Chapter 5
He had paused before speaking Isla’s name as though to emphasize that he had recognized her. Edward gritted his teeth, glancing at Isla who had tilted her head to examine the stranger.
“I do not know you,” she said.
“My father was an … acquaintance of your mother. He is Blackwood of Glenmore, Laird of Glenmore. I am the Marquis of Morlich.”
“Ah,” Isla said with a sigh.
“Did you not think to run into a Blackwood here in London, Lady Isla? Did you and your brother think yourselves far enough away from the old trouble to escape us?” Morlich said, as much heat in his voice as polite Hyde Park society would allow.
“Hold fast, Morlich,” Edward warned. “Lady Isla is my fiancée.”
Damnation! It is too soon to be allowing that word to spread. Before contracts are even agreed and signed. I am committed now, the Rubicon is crossed!
Edward berated himself but there had been no alternative. He had sensed Isla being attacked and could not stand by and let it happen. Morlich had the impudence to look him up and down before looking away. Edward kept his free arm behind his back, fist clenched.
Hold hard, Lieutenant Ravenscroft. Keep your discipline.
“My brother has business in London. We will return to Strathmore by and by, I’m sure. We certainly are not running,” Isla said.
“Aye, I’ve heard the Duke is setting a trend in home decoration. The empty house-look,” Morlich scoffed, his Scottish accent coming through even as the fire in his eyes burned hotter.
Isla stepped forward. “I bow to your superior knowledge of such feminine arts as that. And you can bow to mine about horses.”
Edward felt a surge of pride which he quickly quashed. It was a razored riposte and it put Morlich on the backfoot.
She certainly is magnificent. A ferocious warrior … but what man wants a ferocious wife. Entirely unsuitable.
A laugh soared up from the circle. “Perhaps you’ll take a mount and instruct us.”
“I might,” Isla said coolly. “If I were not already in the habit of winning my arguments.”
The fellow’s grin sharpened. “Bold words. Shall we give you the Row to prove it?”
Edward stepped in, seeing the attention being drawn to the argument, the curious eyes settling on them like flies on a midden.
“The lady is not your entertainment.”
“Nor yours,” Isla said under her breath.
“You are creating a scene that will get back to your brother,” Edward whispered.
“Let it,” Isla responded, taking her hand from his arm. “You are not yet my master and will not be even when we are married.”
She addressed Morlich. “I will ride your best into the Serpentine and back.”
“Side-saddle?” Edward asked pointedly.
“If necessary, I manage.” Isla said with insouciance.
A little crowd had begun to thicken much to Edward’s disgust. Idlers scenting sport, matrons already frowning. Edward felt the trap spring open. A few minutes more and there would be a dozen mouths to carry the story to a hundred ears.
“Lady Isla,” he said, pitched low. “No.”
She looked at him with a spark that could have lit the powder magazine on a frigate.
“Are you my jailer or my intended?”
“Both, on alternate hours.”
“Then choose like a man,” she said crisply,
A young man from Morlich’s company who had been leading a horse over, heard and laughed like a braying donkey.
That does it. Beat to stations. Enemy in sight.
Pride, which he kept like a dog on a short lead, tugged hard enough to snap the rope.
“Very well,” Edward said, “if there must be a lesson, I prefer it given by a master. The race will be contested by three of us. That gives you another opportunity to lose, Morlich.”
He turned to the nearest groom.
“Bring me a gentleman’s saddle and a lady’s. The black gelding and the bay mare.”
Coin changed hands with a jingle. The mounts arrived breathing lightly, ears pricked.
“You will not,” Isla said, “ride the chestnut. He has a trick shoulder. I can handle him better.”
Edward knew horseflesh but he had not spotted that. He narrowed his eyes, watching the approaching animal.
“I will take your word for it and trust you are not deliberately giving me the slower mount.”
Isla’s grin brought dimples to her cheeks and melted Edward’s discipline. He had never craved a kiss more than at that moment.
She is wild. Too wild to be a Duchess. I must take care that our arrangement remains one of convenience only.
She gathered her skirts, swung into the side-saddle with the ease of a woman who had learned before she was tall enough to reach the stirrup leather. Edward mounted his own mount, settling as if he had grown there. The murmur round them lifted a key.
“To the rail,” someone called. “And back by the lime trees!”
“Once,” Edward said, “no more.”
His blood was rising, heart pounding. Morlich was also mounting, putting himself forward as the champion of the callow youths. Edward didn’t care. He was looking at Isla who had tossed her bonnet aside and unpinned her hair. He only wanted to beat her. Nothing else mattered.
She shook a mane of bronze curls free and gazed back at Edward, wild and free. Color rose in her cheeks and her eyes shone, crackled as though home to lightning.
“Once,” Isla agreed, breathless and as beautiful as the dawn.
They took the line together then moved off at a canter that turned to a gallop in a breath.
Wind tore the neat edges of London away.
Edward felt the old taut joy, a body and a creature in single purpose, the ground coming fast and the heart steadier for it.
Isla came level, then ahead, her back straight, hands quiet, the side-saddle no chain at all.
He gave the gelding his head and pressed on.
The crowd’s cry thinned behind them to a ribbon of sound, the lime trees leapt forward.
At the post Isla let the mare have one more length for the joke of it, then sat her back and brought her out easy, laughter in her breath.
Edward pulled alongside a heartbeat later, chest rising.
They turned together. Applause and cheers met them.
Isla won handily. Edward finished a half-length behind her.
Morlich arrived a handful of seconds later.
It might as well have been an hour. Edward sat on his horse, gazing at Isla who beamed at the bows and hat-doffing from Morlich’s companions.
She slid to the ground lightly, triumph in every line of her.
She looked to where Morlich had thrown his reins to a groom and was stalking away.
“I will be sure to take your card and suggest to my brother your expertise in home decoration, Your Lordship,” Isla called after him.
Edward dismounted, feeling the jubilance of victory already melting away.
We were fools. A race in the Row and this Morlich chap now with an even bigger grudge. What was I thinking?
Isla looked at him and his expression cooled her ardor.
“Half of London saw us,” he said.
“Half of London cannot ride,” she said, still breathless. “Perhaps they learned something.”
Edward did not smile. “They learned to talk. You are to be my wife in a fortnight; you will not give the town a new chapter before we close the last.”
The rebuke hit. She straightened, collected herself, let her glove settle over her palm like armor.
“Very well. Scold complete.”
She glanced past him at the little circle dissolving already into gossip and wagers. “I am not ashamed of riding as I was made to ride.”
“Nor I,” he answered, softer. “But I am ashamed of forgetting where we were.”
“You should not be ashamed for indulging in a passion,” Isla said.
“I am not.”
“Then horse-riding is not a passion?” Isla asked.
“It is a past-time.”
“One in which you invest time and heart. I saw the way you groomed that horse in your stables. With love and care.”
Edward could not deny it but did not want to concede to her.
He walked in silence, hands clasped behind his back.
The truth was that he had never felt more alive than that moment in which he cast off Ravenscroft and indulged in the simple pleasure of riding.
Nor had she, for that matter. Even now the bright energy that had made her so alluring seemed to fade, as though his dourness had brought the real world crashing down on her again.
As it should be for both of us. We bear the weight or it crushes us. Ignoring duty does not help.