemed to focus on a point to the left and just above Lydia’s head.

  “Now Mary, please, of course that’s not true,” Lydia was saying, even as she realized that it was true, and then a hand on her shoulder completely robbed her tongue of all its words. She looked over her shoulder slowly and then her face split into a smile, quarrels forgotten. “Mr. Fawkes,” she breathed, gazing up a
t his beloved face. Every nerve in her body quivered, every thought in her brain disappeared.

  “Miss Dean,” he said softly, his voice catching a little. He stared at her for a few moments, as if mesmerized by her features. Then he glanced humorously at Mary, who was watching him warily. “Miss,” he greeted her, bobbing his head. “I fear you do not give your mistress enough credit. She is learning to feel freedom. She is learning to ride.”

  Mary bobbed her head crossly and said nothing. Lydia, overcome with pleasure at feeling Mr. Fawkes’s glowing gaze upon her once again, felt that she could be generous enough to ignore her maid’s churlishness. After all, Mary would have loved to have learned to ride. There wouldn’t have been all this fear and apprehension. She’d have hopped right up on that horse and galloped out of the stable-yard on her first try, Lydia had no doubts about that.

  But Lydia had been born the heiress. And Lydia would get up on the old mare and learn to ride, while Mary sat on a stump and acted the disapproving chaperone. And Lydia would marry Lord Sutton, and Mary would help her through her heartbreak.

  She hoped.

  “Come to the stable, Miss Dean?” Mr. Fawkes asked tenderly. “Your destrier awaits.” He held out his arm and Lydia took it, delighting in his nearness. Perhaps she could not keep him, but she would cherish Mr. Fawkes’s attentions for as long she could.

  ***

  “Feel alright up there?”

  Lydia nodded, but she still wasn’t ready to open her eyes.

  “It’s much easier if you can see where you’re going.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she snapped, and then gasped as the force beneath her shifted and her balance tilted. She clutched at the bristling mane of the old horse and bit her lip. She wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t.