Julia London (21 page)

“Is something amiss?” Michael asked suspiciously.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed a little too loudly.

He lifted a dark brow. “Is there another mount you prefer? Mr. Hanley informs me you have not ridden as yet and did not know if you had a particular favorite—”

“Desdemona will do nicely,” she said, nodding to emphasize she was quite fine. If only she could move her legs.

The stallion snorted with anticipation. “Abbey, if you are ready,” Michael said again.

She nodded, mustered all her courage—which wasn’t much—and walked purposefully toward the mare. She stopped and bravely stroked the mare’s nose, just as Lord Southerland had suggested.

“Be gentle, Desdemona,” she whispered, “and there will be a bucket of carrots at the end of the day.” Feeling the stableboy’s eyes on her, she walked to one side of the horse. Another young man appeared at her elbow and bent over, cupping his hands together. Abbey stared at him as if he were insane.

“Pardon, mum, but don’t you want a lift up?”

Abbey regained her composure and laughed lightly. Naturally she would have to get on the horse to ride it.

“Yes, of course.” She placed her foot in his cupped hand and gasped loudly when he vaulted her upward. It was a miracle that she landed in the saddle at all. She took a moment to adjust to the terribly awkward sidesaddle, feeling ridiculous perched precariously high on top of the horse as she was. She doubted she was sitting correctly, but fortunately, the thick folds of her habit concealed any glaring errors on her part.

One of the young men handed her the reins; she grabbed them hastily, gripping them with all her strength. The two young men exchanged a look before the older one spoke.

“My lady,” he muttered quietly, “don’t pull so hard. Give the horse a little slack and she’ll do all right by you.”

Abbey nodded, then gave him a slight frown that suggested he might have insulted her by explaining something so fundamental. With her riding crop stuffed tightly under one arm, and her hands gripping the reins for dear life, she turned a serene smile to Michael.

“We are wasting daylight,” she chirped, but strangled on her words when the mare began to move. Smiling enigmatically, Michael reined in next to her.

“I think we’ve plenty of daylight. Why don’t you lead?” he suggested.

Abbey swallowed a lump of fear and gripped the reins even tighter. “Surely you would rather. Lord only knows where I would lead you.” She laughed nervously.

“Lord only knows,” he agreed with a chuckle, and kneed his stallion forward. “Follow me,” he called cheerfully, and cantered forward. Had the stableboy not slapped the mare’s hindquarter, Abbey might have sat in the drive until Michael returned from his ride. With a small shriek, Abbey grabbed the saddle horn and prayed for mercy as the mare trotted after the stallion.

They had not gone far when Abbey decided she had mastered riding. In spite of the constant jarring, it really was not so difficult. In her mind, she went over and over what Lord Southerland had told her.
Tug right to go right, tug left to go left. Rein in to stop, slack the reins to run. Do not let the horse know you are frightened, for she will surely take advantage of you
. The only real discomfort she experienced was the fear she would topple from the saddle at any moment given the odd way in which she sat. With Michael in front of her, she managed to slide one leg awkwardly over the side of the saddle and let it dangle below her bunched habit. That position was much less comfortable, but it felt vastly more secure. She smiled happily to herself before tentatively testing her heels in the mare’s side. The mare lurched forward and Abbey was soon bouncing along next to Michael.

“You ride well,” he said when she caught up to him. Abbey smiled in response and cautiously reached up to adjust her slipping bonnet. “I’m surprised you found the opportunity to ride with so much time at sea. Where did you learn?”

Abbey laughed. “Oh, here and there … catch as catch can. One must seize opportunities when one is handed them,” she said in a very confident voice. “You know,
carpe diem
, that sort of thing.”

Michael rolled his eyes. Carpe diem, indeed! She was bobbing along atop a fat old nag like apples in a tub of water. Had his good friend, Alex Christian, the Duke of Southerland, not
laughingly explained their encounter in the stables, he might well have had Black Widow saddled for her. He wanted to wring her slender neck for not telling him but had determined a little lesson was in order. Fortunately, the nag she was on could be trusted to do nothing faster than waddle. He glanced down at the shapely calf and booted foot that hung uncomfortably across the lip of the sidesaddle and swallowed a lump of desire.

There was at least one other lesson he wanted to teach her.

They rode along at what Michael thought was an excruciatingly slow pace for over an hour. Samson chomped at his bit to be given his head, but Michael held him tight. Abbey looked exhausted. Her bonnet had long since fallen behind her, and wisps of mahogany hair fell from her pretty coif. She still had not released her death grip—one hand on the saddle horn, one on the reins.

A cool breeze had picked up strength, and thick clouds were beginning to form above. A storm was coming and Michael decided it was time to turn back, but not before he had one last laugh at her expense.

“See that great oak just ahead?” he asked. Abbey peered ahead and nodded. “What say we race for it?” He had to turn his face so she would not see his smile at her look of horror.

She studied the tree for a long moment, then looked down at Desdemona. “I—I think Desdemona is tired?” she said hopefully.

“Hardly. Desdemona
loves
to run.”

“She does?” she asked in a voice gone from hopeful to hopeless.

Michael could not suppress a grin. “Come now, on my mark,” he called to her, and bent over Samson’s neck.

“Ready … set … 
go
!” he shouted, and spurred Samson forward, giving him free rein. He heard Abbey’s shout behind him, and when he reached the tree, he yanked Samson around, instantly doubling over with laughter at the sight of Desdemona walking along with Abbey on her back, shouting furiously.

“Did you do something to my horse?” she demanded angrily when at last she reached him.

“Certainly not! That was Desdemona’s top speed,” Michael choked through fits of laughter.

Abbey’s eyes narrowed. “You
knew
!” she shrieked.

He dismounted and caught Desdemona’s reins when she flung them at him. Michael’s sides began to hurt with laughter as she flung a string of very unladylike oaths at him and slid, or rather rolled, from the horse’s back. He caught her when her legs buckled on impact.

“Abbey, you should have told me,” he said when he at last caught his breath. “You could have been seriously hurt. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because,” she said stubbornly.

“Because?”

Abbey avoided his gaze and glanced to the meadow. “I thought you would not want to go if you knew,” she said softly.

Michael felt an uncharacteristic rush of elation. So she
had
wanted to go with him! “No, Abbey, I would have driven you in a carriage,” he replied sincerely.

Abbey’s violet eyes grew wide with a spontaneous hopefulness he found enchanting. And bothersome.
Bloody hell
.

“Why did you never learn to ride?” he asked leading her to the oak.

“I never had the opportunity. In Egypt I rode a dromedary, and I thought
that
skill would lend itself at least in some small way to a horse’s back. In Paris we took carriages. In Amsterdam boats were the preferred mode of travel. And in Virginia, well, we had a mule that would occasionally agree to having someone on his back, but only under extreme duress.”

Michael laughed. “I will teach you to ride.”

“If you are sincere, Darfield, I want to learn to ride like you. That contraption you call a saddle is positively from the Middle Ages!” she said, gesturing wildly toward Desdemona.

Michael removed his coat and laid it on grass beneath the tree. “I will teach you to ride sidesaddle, bareback—any way you want.” He sat on the grass and leaned against the tree
with his legs stretched and crossed at the ankles, peering up at her.

The look in his eye made Abbey nervous.
Three months
, she told herself. “The clouds are thickening. Do you think we should linger?” she asked, looking up at the sky. Michael unexpectedly grabbed her hand and yanked her down. In a
whoosh
of woolen turquoise skirt, she landed next to his muscular thighs.

“We have plenty of time.” He slid a hand around her nape and pulled her toward him, brushing his lips across hers in slow, deliberate movement. Just as she feared, the familiar warmth began to spread through her. Self-control was leaking out of her. She would have been lost altogether had not the thought
three months
popped into her mind. She jerked away from him and sat back on her haunches.

“That’s not at all how it’s done!” she snapped irritably, for lack of anything better to say.

“I beg your pardon?” Michael’s surprise twinkled enticingly in his eyes.

“It’s simply not done that way!” she insisted. Certainly Galen had not kissed her like that, nor had she ever felt weak in his arms as she did in Michael’s. Not that she had exactly ever been in Galen’s arms, really, but had she
been
in his arms, she was quite convinced it would not have compared to this.

“Exactly how is it done?” he asked.

Abbey avoided looking into his gray eyes and being pulled into their depths. She plucked a blade of grass. “Not like that!” she mumbled.

“You speak with the authority of a woman who has been kissed many times, Abbey,” he teased.

She blanched at the insinuation and pulled several more blades of grass. “All right, Galen did not kiss like that!”

Michael arched one brow over the other. “Galen? Who the bloody hell is Galen?”

“Indian Ocean,” she said lamely.

Michael suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her closer,
pressing his lips to her palm while his other hand anchored her to him.

“Did he kiss you like this?” he murmured, and lightly brushed his lips across hers. The tingling sensation swept down Abbey’s spine again.

“No,” she said stubbornly, and because it was true. Galen’s kiss was planted on her lips. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Michael chuckled low in his throat. “Did he kiss you like this?” he asked, and brought her bottom lip in between his teeth.

“N-no,” Abbey said shakily.

Michael dragged her across his lap, splaying his fingers against her neck and jaw while his other hand traced a soft line down her spine.

“Then perhaps it was like this,” he said as he gently pressed his lips to hers.

“Y-yes. That’s it. That’s how it is done,” she agreed in a daze.

Michael looked at her violet eyes, wide and a little glazed. Desire raged through him like wildfire. Everything he had told himself, every caution his mind could dredge up, was tossed aside like the blades of grass that fell from Abbey’s fingers. “If this Galen had the opportunity, I can assure you he would have kissed you thus,” he said, and swept down on her, his lips pressing gently at first, then insistently as his tongue probed her lips and the soft recess of her mouth. With his hand on the small of her back he pressed her into him. Her hands traveled slowly up his rock-hard chest, across every taut muscle. When she twisted on his lap, he groaned deep in his throat, and when she timidly touched her tongue to his lips, Michael went wild.

He plunged his tongue into her mouth again and again in seductive rhythm. She met him there; her tongue dueled with his and, finally, slipped into his mouth. Michael moved his hands slowly up her sides until he splayed his fingers against her breasts. Abbey did not object; when he cupped her breast
and squeezed lightly, she sighed softly into his mouth and sent him reeling.

He tore his mouth from hers and pressed his lips against the swell of her breast beneath her clothes. Abbey instinctively threaded her fingers through his thick hair as Michael swiftly unbuttoned her blouse. He cupped the soft, pliable mound of flesh before gently pulling it free from her chemise and molding the hardening peak between his thumb and forefinger. Abbey gasped, and when he lowered his head to swab it with his tongue, she jumped.

“It’s all right,” he murmured as he took her full info his mouth. Abbey clutched at his shoulders, her fingers digging into his muscles, unconsciously lifting her breasts to him. Her breathing grew ragged; his own desire was mounting at an alarming pace. If he did not stop now, he never would. With sheer determination, he tore himself away from her.

“We have to stop,” he muttered as he ran the palm of his hand over the peak of her breast.

Abbey pulled her lower lip between her teeth and looked at him with such seductive innocence that Michael came dangerously close to losing all self-control. He eased her off his lap and leapt to his feet, walking blindly into the meadow. He sucked in several deep breaths of the cool air before finally turning around. Abbey had buttoned her blouse and was sitting on her legs, watching him. Her coif, destroyed by the ride and the passionate kiss, was an alluring, tousled mess around her shoulders.

“You,” he said as he strolled toward her, “are too enticing for your own good.” He gracefully dropped down next to her.

“That doesn’t sound very good.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest in a casual embrace. Over the top of her head, he looked out over the meadow. “It’s not very good for me.”

Abbey wondered what he meant by that but did not ask. She was too swept up by the feeling of safety and comfort she felt cradled in his arms. Michael pulled a long stem of grass from the ground and began to chew contentedly. They sat in
silence for several long moments, each enjoying the cool breeze and the comfortable, quiet intimacy.

“Where did you go after you left the ship that summer?” he asked idly.

“To school. In Rome.”

“Is that where you learned to play the violin?”