“No.” Actually, her father had sold many of the ducal horses some two months earlier, clearing out t
he once glorious Chambers stables before he’d known about Douglas and his offered bounty, before he’d known he’d need more than Douglas’s bounty to save Claybourn.
“You’re wearing a riding costume, though it is not new nor is it even in last year’s style. I may assume then that your esteemed blackguard thief of a father sent you away with at least enough clothes to cover you until you could wheedle some more out of me?”
As a verbal blow, it showed promise.
“I don’t know. I had not thought about it.”
He actually snorted and she heard an answering snort from one of the closed stalls. “That’s Garth,” Douglas said absently. “So you don’t think about furbelows and ribbons and flounces—”
“Certainly, when it is necessary to do so.”
“I cannot imagine Melissande not wanting lovely clothes and furbelows and all those other things you females clothe yourselves in to attract males and make fools of them. Why would you be any different?”
“Melissande is beautiful. She needs beautiful things and admires them and—”
“Ha! She doesn’t need anything. She would look glorious in naught but her white skin.”
As a verbal blow, it exceeded the last one.
“Yes, that is also true. What do you wish me to do, my lord?”
“I wish you to leave and turn all this damnable debacle into a nightmare from which I’ll awaken.”
It was difficult, but Alex remained standing straight, remained with a fixed pleasant expression on her face, forced herself not to scream at him or make fists or fall to her knees and wail. “I meant, do you wish me to ride Fanny or ride another mare or not ride at all?”
Douglas shoveled his fingers through his hair. He stared at the small female who everyone had informed him was indeed his wife. She looked pale in the shadowy light but that back of hers was as straight as if she had a broom handle bound tightly against her backbone. Her hair was tucked firmly up under a rather dowdy riding hat. One long tendril had come loose and was in a loose curl on her shoulder. The hair was a nice color, rather an odd dark red color, but it didn’t matter one bit. It could be blue for all he cared.
She was a complete and utter stranger, this female.
He cursed, long and luridly.
Alex didn’t move an inch.
“Oh, the devil! Come along, you may ride Fanny and I will judge if you ride well enough to continue mounting her.”
Mr. McCallum, fifty, wiry, strong as a man of twenty, baked brown from decades in the sun, and married to a young widow of twenty-two, was standing outside the stable giving orders to a stable lad when the earl and Alex led their mounts outside.
“Good morning, my lord.”
Douglas only nodded at him. As far as he was concerned, McCallum had betrayed him, giving this cursed female Sinjun’s mare. As had that accursed bounder cousin of his, that damnable Tony who deserved to be shot, and his own butler, Hollis, as well.
“Her Ladyship has a nice seat and light hands,” McCallum said, unknowingly stoking the embers of Douglas’s fury as he stroked the horse’s soft nose. “Ye needn’t worry that Fanny will suffer from any bad handling.”
Douglas grunted. Who cared if she were cow-handed? He didn’t. Indeed, who had bothered to care about him? No one, not one single bloody person.
He gave Alex a leg up, then turned to mount Garth. The huge stallion, left in his stall to eat his head off for two weeks, snorted, flung back his head, and danced to the side, all in all, giving a fine performance.
Douglas laughed aloud with the pleasure of it. He spoke to his stallion, patted his neck, then without a backward glance, he urged him into a gallop.
Alex watched the stallion and the man for a moment, then said, “Well, Fanny, perhaps we should show him we’re made of firm stuff and not to be left to choke on his dust.”
She gave a jaunty wave to McCallum and followed her husband down the long drive bordered with thick lime and beech trees, now full-branched and thick and riotously green.
Douglas was waiting for her just beyond the old stone gatehouse. He watched her ride toward him. His expression didn’t change. McCallum was right. She rode very well. It pleased him only to the extent that she wouldn’t hurt Fanny’s soft mouth. He merely nodded at her, and click-clicked Garth into a gallop. He took a fence into the northern fields of Northcliffe, watching from the corner of his eye as Alex gave Fanny her head and easily took the fence after him. He pulled up finally at the edge of the winding narrow stream that had been one of his favorite haunts as a boy.
When she pulled in Fanny beside Garth, Alex looked about her, and said with pleasure, “What a lovely spot. There is a stream much like this one on the Chambers land. When I was a little girl I spent many happy hours there fishing, swimming—though the water was usually too low for anything other than just thrashing about and getting thoroughly wet—all in all, having a wonderful time.”