Chapter 9 #2
What was it about a dark-haired, gorgeous, exceptionally fit man in tall boots that was so drool-inducing?
Peaches grasped frantically for any shred of self-control and sanity.
She didn’t want an English gentleman, she wanted a raw-food guru.
She didn’t want elegant dress shirts and tan riding breeches, she wanted a beard and Birkenstocks.
She didn’t want a meat-eating, horse-riding, heartbreaking nobleman she had no hope of even dating much less forming an attachment with, she wanted a spinach-eating, smoothie-slurping, wheatgrass-juicing guy who wouldn’t demand she produce patents of nobility when he picked her up to go find something vegetarian at the local pub.
And she especially didn’t want an elegant gentleman when he was that elegant gentleman.
She looked frantically for David, who, as it happened, was coming to her rescue.
She pasted on her most welcoming smile and took a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
So last night hadn’t gone all that well.
Today was another day. She didn’t smell like wet sheep, she’d had a decent breakfast, and her hair was completely thawed. Life was good.
And David was extremely good-looking, something she wasted no time in pointing out to herself.
His blond hair had just the right number of highlights, his jacket stretched over just the right breadth of shoulders, his tall boots had just the right polish.
Though he wasn’t exactly tall and muscular, he looked just the right amount of fabulous in his breeches.
In fact, just about everything about him was just right.
Not like that dark, brooding character standing over to the side, watching her from under his eyebrows and no doubt thinking critical thoughts about her.
She let David take her hand and was very happy that she didn’t feel flushed or nervous or unsettled. Yes, just and right were going to be her watchwords for the weekend.
David brought Irene along, which put a bit of a damper on her happiness, but if she couldn’t put up with a nasty potential-in-law or two, what sort of spine did she have?
“I was telling Irene,” David said, tucking Peaches’s hand into the crook of his elbow, “about your degree. It was something scientific, wasn’t it?”
“Organic chemistry,” Peaches agreed.
David laughed merrily. “I said it was something organic, but I thought at first you were talking about the compost for your garden.”
Peaches laughed, because it would have been rude not to, but she had the grave misfortune of realizing that Stephen was standing within earshot.
He had made that very same comment in just that same way, only then she hadn’t laughed.
She’d been utterly humiliated, then furious that he had been making fun of her.
She stole a look at him now only to find him watching her steadily, without expression on his face.
Well, apart from his general broodiness, as if he couldn’t stand to be where he was and couldn’t wait to be somewhere else.
“I don’t suppose that’s something you just write off for from one of those agricultural universities you have in the States, is it?” David asked, a twinkle in his eye.
Peaches suppressed the urge to squirm. Would this deviation from his just-rightness ever end? She managed a smile. “No,” she managed, “no, it isn’t. I got my degree from Stanford.”
“Well, that’s in California,” Irene said coolly. “No doubt you had ample opportunity to investigate all sorts of organic things there.”
“I say, it looks like we should be heading out,” David said, ignoring his sister. “Don’t want to get caught out in the weather.”
“The weather is already out there,” Stephen said pointedly from behind them. “A bit foggy for a hunt, wouldn’t you say?”
“Lest someone’s shots go awry?” David asked politely. “Yes, which is why I’ve decided to call it a perfect day for a ride. Then we’ll come in for hot drinks and a warm-up by the fire. I think it’s a brilliant plan.”
Peaches had several terms for the plan, but brilliant wasn’t among them.
But there was nothing to be gained by voicing an opinion, so she trotted along beside David, grateful to be away from both his sister and Stephen.
Maybe those two would find themselves thrown together and their separate nastiness would cancel itself out and leave them both slightly bland but easily endured.
Irene seemed to be happy enough to hang on Stephen’s arm, so Peaches left her to it.
She kept up a steady stream of silent, confident self-talk until she found that the path had ended and she was facing her doom. It didn’t look to be a very terrifying doom, but it was substantially bigger than she’d feared it might be.
“Diablo,” David said, reaching out to pat the horse on the neck. “Perfect for you.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Stephen said from just behind her. “Miss Alexander is a novice rider.”
David only smiled. “And Diablo is a gentle horse.” He handed Peaches the reins. “Up you go, love.”
Stephen took the reins out of Peaches’s hands. “Up she doesn’t go, Your Grace,” he said curtly. “That is too much horse for her.”
“I think I’ll be the judge—”
“And I think you won’t,” Stephen said, handing the reins to a groom.
Things didn’t improve from there. Peaches wondered if the two men would soon come to blows, but apparently one did not slug one’s host before lunch.
David finally swore and glared at Stephen. “Go look for a nag, then, and embarrass the girl. Here, Irene, you take Diablo and show His Lordship how gentle a lad he is.”
Peaches watched David’s sister take the reins and accept a leg up into the saddle.
Diablo didn’t buck David’s sister off, but his front feet left the ground half a dozen times before Irene wrestled him into compliance.
Peaches felt the sudden need to sit down.
She was very grateful she wasn’t currently trying to keep her seat on the back of that horse.
Stephen said nothing. He simply stood there with his hands clasped behind his back and watched David organize things.
Peaches was tempted to dash back into the house and hide behind Edwina’s very starched skirts before Stephen could say anything about other horses, but before she could, David turned and spoke to her.
Angels didn’t sing and the sun didn’t break through the clouds, but close.
“What?” she said, looking at him.
“I said, lovely boots,” he said easily.
“Yes, they are,” she began, but he turned away before she could say anything else.
“Let’s be off,” he announced to the general assembly as he strode with just the right amount of jauntiness to his horse, an enormous thing with just the right amount of energy. “The others will catch up.”
The company en masse started for their horses.
Well, mostly en masse. Peaches noticed a trio of gals who didn’t seem particularly eager to mount up and trot off.
They were the same women who had glared at her the night before, though they’d cast an equal number of unhappy looks Irene’s way so she’d thought little of them.
It occurred to her, though, looking at them out in the sunlight, that she’d seen them before.
It had been at Payneswick, though they hadn’t been in a group there. She had no idea who they were, but she could safely say she wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.
“Let’s go,” Stephen said.
Peaches realized he was talking to her and considered taking umbrage at his bossiness, but she was too busy being towed toward the stables.
She caught a gander of the small fight Irene was having with her horse and decided that whatever Stephen picked for her couldn’t be worse than that hell beast. She wondered if the little cluster of women still dragging their feet were going to tear each other to shreds, then saw she needed have no fear.
Once they seemed to reconcile themselves to the fact that she was the one walking with Stephen, a visible yet unspoken truce was struck and they turned as one to watch her.
She would have told them there was no need to be worried about her because she didn’t even like their guy, but she didn’t have a chance.
She looked at Andrea, who was standing ten feet away, watching the whole thing with obvious amusement.
She cast the only person she could reasonably call a friend a pleading look, but Andrea shook her head slowly.
Peaches decided she could either face the Dawdling Debutantes or ignore them. So she ignored them.
She followed Stephen, but not too closely. Those gals had riding crops and she didn’t want to meet the business end of them. She also didn’t particularly want to get up on a horse, but she had the feeling she wasn’t going to get out of it.
Stephen walked up and down four rows of stalls, soon joined by a man Peaches could only assume was the head groom.
He was either intimidated by Stephen—and that she could understand—or he was seeing if Stephen had any clue what he was looking for.
Stephen finally stopped, considered, then looked at the man.
“Miss Alexander has extremely limited experience on the back of a horse,” he said.
“How do you know?” Peaches said, before she thought better of it. She thought refraining from adding smarty-pants showed extreme self-control.
Stephen looked at her and raised one of his eyebrows.
Peaches wished desperately for somewhere to sit down—because the thought of getting on a horse was terrifying.
Yes, that was it. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way Stephen had reached out and was gently stroking the nose of that beast in front of her, or that small smile he flashed that self-same creature.
The man was nicer to horses than he was to her. That was surely reason enough to want to slug him, wasn’t it?