The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke (29 page)

“Good morning,” he said.

She started, and quickly picked up the letter she was reading and f olded it.

“What are you reading?” he asked absently as he strolled into the room, his eyes on her face.

Ava blinked, stuffing the letter into her pocket. “Nothing, my lord. Just a bit of old news,” she said, and looked at him expectantly.

He kissed her on the cheek. “You weren’t at breakfast.”

“Oh, did you breakfast here?” she asked, her voice light. “I thought perhaps you had ridden to breakfast with Lady Kettle.”

So Veronica had paid her a call as he’d suggested. “Not today,” he said with a smile. “I ate entirely alone. Again.”

“Hmm,” she said, and glanced away.

“I think it a perfect day for riding lessons, madam.”

She looked at the window and shrugged insouciantly. “I had thought to write some letters. I’ve not

written Phoebe in several days. She’ ll be desperate to know how I am getting on, of course,” she said, and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “And I’ve so much to tell her.”

What in God’s name was the matter with her? “That can wait.”

“Very well,” she said with a sudden bright smile, and abruptly stood. “I suppose I could spare you an hour or so.”

Spare him? She’d left him last night, and now she acted as if she’d rather be writing long and boring letters than spend time in his company . What in the devil was going through her mind? This wasn’t his usual experience with women —normally, they were quite eager to spend time in his company. “How very kind of you,” he drawled. “Thank you.”

Ava began moving purposefully toward the door. “Shal l I meet you in the foyer?” she asked, but she’d already sailed past him, was already walking out.

Jared watched her go, then put a hand to his nape and tried to work through what, exactly, went through

a woman’s mind at any given moment.

Fortunately, Sally was cleaning her room when Ava burst through the door, her pulse racing.

Not that Sally seemed to notice her exuberance, for she was quite cross. “Your Miss Hillier is quite the taskmaster,” she snapped when Ava entered the room. “She had the gall to waken me this very morning

and insist I clean your dressing room! At seven o’clock in the bloody morning! She’s not very kind, that one.”

“He’s insisted on a riding lesson,” Ava said, ignoring Sally’s protests.

Sally dropped the pillow she was plum ping and folded her arms over her middle. “What did you say, then?” she asked sternly.

“I said, ‘well sir, I have some letters to write, but I suppose I might spare you an hour or so.’ ”

“Brilliant!” Sally cried. “Perfectly well done. Now go and be as ch arming as you can possibly be. Lots of smiling and touching, and be pretty with your words.”

“Pretty with my words?” Ava echoed. “What do you mean by that?”

“Heaven help me,” Sally muttered to the ceiling, then leveled a gaze on her. “I mean that you should flirt, mu’um. Tease him and make certain that he feels quite the king. A woman must always appeal to a man’s ego, as it is every man’s greatest weakness.”

“Appeal to his ego,” Ava repeated as she hurried into the dressing room to change into a dark green riding habit.

“Try and keep in mind,” Sally said, stepping in front of Ava when she had changed and was hurrying out, “that you are reeling in a very big fish. He’s much bigger and stronger than you, so you must reel carefully

and evenly, for if you let the line go slack or pick it up too quickly, you’ll lose him.”

“You really do have a tendency to speak in metaphors, don’t you?” Ava asked as she grabbed Sally

’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“To speak in what?” Sally demanded, insulted.

Ava squeezed her hand again. “Never mind. I must hurry now,” she said, stepping around her.

“God blind me, have you heard a word I’ve said?” Sally called after her. “D on’t appear too eager!”

Ava walked slowly until she was out of Sally’s sight. But the moment she was clear of her, she hurried

down the corridor and the grand staircase, slowing again only when she could see the foyer.

From that point, she walked care fully down the steps, her posture erect, just as she used to do with

Phoebe and Greer, when they would practice walking down the steps with books on their heads in preparation for the day they would be queen. They never quite worked out the details of how they might become queen but, nevertheless, they would be prepared to don the mantle when the time came.

When she reached the bottom step, Middleton appeared from the corridor on the right. In his riding cloak, he looked large and forbidding, particularly with his gaze as intent on her as it was. “There you are,” he said quietly.

“Yes. Here I am!”

“If you are quite ready, then?” he asked, and held out his hand to her.

Ava put her hand in his, and cursed the tiny, enchanting little shiver of delight it gave her when he possessively closed his fingers around hers. “I must thank you, my lord, for taking time to teach me to ride. You’re such an accomplished horseman that this must be very tedious for you.”

“Not in the least,” he said, smiling charmingly, and led her out.

When they walked outside into the bright sunlight, Ava’s face fell. There on the drive was the brown

mare she’d seen Middleton ride with such fury. And standing next to her, an old, swaybacked chestnut. She had no doubt the old bag of bones was intended for her, but he looked as if he had one or two

hooves in the grave.

“Who is that?” she aske d, squinting at the chestnut, held by one of two stableboys.

“Bilbo,” Middleton said.

“He doesn’t seem very sturdy on his feet.”

“I assure you, he is. He’ll be gentle with you.”

She glanced at Middleton sidelong and thought the better of responding too p ertly to that.

“Where are

we going?”

“The west fields. They are fallow and level.”

Ava looked again at Bilbo, wondering if he could even make it as far as that. “Am I to ride him there?”

she asked, stepping a little closer to Middleton. “That was my inte nt.”

She instantly shook her head and stepped even closer to her husband. “Please, allow me to ride with you,” she said. “He’s so big and…” And old…! “He’s frighteningly big.”

Middleton put his hand on her waist. “You mustn’t be afraid.” He then looked at one of the young hands from the stable and said, “Bring Bilbo to the west fields. Lady Middleton will ride with me.”

With that, Middleton guided Ava to the mare and urged her to stroke the horse’s nose.

“You must be very careful,” he said to Ava. “She’s young and not fully broken.”

“Oh,” Ava said sweetly, “I’ll be very careful.”

He looked at her oddly, but then easi ly lifted her up onto the front of his saddle. He swung up behind her

and put one arm around her middle. “All right?”

“All right,” she sighed, and sank back against him. There was nothing quite like the security of being in Middleton’s muscular arms, his hard body at her back. Truly, nothing in the world felt quite as safe as that.

As they rode out, Middleton pointed out some of the cottages belonging to tenants who farmed crofts of

his land. And then he asked her how she found Broderick Abbey, if it was to her liking.

“Very much, my lord,” she said, although she really didn’t care for it in the least. It seemed too formal, too cold. “It’s very…large.”

He choked on his surprise. “It’s large? Is that all you would say of it?”

“No,” she said with a smile. “I might also say that it’s awfully cold at night,” she said, slanting a look at him. “There’s a bit of a draft.”

“A draft!” he said with mock indignation. “Then we must have the entire east wing brought down and put back up again.”

“I hardly think that is necessary. I should think a bit of grout, or whatever it is you stuff in cracks.” “Then I shall have a mountain of grout brought round. No crack will go unpunished.”

She laughed and tossed her head as Sally had suggested.

“Is there any way we might re pair the problem of the abbey’s size?” he asked playfully.

“I don’t think so. Better to leave it large than ruin its appearance.”

“Well, then…is there anything else I might do for you? Anything to make your time at Broderick Abbey easier?”

She shook her head and sank deeper into the curve of his arms.

He bent his head and touched his lips to the top of her ear. “It seems there is something on your mind of late, Lady Middleton. Something that, if I knew what it was, I might mend for you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Perhaps,” he said, his breath warm on her ear, “there is something about our arrangement that concerns you. If you tell me, I might repair it.”

All thoughts of flirting coyly flew out of her head. She sat up and turned so th at she could see his face. “ Something that you might repair?” she asked, incredulous that he might think a marriage, or an adulterous love affair, for that matter, might be fixed up with a bit of grout and plaster.

But Middleton nodded and gave her a pat ronizing smile. “You seem to be a bit out of sorts.” “How so?” she demanded.

He tightened his hold of her and pulled her back against him once more. “You have seen fit to dine without me. And you left me last night,” he said quietly. “And, furthermore, you didn’t seem to want to come along this morning.”

He had determined the rules, and now he would complain about them? How quickly she forgot Sally’s

caution to flirt and keep herself just beyond his reach. “All right, here you are: I thought we agreed we were suited for marriage.”

Middleton’s brows dipped into a frown of confusion. “We are suited, and we’ve set a perfectly acceptable arrangement —why aren’t you happy with it?”

Ava heard Sally’s voice in her head urging her to make light of it, to tempt his curiosity and leave him wanting more. And suddenly, perhaps for the first time, she saw the wisdom in Sally’s words. The man took far too much for granted. She smiled devilishly and inclined her head demurely. “Of course I am happy —how could I not be? Far too often, marriage seems to be the cause of much misery. But as we have come together as the result of fortune and standing, and not silly feelings of love or companionship,

or, apparently, even felicity, there is no reason we shouldn’t be happy. I da resay we shall succeed handsomely, for we’ve no particular attachment to one another…have we?” she asked, peering up at him.

“No,” he agreed, all too readily.

Her anger soared and her smile became brighter. “We should be very thankful, really, that we are so agreeable in this. The common marriage is much more complicated than ours. We shall suffer none of the uneasiness when we are apart. Or dream of one another .

No, my lord, we shall sleep quite soundly.”

He looked, she thought, far too agreeable.

Dear God, what had she done in marrying him? She turned away from him, sitting up, her back stiff, her body as far from him as she could possibly get on the back of that mare.

“What a lovely day! The air is cleaner here, I think. Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, but he sounded as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

Ava hardly cared—she was so flustered and angry she wanted to scream. It seemed almost savage that two people coul d come together and share such intimate and personal acts without feeling something

more enduring than the need to “repair” whatever ailed her with plaster or money.

When they reached the west field, she jumped down before Middleton could help her.

But when he dismounted and stood at his horse, looking so majestic and as if he didn’t quite know who she was, she couldn’t resist the feeling that was growing stronger in her each day. She could not look at him and not want to be with him. She couldn’t see the smile in his eyes and not yearn to win his heart and possess it.

So when he asked her to get on Bilbo, she complied.

She complained that she felt she was in a precarious position, but he smiled happily at her, melting her anger away with it, and told her she was doing marvelously well as he led her around a big circle like a child on a pony.

Yet he seemed so pleased that Ava might have gone on all day for the pleasure of his smile had not Lady

Kettle arrived, riding hard across the field, reining to a per fect stop before them.

“Look who’s riding!” she cried happily, and allowed Middleton to help her down from her horse by putting her hands on his shoulders and laughing when he caught her at the waist and lifted her down.

He said something to her that Ava did not catch, and kissed her cheek. Lady Kettle smiled up at him so beautifully that Ava’s heart clenched. She was in love with him. She could tell by the way her eyes

sparkled when she looked at him, and the blush in her cheeks when she smiled at him.

When she had quite finished drooling over Ava’s husband, Lady Kettle turned a bright and, all right, a

beautiful smile to Ava. “You are doing very well, Lady Middleton!” she said. “I knew you’d find

Middleton an excellent teacher!”

“Yes, he is,” Ava said, trying to seem completely unaffected. “Do you know that he taught himself to ride?”

“That’s hardly true,” Middleton said with a laugh. “I had many instructors when I was a young boy.”

“But you did,” Lady Kettle said, playfully grab bing his arm and turning her face up to him again. “Do you remember how we’d come up here to these very fields with that old gray, and you would ride round and round, practically falling off every time he swished his tail, until you could ride him with you r eyes closed?

”

Middleton laughed. “I suppose I do remember something like that. I am surprised you remember it as well, Veronica.”

Veronica.

Ava didn’t know what made her do it —maybe it was simply the use of Lady Kettle’s given name. Or the fact that her husband and Lady Kettle were laughing and reminiscing like lovers. Whatever the reason,

Ava chose that moment to ruin her ruse of not knowing how to ride just so that she might spend time with