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

  But it was Lord Hadley that had brought the whole game down. It was Lord Hadley who had been her first love, and no one knew it but her — and Lady Hadley. Alyssa.

  Lydia bit her lip, gazed into the mirror, and wondered if she could truly blame Alyssa. She could never forgive her, that much was for certain — but at the same time, she knew. Alyssa had done what she had to do.

  Alyssa had been her closest friend, it was true, but she also came of little fortune, and had been raised as canny and cunning as Lady Katherine had hoped to raise Lydia. In the end, she was more worldly than Lydia could have believed. Thrown much into Lord John Hadley’s company as he openly courted Lydia, she made her move while Lydia was abed with grippe. The first morning that Lydia was able to come down to breakfast, two weeks after the fever had set in, she had read the announcement in the paper. Lydia’s eyes had swum and her throat had closed, but she had made herself chew and swallow her dry toast. Her mother was watching her.

  And now everyone had forgotten that Lord Hadley had once been a fixture in the Dean drawing room, or that his flowers had arrived by courier every morning for three solid weeks. Indeed, everyone seemed to stay away from the Dean house. Lydia had heard what her former friends said about her: she must have been very ill indeed, more ill than the Deans had let on, to have lost all her fun and all her spirits like that. It was all blamed on the illness, of course. No one said anything about Alyssa’s poaching ways. And why would they? As Lady Hadley, Alyssa was a more useful friend than the unmarried Lydia could be. Especially if Lydia was going to carry on like some sort of invalid, never laughing, never flirting, never joining their little giggle-gossip sessions in the lady’s retiring room.

  And so they stayed away.

  It was a vicious circle for Lydia: her friends avoided her because she was quiet and hadn’t any fun to her; Lydia was alone and lonely because her friends stayed away; Lydia was quiet and hadn’t any fun to her because she was alone and lonely. She simply made her appearance at the parties, watched them all gallivant around the ball-room like so many butterflies drunk on spring pollen, and wondered who would betray her next.

  Only tonight had been different. First the invigoration of finding herself in Peregrin Fawkes’ strong arms, gazing into his flashing chestnut eyes. Then the evening’s meeting with Lady Archwood — Grainne, as she had encouraged Lydia to call her this evening. Lydia smiled a little just at the thought of her new friend. It was almost as if she had fallen in love twice this evening.

  Grainne Archwood seemed different from anyone else in the ton. She was honest. Real. Completely disinterested in the wealth and power struggles all around her. That, Lydia thought, still gazing at her own reflection, that was who she would wish to be like. Not like her cold, calculating mother, always set upon finding the highest bidder for her only daughter. Not like her cunning, conniving friend Alyssa, who would not shirk from stealing her own friend’s beau while she lay in her sick-bed. Lydia wanted to wash her hands of the ton, of their struggles for attention and fortune and accolades. She wanted to forget about gowns and modistes and hairdressers and carriages and jewels. She wanted to be in love. And she thought Grainne Archwood might be the only person she knew who understood that.

  So it seemed too hard that Grainne was going away. As closely as she had kept Lydia during the waning hours of the party, as warm and friendly as she had been, she had not asked Lydia to visit her at Tivington Abbey.

  So, Lydia thought bitterly, all those confidences were for naught. Lady Archwood had taken London’s leave last night. She would be gone from town in days, and Lydia would not see her again. No more time with Grainne, who might have been her only true friend — and no time at all with Peregrin Fawkes, who might have been her only true love.

  Well, there was nothing for it. She felt suddenly exhausted, too tired to be sad, too tired for anything but her pillow. Lydia pulled back the counterpane and slipped into bed. Her body felt heavy, sinking into the feathers of the mattress, and she snuffed the candle in hopes of falling asleep right away. But her throughs were invaded by a face — by his face — not Lord Hadley’s face, which had haunted her so many nights after his defection, but the chiseled features and laughing brown eyes of Peregrin Fawkes.

  The thought of him quickened her heart and taunted her mind now: his easy smile, his light step on the dance-floor during his few reluctant forays across the boards, his gallant elegance as he bowed to his partner at the end of a song. And so well-dressed, without any frippery of a dandy: only good tailoring and good taste. She tossed on her pillow as she remembered the perfect shirt points white against his tanned face, impeccably tailored coat of dark blue superfine, the velvet collar a sharp contrast to his snowy cravat.

  And again that dark skin, tanned by the sun. He spent most of his time outside, she knew. Riding and driving, the two activities that frightened her the most. His obsession with hunting was how Lord Archwood had come to meet Grainne in the first place, and now, Grainne had confided, he had a new mania for horse-racing that took up most of his time. He hoped, Grainne said, to breed the long-legged blood-horses that had come from the Moors and were now favorites with sporting gentlemen. His obsession had quite infected William, Grainne had laughed. “We have two Thoroughbreds for every hunter in the yard at Tivington now. I am quite out-numbered when the jockeys come to take the racehorses out to the gallops and all I want to do is take a few fences. Do you care to hunt, Lydia?”

  And then Lydia had had to admit. She closed her eyes tightly, remembering Grainne’s pained look at her answer. “I’m afraid I’ve never ridden a horse,” Lydia had said softly, feeling a blush rise over her cheeks. “I’m quite afraid of them. They’re very dangerous animals, aren’t they?”

  Grainne hadn’t quite known what to say to that.

  And of course, Lydia thought. She sighed against her pillow. Of course, once Grainne had guessed that it was Peregrin Fawkes that Lydia fancied, she had been very encouraging — but finding out that Lydia was afraid of horses must have been the end of that little daydream.

  She rolled over, wrapping herself in the bedsheets. “Really,” she whispered to herself. “You must overcome this fancy, Lydia. He has no prospects, he loves only horses — how can this be a suitable affair, even if you did manage to catch his eye?”

  It was only an infatuation after all, she told herself. It couldn’t be true love. And she must put him out of her head at once.

  But she could not. He was quite determined to stay there. And she tossed and turned until the dawn was creeping through the drapes, and only as the room began to grow light did she fall asleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a consequence of her tempestuous night that when Mary Smith rattled the china on the breakfast tray, Lydia was less than pleased with her maid. She opened her eyes all at once when the clinking interrupted her dreams, and squinted, bleary-eyed, at the luckless Mary. For herself, Mary started at her mistress’s sudden awakening, but set down the tray on the bedside table without any more jostling.

  “Really, must you be so clumsy?” Lydia snapped, albeit in a very frog-like manner since her throat was dry with short sleep and her tongue was fuzzy with champagne.

  Mary fixed her with a look that was every bit as disdainful as Lady Katherine’s worst, and let the tray rattle a bit more as she pulled her hand away. “Well excuse me, madam,” Mary huffed. “I was not warned ye wanted to lie-abed all day.” And she folded her hands in an ironic show of meekness and waited for an apology, looking down her nose at Lydia.

  Lydia could only close her eyes and groan. Offending her maid could mean days of accidentally burned curls and lukewarm wash-water. Despite a household run by a termagent like Lady Katherine, Mary and Lydia had long been close as sisters. Actually, it was probably due in part to the need for a shared defensive front against Lady Katherine’s constant peering and sniffing and spying. At any rate, any forays by Lydia into the imperious behavior of her mother’s were soon squashed by Mary’
s far stronger personality. “I ought to be a duchess, and you my sweet poor relation,” Mary had once sighed, “for then I could take care of ye. Lord knows you need lookin’ after.”

  Mary regarded Lydia’s constant good manners to the servants as part of taking care of her mistress — in a house where the staff could out-number the family by the dozens, Mary had reasoned, one always wanted to set out honey, and not vinegar. And Lydia had just offered her a brimful glass of vinegar.

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” Lydia now said coaxingly. “That was too bad of me. I am just so tired… and I was dreaming…”

  “Well I’ll be off and leave ye to your dreamin’, then.”

  “No—no,” Lydia sat up and caught the departing Mary by the sash of her white apron, which promptly came untied. Mary snatched at the ends of the sash and glared at Lydia. But Lydia was too upset by her suddenly vivid memory of the dream she’d been having. Demon horses, with Peregrin’s laughing face where their snapping teeth should be — she thought perhaps she was better off awake, if that was the sort of thing her imagination was going to send her into.

  “You’re just full of mischief this morning,” Mary grumbled, working at the sash behind her back. Then her face softened. “You didn’t sleep well? Was your mam so tough on ye, then?”

  Lydia struggled to sit up against the pillows. “She could have been much worse. I did not please her last night. I am disappointing her every day that I am not betrothed, and I do not know how to change that.”

  Mary sniffed, a very credible imitation of the mistress of the house. “It would take an angel to please that one. An angel happy to act like a fool and throw herself at every fella with a coronet and a fortune.”

  “And there aren’t enough coronets to go around for all the angels who are willing to do that. Why should there be one left over for me? But she still thinks I should be the young lady who snags one.”

  Mary poured chocolate, steaming and dark, into a delicate cup. “Well, she’s blind as a bat to have missed the affair with that viscount of yours. That was not your fault.”

  “I don’t know that Mama ever knew how serious his intentions were,” Lydia said regretfully. “He had not spoken to Father. And if you recall, the drawing room was always full in those days. He was just one of the crowd, and probably not the one she had her eye on. What does it matter? I fell in love with the wrong man.” She lifted the cup and took a cautious sip; the chocolate was hot and restorative to her dry throat. “And I have done it again, I fear, Mary, for I’ve seen a man who makes my knees weak and my head spin, and he has neither title nor fortune.”

  “Law, miss, you should’ve been born a beggar,” Mary sighed, wagging her head. “You haven’t go the stomach for the society you was bred into. If you didn’t favor your ma I’d swear we were switched in the cradle.” She chuckled grimly and went to the window to open the draperies. The wan light of a gray London morning brightened the room but little. “So tell me about ‘im.”

  “Him?”

  “The fella, you minx. The penniless gentleman you fell in love with like you was common and could make up your own mind.”

  “Oh!” Lydia sighed quite without meaning to, head full of her pictures of him. “Well. He is tall, and slender, and his hair is a very plain brown that he brushes straight back and wears in a little queue. He has brown eyes as well, but with little golden flecks in them, and high cheekbones, and very tan skin from being outdoors so much.”

  “Outdoors! What does he do outdoors? Is he a farmer then? You can’t marry a farmer, y’know. That’s silly even for you.”

  “He isn’t a farmer! How foolish. But he rides horses,” Lydia admitted. “He thinks of nothing but horses. Like Lady Archwood — that is why they are such close friends, I think.”

  Mary raised her eyebrows. “You’re afraid of horses.”

  Lydia nodded. As if she needed reminding! “He saved me from a team of them last night. I nearly walked right under a pair of horses and he pulled me away. It was so frightening — and he didn’t even seem to see me. He handed me off to a footman and went to talk to the coachman about it. It’s so awful, Mary. He doesn’t know me at all.”

  “You’ve never actually met him?”

  “We were introduced, that’s all. He didn’t remember me from the carriage line. I could have been anyone. And he went off right away and didn’t speak to me. I must not have made an impression on him at all.”

  “Maybe you’re not the first young lady he’s pulled out from under a horse.”

  “Maybe so. But I had hoped I was the prettiest.”

  “So,” Mary said, holding out her hands to tick off her points. “He rides horses all day. He hasn’t got a title. He hasn’t got any money. He doesn’t know who you are. Your ma will never let you marry him. He doesn’t know you want to marry him.” Mary shook her head. “I declare, miss, you haven’t thought this one through very thoroughly, have ye?”

  Lydia sought refuge in her cup of chocolate and didn’t say anything at all.

  Mary took pity on her. “But he’s a looker, eh?”

  “Oh yes!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Well, that will do nothing for your looks.”

  Peregrin Fawkes didn’t bother looking up at his friend, despite William’s mocking tone. He was too busy making certain he still had both eyeballs firmly in their sockets. He passed a finger carefully into the vicinity of his left eye and grimaced at the sharp pain. But yes — it was still there. Cautiously, he opened his right eye, which felt much less damaged, and looked up and around him. The world was a dazzle of color: flowers bursting into bloom, trees bedecked with bright green new growth; he nearly snapped his eyes shut again against the whirling all that life produced in his head. But he hadn’t seen what he was looking for. He slowly opened his eyelids once more, peering out at Hyde Park’s spring greenery.

  “Where’s my horse?” he croaked, his lungs still empty of air. That had been some damned fall. He hadn’t hit the ground so hard in years. And the smack in the eye with the horse’s rock-hard skull right before the beast shook him loose had probably scrambled his brains into the bargain. There was a whirling sensation in his head that probably wasn’t going to go away for a while. “Did you see where he went to?”

  But William only shrugged. His hands were firm on the reins of his big chestnut gelding, who was fretting and gazing off into the distance, presumably where Peregrin’s horse had disappeared to. “Bristol? That seemed to be his general direction, anyway. Tommy went after him. I’m sure he’ll catch up to the sod eventually.”

  Peregrin peered down the gravel path, but it was deserted.

  “Oh, they’re long gone,” William assured him. “You were out cold.”

  “Before I even hit the ground. He smacked me dead between the eyes.” Peregrin pulled his knees up to his chin and hugged them to his chest, stretching out the screaming muscles in his back. It hadn’t rained in a week and the path was packed hard as a rock. He must have landed flat on his back, from the feel of things. Peregrin thought for a moment. “The horse is fast?”

  “As lightning. Exactly what you’d expect for a grandson of Herod.”

  Peregrin wet his lips in nervous anticipation. “Derby fast?”

  William smiled slowly. “I think you’ve got your Derby horse.”

  Peregrin nodded and went on hugging his knees. A Derby horse. All the bruises (and possibly a broken rib — damn, his chest ached as well as his back) would be well worth it for a horse that could hold his own at Epsom. At last — this horse was the one he had been hoping for! He’d known it from the moment he spotted the colt, grazing in a Surrey pasture — this was the one.

  But maybe he would contract a jockey to get the rough edges smoothed off The One. He was getting too old for such falls. At two and thirty, Peregrin was beginning to feel his tumbles, and this two-year-old colt had a temper as fiery as his shining red coat. It was one reason why Peregrin had been able to afford the colt at all — his ba
nk balance didn’t usually lend itself to purchasing a horse as true-blooded as the chestnut colt. But the combination of consistently bad behavior and a farmer who was past his prime had been enough for Peregrin to lead away the colt for a bargain price.

  Now he’d just have to find a little something extra to pay for a rider. But ah, it would be worth it. He’d find something he could forgo. Live a little closer to the bone. It wasn’t as if he had many expenses, living as he had with the Archwoods for the past year and a half. An investment in the colt would be worth every penny, and he didn’t relish the thought of any more falls like the one he had just taken.

  And, as William said, such things weren’t good for his looks. He had been sixteen when a fall from his father’s stallion — the man-eating savage he wasn’t actually allowed anywhere near, of course — had broken his nose and given him the profile to match his name. Mind you, Peregrin didn’t actually mind his hawk’s nose. More than one lady had admired it for its “dangerous” appearance, but he doubted anyone would find his upcoming black eye attractive at all, and another break would render his beak quite disfigured. He rubbed at the organ thoughtfully. That young lady last night, who had run under Lord Sutton’s team — she hadn’t had an aversion to his rakish profile. Those sparkling blue eyes, the way the expression in them had shifted from pure terror to pure enchantment… Peregrin had clenched her a little more tightly than was necessary, completely under her spell. It was a lucky thing that the Archwood footman had tapped him on the shoulder, or he might have forgotten himself and planted a kiss on those luscious berry-red lips of hers, dropped half-open in her breathless fright and excitement. He’d handed her over and busied himself at shouting at the coachman instead, hoping to cover up his slip in manners — but from the way she had looked at him later that night, when Grainne had introduced them, she hadn’t missed the connection.