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

  “Are you through? I did not realize the offer of a lift came with a sermon.”

  “Sermon, is it?” Halfbush laughed. “Don’t often get advised to find a fancy bit in a sermon. I must belong to the wrong church.” He turned the horses into the square and pulled up in front of the Archwood townhouse. He surveyed the imposing brick house for a few moments. “If it gets too bad, you can come stay with me,” he offered.

  Peregrin nodded, his jaw tight. “Thank you.”

  Halfbush looked at him with concern. “Listen, anyone would fall in love with her,” he said sympathetically. “But she fell in love with him.”

  Peregrin thought about it for a few moments. The heart was a strange organ, he supposed. He was just as in love with Grainne as ever, though he had never really realized it before today. But he was also quite keen to know more about the young lady from the night before. Well, she would be the perfect diversion, he supposed, if he was in love with his best friend’s wife. “I appreciate your concern,” he said finally. “Look, do you know a Miss Dean?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She fell in love with him, Peregrin repeated to himself, climbing the graceful curve of the townhouse’s staircase. While he had been in London, she had fallen in love with William. While he had been minding William’s business for him, watching old Lord Archwood for signs of capitulation, watching Violetta deLacey for signs of waning affections, William himself had been footloose and fancy-free in the Irish hills, falling in love with the huntsman’s daughter and riding some of the finest horses in Ireland.

  And when he’d brought William back to London, he’d thought his friend worse than a fool for mooning over the tomboy he’d left behind in Ireland, and a madman altogether for bringing her to England at all. But he’d been wrong and William had been right. The woman that he had fought for, and that Peregrin had helped him fight for, was in every way a treasure. A gifted horsewoman, a warm confidante, and breathtaking in either evening attire or roughspun breeches. Grainne Archwood had become the picture of everything he could ever want in a woman, and, he had thought, there was only one of her.

  But now he wasn’t so sure.

  Miss Dean, you little lovely, he thought. Miss Dean, you wily sweet miss.

  He’d seen her watching him across the ball-room all last night, of course. How could he now? Her gaze on his back was hot as a brand; it had been all he could not to turn and look back at her, but he was afraid the entire assembly would see the lightning crackle between them and know… know what?

  Know about their burning attraction to one another, that was what. Peregrin chuckled grimly, shaking his head. What was coming over him? How did something like this happen to a fellow? He had been minding his own business, coming down the steps of the townhouse to check on the line of carriages, to be certain that the footmen were able to manage the crush of party-goers eager to attend the Archwoods’ farewell to London. He had been doing what he always did for William and Grainne: a useful member of the household, taking little duties from their shoulders and assuming them himself, making sure that he was more than a house-guest, that he was an honorary Archwood, just as he had since he was a boy visiting Tivington at the school holidays.

  He had been thinking of Grainne, as he so often did — she was looking particularly ravishing that night in the dark wine-red that so suited her white skin and dark hair. And then he had seen that winsome little wisp of sunlight in her pastel gown, darting into the street, falling nearly under the hooves of Sutton’s carriage horses, a team of high-mettled beasts fed rather more oats than their tiny little brains could handle. He had swept her up, held her close, looked into her eyes — and come away a changed man.

  It might be for the better, he supposed, coming to the top of the stairs and passing, one by one, the closed doors of the bedchambers on the third floor. His attachment to Grainne had grown distressing of late. He did not want to covet his best friend’s wife. That had been a troubling development, something he had only been dimly aware of, even as, it seemed his friends were starting to notice it.

  Thinking on it now, passing her closed door, he thought that he wasn’t altogether certain when his emotions had taken over, when he had stopped seeing Grainne as a beautiful but troublesome woman his friend was in love with, and began to see her instead as his ideal woman. It must have crept over him slowly, as he spent his days in residence first in the country at Tivington Abbey and then here in London for the Season. When the old earl had died last spring, William had asked Peregrin to come and stay with them. He was feeling twinges of mortality and wanted to keep his friends close. Well, it had not taken much persuading to convince him: the riding around Tivington was spectacular, and Peregrin had wearied of staying with his cousins in Surrey, although the proximity to the racing at Epsom had been influential. He had been leading a rather rootless life since his school years ended, with neither family nor home of his own. He only really felt at home at Tivington and so, despite the oddness of the request so soon after the Archwoods had wed, he packed up his trunks, taking especial care with his saddlery, and took an uncomfortable journey by post-chaise to Tivington’s market town.

  And things had simply never changed. The school holidays, as it were, had not ended.

  He looked around his bedchamber now, the apartment that had been his since the beginning of the Season, taking in the rich furnishings, the dark horse galloping through a racing print hung over the mantle, the thick blue curtains holding the wan London light at bay. They were all Archwood possessions, of course; Peregrin didn’t own much more than his clothing, his tack, and a few books on horse breeding, and that had already been packed away by his valet, a fellow on the Archwood payroll of course, for their removal in a few days to the Archwood country seat.

  He felt rather as if he’d been adopted at last, after dreaming that the old Lord Archwood would adopt him and take him away from his cousins for most of his childhood. Well, he’d gotten what he wanted. He had better be careful not to lose it. There was nowhere to go from Tivington but back to Surrey. And Jeremy Sutton-Fawkes would not be happy to see him.

  He pulled the drapes back and looked down into the garden, where a gardener was hunched over a plot of rosebushes. Maybe, if talk was what Halfbush intimated, he shouldn’t go back to Tivington. He ought to remove himself from the household. He could go back to Surrey, take the colt, train him up on the downs there. However hateful Jeremy might be, there would be the home track advantage for the colt if he trained him on the gallops at Epsom. He would feel right at home for the Derby next spring.

  Or he could stay here in London. Peregrin thought again of those blue eyes gazing up at him, those pink lips half-opened, ready for his kiss. The blush as she was introduced, the knowing smile on Grainne’s face. He could find some cheap apartment, wrangle a few invitations from the fellows at the club, make sure that their paths crossed in the park. He just knew she’d look fantastic on a horse. He could fairly see her swaying down the drives in Hyde Park already, as graceful in the saddle as Grainne herself.

  He was talking madness now, he told himself, turning away from the window. A man besotted with a maid he hardly knew, bestowing upon her all the traits of the woman he could not have. It was getting dangerous up there in his mind.

  And the horse… he could not take the horse to Surrey or keep him here in London. The colt had proven to him today that he needed quiet, and the downs would be humming with energy now; the racing season was in full swing. This years’ Derby was to be run in just a few days. He was sorry he would not be attending, but he’d be en route to Tivington, and surely the wild young horse would be better off out in the quiet countryside, where his manners could be learned and his mind put at ease, before he was introduced to the crush of a racecourse. A horse of that potential could not be wasted because one’s personal emotions were in the way.

  Or for a woman.

  That horse was going places, Peregrin thought, picturing again the animal’s long legs, swan-like
neck, and ground-eating stride. At last, his Derby horse. He mustn’t let anything come between him and training the horse to perfection.

  Peregrin sank into an armchair and began working at his neckcloth; then an adjoining door was flung open and a tall, lanky man with a much put-upon expression burst into the room. Peregrin ceased yanking at his dusty linen and leaned back as his valet leaned over him, fussing already.

  “You will ruin this cravat, and that will be the third one this month. Mr. Fawkes, when will you learn to wait for me? You won’t wait, that’s all. Do you hate nice things, Mr. Fawkes? Do you hate your nice cravat? Because you have smudged it with your dirty horsey-hands. Oh! Look at this!”

  Peregrin kept quiet and let Lewis rant. The valet was young, whippet-slim, and utterly obsessed with clothing. Peregrin often thought that Lewis adored fashions and fabrics the way he himself loved horses. It made their relationship a contentious one, as horses were not especially kind to fine clothes, but William paid Lewis’s wages, and Peregrin found him amusing, besides.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, then,” Lewis said finally, turning away with his hands full of spoilt clothing. Peregrin, who had been left in his undershirt and stocking-feet, found that he had nothing to say for himself. For a man who had just had a triumphant realization about the athletic potential of a young racehorse prospect, he was feeling unusually downcast.

  “I fell off my horse,” he explained weakly. “These things will happen, you know.”

  “Then perhaps you should be dressed in rags, like a stable-boy,” Lewis hissed, banging into the dressing-room. He cradled the stained buckskins and the smudged cravat in his arms. “If you cannot keep nice things nice.”

  “Perhaps,” Peregrin agreed, for it was simpler. “But for now, perhaps you will give me a second chance; I am quite famished, and cannot go down in search of breakfast without wearing at least a pair of pantaloons.

  So dressed at last in clean pantaloons, light slippers, and a new shirt and jacket, and with his face and hands newly cleaned of Hyde Park dirt, Peregrin at last went downstairs in hopes of finding some late breakfast. The staff were used to him disappearing long before they had laid anything out, and after the first time he terrified a scullery-maid by appearing suddenly in the kitchen with all the stealth of a clumsy burglar’s apprentice, hunting only for a slice of bread and a jar of jam, the kitchen girls knew to have a little something light laid out for him as soon as they came down to light the fires: a piece of jam and toast, a cup of strong tea. He ate with all the taste and want of delicacy of a peasant, and they loved him for it; his warm brown eyes and chiseled chin further advanced his case. Peregrin Fawkes, though he did not know it, was a favorite in the Archwood household.

  But his toast had been hours ago. It was long past the usual breakfast hour and nowhere near time for anything like a luncheon, and he was famished. The late-morning breakfast search was rarely fruitful, but the day before, the housekeeper had caught him in the kitchens yet again, so he had hopes that they might expect him.

  Now he went into the dining room and beheld, to his great delight, that they had kept warm and waiting a few platters, just for him and his bizarre eating habits. He piled a plate with rashers of Irish bacon and eggs, a slice of toast drizzled with golden butter and honey, and when he set it down, found that the footman had poured him a cup of tea. It was all most cheering, Peregrin found, and he stopped thinking about Miss Dean and Grainne and Lord Sutton and generally everything except how much pleasure he found in his second breakfast. He usually managed to eat his way out of any funks.

  He had plowed through breakfast and was settling in with a second cup of tea when he heard the Archwoods returning from their morning ride. Outside, he heard the footfalls of their horses being led past the house and back to the mews.

  He considered getting up to greet them and inquire after their ride, as a good house-guest would, but instead he picked up the newspaper left on the table and opened it up. It was possible, Peregrin supposed, that he was growing weary of being always a house-guest. Even the house-guest of his two dearest friends or, perhaps, especially the house-guest of his two dearest friends.

  He was reading the reports from the bloodstock sales when Grainne came into the room, bringing with her a scent of horse and a sense of excitement that she seemed to carry about with her through the sooty, worn-out streets of London. Peregrin put down the paper and smiled at her, and it was a genuine smile: how could he not be happy to see her?

  “You left a mark in the road where you fell,” she said by way of greeting, and grinned at him like a groom. She made straight for the rashers. “I’m utterly famished. William says I am a glutton for coming back for more breakfast, but he simply has no idea — I feel like I haven’t eaten in weeks.”

  Peregrin studied her as she bent over the sideboard, filling a plate with a second breakfast, but the riding habit, cut high-waisted like all the dresses these days, gave away nothing. He was thinking, though, of the voracious appetite of a mare in foal. Grainne had always been a good eater, but not a constant one.

  She came back to the table and settled down across from him, nodding appreciatively at the footman for her steaming cup of tea, and then dove into the bacon. “This is wonderful,” she announced after a few unladylike bites. “The spring air is giving me such an appetite. We should leave for Tivington this very day, or all this lying about the house will make me big as a broodmare.”

  He looked at her sharply, but she just sipped at her tea and smiled at him. “I am sure a few days will not affect your figure,” he suggested.

  “You don’t even know,” Grainne warned him. “I have done nothing but sneak food from the kitchen for the past three days. I need to be out riding all day as soon as possible.” She leaned back and sighed, running her fingers through the curls of dark hair that had been teased to frame her face. Even to go riding, she had to have her hair dressed — it made her quite furious at first, Peregrin remembered. But she had adjusted, she had learned to bear the little trivialities that filled the days in London, although she had never pretended it was anything but an inconvenience she suffered for her long seasons in the country. “I want to ride this new horse of yours. Will you let me?”

  Peregrin opened his mouth and closed it again, not wanting to admit that he wasn’t going to allow her anywhere near that demonic little colt. It would just make her all the more determined to climb on him, and if his suspicions were correct — Grainne was downing a slice of toast nearly drowning in butter — he would have to send the horse out of the country to keep her safe from herself. “I want to see how he does in the country,” he hedged at last. “Who do we have that is completely fearless and unbreakable? Because that is the jockey he will need at first.”

  “O’Neill,” she said promptly. “Irish, none better with a horse.”

  “Very well, we shall see what he can do with him.”

  “Talking horses, are we?” William came into the room, tall and handsome and noble, and Grainne’s face brightened as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. Peregrin could only manage a good morning; he felt quite the opposite, and he hated like hell that he felt so ambivalent about his closest friend.

  Girls were really the devil.

  Peregrin sipped at the dregs of his tea and went back to his paper and his bloodstock results, half-listening to Grainne and William talking about the afternoon’s plans. Grainne was going to make some good-bye calls in the carriage; William was going to close out city accounts with his solicitor. And what was Peregrin going to do?

  He looked up. “What’s that?”

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?” William repeated.

  “Do?” Peregrin thought. He didn’t have anything to do. He had no business affairs; he wanted for nothing; he was truly a man of leisure these days. “Read a book?”

  “Come with me on my calls,” Grainne said impulsively. “We can bid farewell to the young ladies of London, and they can sig
h over your pretty face.”

  “That sounds… dreadful,” Peregrin said.

  “Doesn’t it?” Grainne clapped her hands. “That is why you must do it. We’ll have such fun!”

  Peregrin cocked his eyebrow. “Who will have fun?”

  “I will have fun,” she clarified. “And then we will both have fun laughing over it later.”

  “Go on with her,” William urged him. “It’ll be good practice for when you’re a wealthy man of substance. Give them a little something to pant over until you come back next year.”

  Peregrin really had no idea how William could think he’d be a wealthy man of substance by the following winter, but he felt cornered. Together, William and Grainne were a glittering, beautiful, strong couple: they couldn’t be defeated, not by their detractors and certainly not by their dearest friend. They were invincible. “Very well,” he sighed. “But you must not encourage them,” he insisted. “I have never been good with wilting misses.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lydia felt the room spin when he walked into it. The entire drawing room upended itself and twirled around, its contents and furnishings floating sickeningly before her eyes, while he stood in the doorway and waited for the world to right itself.

  Well, that is probably not exactly what happened, she reassured herself after everyone had been introduced and Grainne Archwood and Mr. Fawkes had been seated and served. But it had certainly felt that way, and it would go a long way towards explaining the sudden green feeling she seemed to be experiencing. She put a surreptitious hand to her rebelling stomach and willed herself not to grow even more pale than normal.

  But it was impossible. She could feel the color draining from her cheeks, matching her wobbling loss of balance. Be still, drawing room, she thought desperately! Be still!