A Prince Among Men (10 page)

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A
lexander heard her light, quick steps before he turned and saw her. He could see the shimmer of her dress where the silken cloak opened in the front, and under the hood he caught a glimpse of something shiny coiled on her dark curls. She stopped when she saw him. A deep rose gown warmed her skin. Ropes of pearls at her throat, gathered with gold filigreed clasps, echoed the delicate ivory lacework of her narrow, dipping bodice. He was muddy and tired and too pleased to see her.

When he'd first wakened to rain on the stable roof, he had told himself a day without her was a relief, yet every hour he'd wondered if she would come, if she'd make some excuse to leave the house. When his work was done, he'd occupied himself with a few extra chores better left to the stableboys, even though it was folly to hope she might come down to see her horse. He should have gone back to the tailor's shop to work on his plans for Trevigna.

Then her note had come, asking him to wait for her and prompting all sorts of improbable speculation. Her name was on the tip of his tongue. In the dim and drowsing stable, she was like a bright, flickering flame.

"Am I keeping you from your fellows at some tavern?" she asked. Her breath came out in a bright vapor.

"What do you want?" He lowered his gaze to her feet, too tempted by her in her finery. He realized the riding habit, while elegant and fashionable, was a heavy garment. In silks, she was a winged creature—firefly, moth, night fairy.

"I want you to take me to Hetty's."

"Not a good idea."

"No one will know I've gone. My parents believe Jasper's calling for me at ten, but I'm meeting him later. I'm free." High spirits and raw energy radiated from her. She seemed to have lost all sense of caution.

He raised a practical objection. "I can't put horses to a carriage for you."

She glanced along the stalls. "Take me on Raj. No one will care if you take Raj out."

He had an instant image of the intimacies riding her in front of him would allow and a wave of heat swept through him. "No."

"No?" She stiffened, looking puzzled and annoyed.

He had to make her think about what she was doing. "How did you get out? Who knows where you are?"

"No one knows, that's the beauty of it. Jasper trusts me. He told me to take my groom wherever I was going."

"I won't take you, Ophelia."

She stared at him, frowning in concentration. "Why are you doing this? You're not my father or my brother. You know there's no true impropriety in my going to Hetty's."

The desire to take hold of her was very strong. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn't prepared to explain his reluctance. "I let you go in the mornings because you bribe me, Ophelia."

"So much for ideals, then. Must you have another bribe?"

She asked the question carelessly, expecting some demand on her purse or her friendship. He couldn't answer. He suddenly knew exactly
what he wanted from her. Her reckless mood infected him. He craved the chance to hold her against him as they rode through the dark, his arms about her ribs, his face in her hair.

The air around them pulsed with unseen energy.

"If you won't escort me, I'll go on my own." She spun toward Shadow's stall and whistled softly. The mare stuck her head over the stall door and whickered.

Alexander reached out and snagged Ophelia's elbow.

She looked at him over her shoulder. "You can't stop me."

He didn't want to; fool that he was, he wanted to go with her.

Chapter 6

R
ain dripped from the eaves, horses blew softly in the row of stalls. Slow footsteps sounded from the grooms' quarters above them. The late hour, the silence, altered things between them. They were two ends of a rope that must snap, impatience and restraint.

Now,
she wanted to shout.
Go, now, before anyone comes.
Only the expression in his eyes held her, a serious, measuring look. He was cautious, patient, thorough, always moving with the horses in mind.

She would not persuade him. Then his eyes lighted with a reckless glitter that made her giddy. He released her elbow. "Wait here," he said through his teeth.

His footsteps on the stairs sounded with exaggerated loudness in her ears. She was glad for the moment apart. A shiver of strange exhilaration passed through her, the excitement of escaping, the shock of getting her way. She had stepped outside the boundaries that defined them as servant and mistress, and he had followed her. Not that she could not ask him to
accompany her. To be in service was to be subject to the jingle of a bell at any hour. But to aid in her escape without a bribe—it made them almost friends. She ran a shaking hand up and down Shadow's nose, promising the mare a good run in the morning.

He returned, wearing a coachman's greatcoat that made her stare.

"I don't want you to get muddied riding in front of me."

He saddled Raj with quick, tight motions, and no more speech, not even as he lifted her to an awkward perch across the lip of the saddle and Raj's withers.

She tried to settle herself, grabbing hold of Raj's mane, but Alexander swung up behind her, his weight tipping her body into his. It was a subtle alteration of the balance of wills. His will, not hers, would move them through the night.

His breath brushed across her cheek, a teasing gust of warmth. His arms closed around her, his hold on the reins tight.

In the yard Raj broke into a skittish prance, a clatter of hooves that roused an answering whinny from Shadow. Ophelia's left shoulder bumped against Alexander's chest with each jerky step. At the contact his muscles tensed.

"You're making Raj uneasy," she said.

"You make me uneasy," he answered in a tight voice.

She twisted a bit so she could look up at him and felt him suck in a breath. Raj tossed his head, sidling and fighting the bit, drawing Alexander's attention. Ophelia felt the play of muscle in his thigh as he relaxed to the movement of the horse.

He brought Raj to a steady walk in the alley along the high wall at the back of the Searle House garden. "Do you ever follow the rules?"

Ophelia sat up straight, opening a gap between her shoulders and his chest. She wouldn't be corrected by him again. "There's no real impropriety in going to Hetty's."

"What about riding through the streets of London like this?"

His meaning was unmistakable. He meant this closeness between them that made her exquisitely conscious of every place their bodies touched. The friction of it spread a melting heat through her limbs.

"I
t's dark. No one will notice us.
"

Unexpectedly a cat hissed and leapt from the wall above to a shed roof and to the ground, a gray blur bounding across their path. Raj shied, and Ophelia clutched Alexander's arm for balance. The muscle bunched under her hand.

She tapped his arm as if she could ease his taut hold on the reins.

"Don't," he said in a choked voice.

"Then please, loosen up on Raj."

They came out of the dim lane into the lights of the street where a row of carriages lined the sidewalk approaching Marchmont House. Link boys stood about with torches, horses blew steamy breaths into the night air, and glittering passengers descended with the assistance of liveried footmen. In the darkness the muddy puddles became shimmering pools of light reflecting the gaiety of the scene. When they got beyond the crush and noise, Ophelia spoke again.

"I keep the little rules regularly, so I can break
the big ones when I need to.
"
She wanted him to understand her. Society exercised its subtle tyranny over you, and you broke the rules when you could. Society didn't want you to be free or different. Society didn't want you to acknowledge anyone outside the inner circle.

"
You don't care what happens if you're caught tonight?'' he asked.

"I won't be."

"Won't someone at Miss Gray's recognize you as Lord Searle's daughter?"

"I'll be plain Miss Brinsby there, a school friend of Hetty's. No one will notice."

A short syllable of derision was his answer. "In that dress?"

Ophelia fell silent.

A stiff breeze blew, scattering the last of the clouds, exposing the cold, bright stars. The chill air washed over Ophelia, and she couldn't help pressing closer to Alexander. He made a low noise in his throat. His body tensed, then yielded a hollow for her to nestle in.

After a while his voice broke their silence. "I'm surprised your parents sent you to school."

"My mother didn't want the inconvenience of a
governess
and dancing master underfoot." Ophelia had no idea how to explain her mother's lack of interest in her children. One by one Sebastian, Jasper, and Ophelia had gained her notice as they'd entered society. Even then, Ophelia was most interesting to her mother as an object to dress. Acquirin
g sufficient bosom for décolle
tage
had been the best thing Ophelia had ever done, in her mother's eyes, and could she manage to grow another two or three inches, she
would please her mother even more.

"At school your parents couldn't keep you from the humble Miss Grays of the world." Alexander sounded perplexed.

"They didn't know about Hetty until Solomon published our book."

"You wrote a book?" His amazement was hardly complimentary.

"Hetty and I did." It had been a long time since she'd thought about their book and the dreams that had gone with it. "Is that so difficult to believe?"

He laughed. "When did you sit still to write it?"

"I can sit quite still when my mind's engaged."

He shifted in the saddle, and she realized that her left hip was wedged against his loins. To squirm or wiggle or attempt to defy force of gravity would probably only call attention to their intimate situation. Ophelia held still.

"What was the book about?" he asked.

She waited. It was important that he not laugh. She didn't tell these things to Ayres or Haddington or Dent. "The ideal state of man."

"What did you say that was?"

She tried to see him in the dark. He didn't sound mocking, only interested. "Free and equal, like horses."

"Not a view your parents could accept."

"Oh, they never read the book. They merely disliked the notoriety of a young woman of rank putting her name to any work that circulated generally among the public."

He was silent a moment. They were beyond
Mayfair now, beyond the dark expanse of the park. Raj's hooves clopped steadily on the paving stones. Carriages rattled by in the opposite direction.

"How old were you then?"

"Sixteen. They took me out of school, issued ultimatums."

"
Forbidding
you to see Miss Gray?"

"Forever. So you see why I break the rules."

"She must be a good friend."

Ophelia caught herself. In this whole exchange she had been more open than she was with anyone except Hetty. She shrugged, twisting her hands in Raj's mane, seeking her own hold on the horse. "Hetty laughs at my humor," she said lightly.

The lantern in the Gray stable seemed bright after the darkness outside. Alexander swung down and led Raj to a stall A pair of stableboys looked up from their dicing, but paid no more attention. Alexander lifted Ophelia down.

Her feet touched the ground, but his hands clung to her waist. His eyes seemed to ask something of her, but that was likely a deception wrought by going from the dark to light.

"I should be back by midnight," she said. He still held her waist. "Thank you," she added. "I'll slip in through the garden."

"You can't go alone." He held her with his gaze. "I'll walk you to the door." His hands dropped away from her waist.

T
he Grays' Tuesday suppers had started by accident after a particular publishing success of one of Solomon's authors and had become a habit.

At the door of the book-lined rose drawing room, Ophelia hesitated. The arrangement of the chairs, the turn of the guests' heads, suggested not conversation, but a queen holding court. A woman with golden curls around a fine-boned oval face had drawn everyone's notice, and Ophelia guessed she must be Mrs. Amelia Hart. If her beauty was the first impression, a closer look showed a porcelain coolness of the skin, a detachment, a calculating gleam in the eyes, and absolute assurance.

When Mrs. Hart looked up, the others turned to Ophelia. She had entered salons, grand ballrooms, and the court, but always preceded by some functionary announcing her title to people too self-absorbed to look twice. In the eyes of Hetty's guests Ophelia saw that her evening gown was wrong, overstated. She was a wren in a peacock's plumage.

"Ophelia, you came, after all," said Hetty, rising with unimpaired cordiality to welcome her, as if her coming had been agreed upon between them. "You must meet everyone."

On round tables at the ends of a long sofa, coffee, wine, and cakes had been laid out. Hetty gave Ophelia a glance that said she expected an explanation and took Ophelia's arm to lead her around the room, introducing writers and scientists, a bookseller and an attorney. Ophelia nodded and smiled in a kind of daze. Hetty's friends were as warm and unceremonious as the Grays.

Mrs. Fenton, a slim woman whose wispy brown hair was escaping its pins, enlisted Ophelia's support at once. "Miss Brinsby, can you
help me? I'm defending our poets against all detractors.
"

Ophelia looked at a trio of cheerful faces, unable to see where an attack was coming from.

"Come, Edie," said a Mr. Archer. "You can't defend Wordsworth!"

"Not all his work, but there are some poems— help me, Miss Brinsby," she said.

Ophelia laughed. "The sonnets are good. The one on sleep?"

"There you are." Mrs. Fenton beamed. "He's never really good about politics, but
then…
"
Mrs. Fenton looked around at her audience. "What man really is? They must seize the dais and proclaim."

"Now,
Edie…
"

Hetty pulled Ophelia along.

"Which one is Berwick?" Ophelia whispered, and Hetty's glance shifted to a short young man with fair curls and self-conscious good looks. Ophelia smiled to herself as she realized he had modeled Azim after himself. He and Mrs. Hart stood apart at a side table, apparently conscious of a shared importance that the other guests lacked, Berwick speaking earnestly. Mrs. Hart, bored and not bothering to conceal it, toyed with the blooms in a tall silver epergne. Hetty made the introductions and drew Berwick aside with a question about his poem.

Mrs. Hart turned her scrutiny on Ophelia with a glance Ophelia knew, the glance of one rival measuring the other, though in what arena they could be competing Ophelia could not guess.

"It's a pleasure to meet a school friend of Hetty's, Miss Brinsby," she said, smiling as if to
encourage an awkward child. "Are you long out of school?"

Ophelia kept her countenance. "My school days do seem long ago, ma'am."

Mrs. Hart laughed a husky laugh. "I suppose last week seems long ago when one is young."

"Not so very young. I've been in society some time."

"And how do you find society, Miss Brinsby?"

"Necessary."

Solomon Gray passed them at that moment, carrying a decanter, and Mrs. Hart held out a glass for him to fill with amber liquid. Their eyes met with the familiarity of long acquaintance, Mrs. Hart's gaze mocking, Solomon's chagrined. Ophelia watched openly. She had never seen Solomon Gray bested in an exchange or embarrassed as he was in his famous guest's company. Mrs. Hart detained him with a light remark about the party.

When she could, Ophelia excused herself and pulled Hetty aside to the refreshment table. "Your father seems uncomfortable with Mrs. Hart. Is something wrong?"

Hetty followed Ophelia's glance and quickly looked away from her father and the novelist. Their intimacy seemed to bother her. "I don't know," she confessed. "How did you get here?" she asked, abruptly changing the topic.

"Alexander brought me."

Hetty's eyes widened at the daring of it. "How? Not in a carriage?"

"No, on Raj. I'm free."

Hetty frowned. "Can you trust him? How will you get back?"

"He's waiting for me in your stable."

"Who's waiting?"
Mrs. Hart had moved to their corn
er, and there was no way of knowing how much of their conversation she had heard.