His Lordship's Filly (2 page)

She looked Haverly’s way again.
He
was
a good-looking man—tall and dark, with a hawkish nose and eyes of sparkling black. Strange how when he’d clapped her on the shoulder that odd feeling had run through her—a kind of excitement almost. Something like she felt when she was galloping Waterloo, exulting in the raw power between her tight-gripped knees, something like that— and yet different.

But Lord Haverly wasn’t a horse. He couldn’t be trusted like a horse could be trusted. He was a man—with all a man’s wants and failings.

She leaned her head against the stallion’s fragrant warm side. “I’m being silly about this,” she whispered. “His Lordship’s come to look at the horses. That’s what we sell, after all. Horses—nothing more.”

Chapter Two

“Well,” Andrew said later that evening when Peter joined him at a table at White’s. “You were quite right. Durabian has some really prime stock.” He sent his friend a knowing look. “You might have warned me, though.”

Peter dropped into his chair with a grin. “You mean warned you about Bridget?”

Andrew snorted.
“Of course I mean Bridget. Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

Peter chuckled, his eyes mischievous. “I take it your famous smile didn’t melt her.”

Andrew grimaced. “Melt her? Indeed not. Nothing would melt that ice maiden.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Peter reached for his glass of wine. “I’ve seen her with the horses. She’s another person then, warm and loving.”

Andrew straightened in suspicious disbelief. “Good Lord, Peter, you’re not—”

Peter shot him a sharp look. “No, I’m not in love with her. As you know, if and when I marry, it’ll have to be to money. And I’d never seduce Bridget.” He grinned again. “Even if I could. Now you, you’re the one who brings beautiful maidens to their knees. Always have.”

“Don’t be asinine.” The idea of Bridget on her knees to a man was ridiculous. Besides, since he’d taken over Thomas’s duties as marquess—or more accurately had them pressed on him—his previous behavior did seem frivolous. “With looks like that she’s far more likely to seduce
me.”

Now what had made him say such a stupid thing? He was the head of his family. He had no time for dalliances with stable maids. And he was certainly not the sort to take a maiden’s innocence. He limited his female forays to the lightskirts whose business it was to serve male needs— and who had no innocence left to lose,

“So,” Peter said, picking up his wine glass, “did you acquire some new horseflesh today?”

“Not yet. But I thank you for the tip about Durabian’s place. There’s a bay colt there I have my eye on.”

Peter nodded, his eyes twinkling. “Just so it isn’t a particular filly.”

Andrew caught his meaning immediately. “I doubt any man will ever tame Bridget. So I guess I’ll follow your lead and treat her like a man.”

“Yes.” Peter sighed deeply. “But that would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if she didn’t insist on wearing those leather breeches!”

* * * *

Frowning, Victor Durabian watched Bridget put the stallion through his paces. The girl was getting too pretty for her own good. He was worried about her future—a girl like that alone in the world.
He wasn’t going to live forever. If only he could find a good solid husband for her. He shook his head. Even if he could, Bridget wouldn’t be having any husband.

He turned away. He had other problems to occupy his thoughts. Too bad Haverly hadn’t found a horse he wanted to buy. A hundred pounds would come in mighty handy about now. He kept his creditors more or less paid up, but there was the matter of his racing IOUs. As he’d told his Lordship, he knew the dangers of wagering on the horses. But he just couldn’t seem to stop. And he’d been losing too much, too often, lately. The blacklegs, the bookies, were all right. They wouldn’t take his bets anymore without the money up front. It was the other wagers that were bad, the ones he’d made on the side, the ones he’d given IOUs for.

The holders of his notes had not yet put him in prison for the simple reason that once there he couldn’t raise any money. But they wouldn’t be patient forever. He had to do something, and do it soon.

Too bad he couldn’t sell Waterloo. Haverly would buy the stallion in a shot. But Bridget would never stand for it. And he’d given the girl his word.

It was a puzzle, it was. If he sold the stallion, the girl would hate him. And if he didn’t sell, he might be carted away to prison. Bridget could never run the stables alone. She knew enough—she knew as much, maybe more, than he did—but men wouldn’t deal with a girl, even one who knew horses.

He straightened his shoulders. Maybe tomorrow’s race would be different. Maybe this time he’d pick a winner. If he could get some money together to bet.

* * * *

Three days later Andrew decided to go back to Durabian’s. He wanted to tell the man to save the bay colt for him and to give Durabian a bank draft as a down payment. But it wasn’t just because of that. He wanted to see the stallion—and his rider—again.

So he had Sable saddled, the stableboy sweating profusely as she shied about. Finally he had to go calm her himself. The ride into the country was pleasant in spite of the filly’s skittishness. The trees were just coming into full bloom and everything had the fresh clean scent of spring, but even as he held the prancing filly in check, Andrew’s thoughts raced ahead.

What was there about the strange girl that kept bringing her back into his mind? True, she had a kind of natural beauty, even in those awful male clothes, but he had seen—indeed, had been with—many beautiful women. Perhaps it was just her unusual occupation that intrigued him. And the stallion. That stallion would stay in anyone’s mind.

It was midmorning when he turned Sable in at Durabian’s gate. The Irishman came hurrying out to greet him. “Milord! I didn’t expect to be seeing you so soon agin. And ye brought the filly. How grand!” He turned an expert’s eye to the horse’s flanks. “Aye, they weren’t lying about the fine lines she has.”

Andrew swung down and hooked the reins over his arm. “Yes, I’m quite pleased with her. I believe I made a good choice.”

“That ye did, milord. That ye did!” Durabian ran a hand over the filly’s gleaming withers. “Oh, she’s a real beauty.”

He turned toward the stables. “Bridget, girl, get out here and see his Lordship’s filly. She’s a rare sight.”

The girl came out, wearing the same leather breeches and the same expression of cold disdain. But when she saw the filly, her expression changed. “Oh Papa! She’s better even than they say. Look at her beautiful eyes!”

“Oh, you wonderful creature!” She drew the filly’s head down and blew softly into her nostrils. When the horse whiffled in return and moved nose to nose with the girl, Andrew stiffened in amazement. Where was the high-strung creature who shied off at the mere approach of a stranger?

Bridget finished communing with the beast, who now stood docile, all her skittishness vanished. “She’s a lovely horse,” she said, her glowing eyes meeting his gaze. “You’re a lucky man to have her.”

“I know,” Andrew said humbly. And basking in the light of her smile, he felt himself indeed fortunate.

“I hear she’s a good racer,” Bridget went on, laughter coming into her eyes. “Would you care to have a try against us?”

“No thank you,” Andrew replied. “I’ll happily concede that the stallion’s the faster of the two.”

She smiled again. Two smiles from her in as many minutes. How lucky could a man get?

“But perhaps you’d like to give her a run,” he went on. “Alone, that is. She’s feeling the fine weather and I kept her reined in on the way here.”

Bridget started to reach for the reins then drew back. “I—-I don’t know, milord, she’s your horse and—”

“I’d appreciate your doing it.”
He kept his voice normal. “Peter says you can handle any horse alive. And I believe it.”

She didn’t smile at him again. In fact, she lowered her head as though the compliment embarrassed her. But the mention of Peter seemed to have reassured her. “Well then, I’ll just take her once around the track.”

She led the horse off, and Andrew, watching her go, wondered how he could ever have thought this bewitching creature a boy.

The girl swung up, and Andrew swallowed. Peter was right about those infernal breeches. They made it deucedly hard for a man to think of their wearer as just another fellow.

“I can’t believe it,” he said to Durabian. “I had quite a time taming that filly. Took me days before I could get her confidence. And there your girl has her eating out of her hand in mere minutes.”

Durabian chuckled. “She has
a way with horses, Bridget does. They trust her right off. Too bad she ain’t that good with people. She’d do better if she weren’t so prickly.”

The Irishman’s smile turned into a frown and Andrew wondered idly what was bothering the man. Then his attention was again taken by the girl. She sat the filly like an extension of the animal, horse and rider moving together in one easy motion.

The beast pranced a little, eager to let loose, and the girl dropped a hand to her glossy neck, obviously soothing her.

“I can’t get over the way she rides,” Andrew said.

Durabian filled his pipe. “I had her in the saddle afore she could walk. Tied her on an old mare. Only way I could keep her from crawling round ‘tween their hooves.” He lit the pipe and took a big draw.

“She ain’t never had no fear. Not even when she should’ve. I had a bad stallion once—meanest creature I ever seen. Kicked a couple stableboys just about into the next world. Bridget were about ten at the time. I come out one morning and seen her asleep in his stall.” He shook his head. “The big devil like to kill me afore I could get her to wake up. Then she just looks at me, sober as a magistrate, and says, ‘Papa, let me handle this.’ And then she did.”

“Where’s the stallion now?” Andrew asked idly, his gaze on the girl and horse racing round the track in one smooth flowing motion.

“Sold him,” Durabian said, “to yer friend Lord Peter, in fact.”

For a moment Andrew forgot the girl and the horse. “You don’t mean—”

“Aye,” Durabian said. “I mean Diablo.”

Andrew shook his head in bewilderment. “But that stallion’s the best-mannered animal around.”

“Course he is,” Durabian said complacently. “Bridget had the fixing of him.”

Andrew resumed watching the girl. “Perhaps I should give her Sable to train.”

“As ye wish, milord. I don’t know what it is, but Bridget’s got the gift. She trusts horses and they trust her.”

She came off the track then, swung down, and began walking the filly, speaking to her soothingly. At last, judging her cooled down sufficiently, she led her back to Andrew.

“She’s a real beauty, milord. And well-trained, too.” A hint of mischief crossed the lovely face. “She’s a little on the flighty side, but she’s got a good heart. And she tells me you’re a good master.”

Andrew straightened. This was too much. “She what?” Bridget laughed—pure tinkling notes of pleasure. “Really, milord, you ought to shut your mouth. With it hanging open like that you look rather foolish. The horse doesn’t
talk
to me, not really. But all I have to do is look at her. Her mouth. Her coat. And her eyes. Her eyes are happy.”

For once in his life Andrew was left speechless. He knew how to converse with elegant ladies and not so elegant ladies, though with the latter he didn’t do much talking. But he had no idea how to speak with a girl who dressed like a man and yet looked more desirable than any woman he’d ever met. And whose only topic of conversation appeared to be the life and times of horses.

Chapter Three

Several weeks later Bridget paused in working a colt and frowned, uneasiness stirring the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
It was a lovely morning, clear and bright, but something wasn’t right in the stables.
It wasn’t with the horses, though. She could sense when something went wrong with one of them. This was something else, some uncomfortable presence close by.

The colt pricked up his ears, staring toward the lane. And then she saw why. Wichersham was riding up. His horse looked tired, poor creature, and though she couldn’t see its eyes from this distance, she knew they would hold the beaten look she’d seen there before. Wichersham, for all his fine clothes and fancy manners, was a rotter. A bad master, a bad lord—a bad man.

Why had he come out to the stables today? Months ago Papa had taken one look at his mount’s drooping ears and dragging tail and refused to sell him any animal in the stables. And that was before this business over Peter’s vowels. Papa was fond of Peter. So was she. And neither of them thought it right for Wichersham to try to send Peter to debtor’s prison.

She liked Peter’s friend Haverly, too, though somehow not in the same way. He was fun like Peter, and she found she could joke with him and talk horses, but there was always that little something different that made it hard for her to entirely relax in his presence. And always in the back of her mind was the thought of that first day, the day that he’d touched her.

He hadn’t touched her again. She was glad of that, of course, that was what she wanted—not to be touched again. Yet she felt a little shiver of curious disappointment. Had she imagined that strange feeling of excitement or would she feel it again if he—

“No!” Papa’s voice carried clear across the paddock. She looked up and saw him glance hastily around. She couldn’t hear any more, but she knew he was angry. The whole set of his body proclaimed it. He was angry at whatever Wichersham was saying to him.

But strain as she might, she couldn’t hear another word of their conversation. She forced herself to concentrate instead on the colt she was training. Papa would deal with Wichersham. He knew the man. He wouldn’t let him do them any harm.

Maybe Haverly would be coming round to the stables today. She hoped so. Strange, why should she think about him? And why should she get a picture in her mind of his lean dark face? She tried to push it away and concentrate on the colt—a frisky one who wanted off the long line to go play with his fellows in the pasture. “Not now, boy,” she told him. “Work first, play later.”