When a Lady Dares (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #7)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

From her discreet corner, Saskia held herself quiet and small—and watched.

Taprooms made excellent venues for watching, and the taproom of a coaching inn at the edge of the Suffolk countryside was better than the average.

A convivial atmosphere, it was, as the locals all knew each other.

Here were villagers and farmers and the like, recounting their days with bluster, laughter, regret, and more than a few shakes of the head.

But so, too, were there travelers, which provided added interest to a coaching inn.

Those passing through on their various ways south to London or east to the sea or north to Norfolk and beyond.

They would require a hearty meal. Or perhaps they had a thirst that needed quenching, or bones that needed warming beside the fire, or simply souls longing for easy conversation with their fellow man—or all of the above with a bed for the night for good measure.

Then there was her.

Saskia required little. She needed neither drink nor conversation. She barely picked at the roast chicken and turnips she’d been served for her evening meal. Her wool travel pelisse sufficed for keeping her bones warm.

Not that she was an entity entirely unto herself.

The pencil in her right hand and the paper below it needed the people populating this taproom—their laughter, their tears, their whispered conversations, their jolly songs bellowed beside the fire, their enmity, their conviviality…

that which imbued this room with life. That life which she observed and which flowed through her pencil and onto this half-filled page in the form of words.

In her capacity as fifty-percent partner in a successful circulating library and publishing house, Saskia was a known purveyor of words. To most, that was all she was.

But she had a secret when it came to words.

She also wrote them and told stories with them.

Novels, in fact.

Novels, in further fact, that had attained an astonishing level of success these last two years.

But no one, other than her closest sister, Viveca, knew that fact about her—that the popular romance novelist Miss Harriet LaPlume was none other than Lady Saskia Calthorp, sister of the Duke of Acaster and the Marchioness of Ormonde.

And that was just how she liked it. With her anonymity intact, she could sit in her little corner, be that lowly rural tavern or opulent London ballroom, and observe—and not be the observed.

Except, tonight, she wasn’t sitting in this taproom as a novelist.

She was here in an altogether different capacity.

The enterprise that had her in this taproom tonight had been set in motion three years ago at a society musicale, of all places.

At the time, Sirens had been doing well as a circulating library and middling as a publisher.

Her sister Viveca had been determined to see it reach higher pinnacles of success, and at that fateful musicale she’d happened across an idea.

What if Sirens could publish the memoir of the most famous jockey in all England?

The famous jockey in question was none other than Liam Cassidy, who had been on the ascendency in the horse racing world for a few years and had been flattered by Viveca’s offer.

Still, he’d politely declined, citing the fact that not only wasn’t he a writer, but he hadn’t yet accomplished enough to warrant a memoir.

In true Viveca fashion, she hadn’t given up.

She’d assured Cassidy he wouldn’t be the one actually writing his memoir and had convinced him to commit to setting all his past and future accomplishments down on paper because, in three years’ time, he would surely be more accomplished and even more famous.

Now, it was three years later.

And Cassidy was, indeed, more accomplished and more famous.

Aside from the king and maybe the Prime Minister and perhaps a few dukes and one couldn’t forget a handful of scandal-prone lords, Liam Cassidy was the most famous man in England.

Viveca remained determined to have his memoir—and for Saskia to write it.

She’d tried to wriggle out of it, of course. “I may wear spectacles and look like one, but I’m not an amanuensis.”

The words had precisely no effect on an undeterrable Viveca. “But you’ll be so much more than that, sister. You won’t simply be relating facts. You’ll be telling a story, and you’re already very accomplished at that.”

Saskia crossed her arms over her chest. “No flattery, Viveca.”

“And think of all the sales and new members this will bring Sirens.”

“My books have done that for us.” Saskia could be stubbornly undeterrable herself. “Their sales have exceeded every measure of success.” She wasn’t boasting, but merely stating fact.

Even as Viveca nodded with agreement, dissatisfaction yet glinted in her eyes. “And…”

“And?”

Viveca was about to say something Saskia wouldn’t be able to refute.

She’d just known it.

“And…” A smile curled the corners of Viveca’s mouth that Saskia didn’t much like. “Now is the time to invest that popularity—and all those pounds and shillings—into something new, so we can diversify our interests.”

“Diversify our interests?” Saskia scoffed. “Has Blaze been whispering in your ear?”

A light blush stole up Viveca’s décolletage, pinking her cheeks, and Saskia immediately regretted the question.

But it was Viveca’s answer that made her regret it even more. “Every night,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “And most mornings. And some afternoons, too. Oh, Saskia you wouldn’t believe the things my husband whispers in my ear.”

Saskia held up a hand, stopping the flow of Viveca’s words. She would, in fact, believe them—but that didn’t mean she wanted to hear them. So, she’d agreed to Viveca’s idea for the memoir.

Which brought her to this place and moment in time—Suffolk in the spring of 1827.

As tomorrow would be her first interview with Liam Cassidy, she’d arrived a day early to collect her thoughts and gain a feel for his reputation off the racecourse and outside London society.

He trained nearby at Somerton Manor, the racing estate of the Duke of Rakesley, his brother by law and for whom he rode exclusively.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow wasn’t a simple interview with Liam Cassidy.

That implied a beginning and an end.

Tomorrow was only the beginning.

Tomorrow signaled the first of many interviews, months of them, in the company of one of England’s most famous men, as she followed him through the racing season—attending races…observing him in training…even perhaps speaking to his family.

Right.

She inhaled a slow breath and attempted to settle the little wobble that occurred in her stomach whenever she thought about the shape the next six months of her life would take.

A shape around six feet tall, lean and rangy, possessed of sun-streaked auburn hair and green eyes that glinted with gold flecks.

With an irritated exhalation, she reached into her worn leather satchel for the notes she’d begun preparing for tomorrow’s interview. Or, more accurately, she reached for the blank journal where she would enter those preparatory notes.

Her pencil poised above open white space, she adjusted her spectacles with her other hand and wracked her brain for her opening.

Harriet LaPlume never had so much trouble filling a page.

But then, when she wrote as Harriet LaPlume, she already knew her characters inside and out—their wants and motivations and goals, which, by the end, would unify into the hero and heroine’s wants, motivations, and goals being only each other.

But this writing was different. Liam Cassidy was a flesh and blood man, and the simple truth was she didn’t know a single solitary thing about him beyond the easily observable.

She needed more information to be able to ask intelligent questions beyond “Have you always enjoyed riding?” and “Is it true that every woman you meet falls madly in love with you?”

She wasn’t strictly certain about the validity of the second question. An assumption, that, as she’d never spoken a single word to Liam Cassidy. She’d made sure of it. She had no business falling madly in love with Liam Cassidy.

She gave her head a clearing shake. It would be better to get out of her own mind and into the mind of someone else. After all, as Somerton’s lead jockey, Cassidy would spend much of his time in this area. So, really, there was one brain in particular she should pick.

Pencil and journal in hand, she stood and ventured from her discreet corner, weaving through the taproom, careful to avoid myriad impediments that appeared in her path—gesticulating arms flying wildly to illustrate a point…

dogs lying in wait for their masters to have had their fill, be that food or drink…

serving maids bustling around tables and chairs, one hand holding three mugs of ale and the other weighed down by a joint of mutton.

At last, all obstacles narrowly avoided, Saskia reached the bar, where she waited several minutes while the barman added a few logs to the fire in the hearth across the room.

Upon his return, he asked with an expression somewhere between a smile and a frown, “What can I get you, milady?”

“What makes you think I’m a lady?” She’d dressed without the trappings of wealth. She wasn’t even wearing a single piece of jewelry. So, though it wasn’t the question she’d come to ask, she wanted to know.

The barman lifted his brow as if to say, “Well, ain’t ye?” and that was answer enough.

She cleared her throat, slightly abaashed, and plunked a guinea onto the bartop. “I believe that should cover my meals for tonight and tomorrow.”

“Aye,” he said with a nod, “milady.”

“May I inquire about a patron who might frequent your establishment?”

The barman’s expression had frozen in that state between a smile and a frown. “You can inquire.”

“Liam Cassidy.”

The man’s face made up its mind and tipped into a smile, though Saskia sensed it had been a near thing. “He’s a lad who enjoys a pint on the odd occasion.”