Unbefitting a Lady (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

I
t was a promise Bram kept repeatedly in
the weeks that followed. Spring had proven true and Phaedra spent every minute
she could spare riding out with Bram. There were picnics by the river, swims in
the lake; they returned the boat and replenished the firewood on the beach.
There were rides along the forested trails of Castonbury and up into the
heather-covered hills. Always, the outings ended in the same way, with her in
his arms, their clothes atangle, their passion replete. Bram was a tireless
lover and an exciting one. Phaedra had not dreamed anything could be like
this.

‘It’s like flying across a field on Isolde, the wind in my
face, knowing no one can catch us, only better,’ Phaedra tried to explain one
afternoon as they lay on a blanket looking up at the blue sky, her head on his
chest.

Bram laughed. ‘I’m glad to know I’m a better ride than your
horse.’

Phaedra laughed too. She could always count on laughing with
Bram. ‘Why is it that everything is so easy with you?’ Phaedra traced an idle
pattern on his chest where his shirt fell open. ‘You don’t need dances and
manners. Why can’t it always be like this? No pretensions, no
complications.’

Bram’s hand caressed her hip in a familiar manner as he
thought. ‘I don’t want anything from you that you’re not willing to give.’ There
was sense in that. Giles and Aunt Wilhelmina wanted things from her she was not
willing to commit.

‘May I assume from your comment that things are not “easy”
elsewhere? How are things at home? How’s Aunt Willy?’

The way he said it, as if he had great familiarity with her
family, when in actuality he’d not met any besides Giles, made Phaedra laugh
again. ‘
Aunt Willy?
I dare you to call her that to
her face.’ She could just picture the shade of red her aunt would turn if
someone called her that.

Bram shrugged beneath her. ‘I’ve been calling her that in my
head for some time now. Seems natural enough. It will be our secret name for
her.’

‘Secret name or not, she’s awful. Aunt
Willy
is obsessed with her party plans. I’ll be glad when the party
is over.’ The gala, as her aunt insisted on calling it, would be futile. She
wasn’t interested in anyone but Bram. ‘She and Giles are probably up at the
house right now deciding who I’m going to marry.’

‘Any news from Captain Webster? Still nothing?’ Bram asked
tentatively. It had been two weeks and nothing had materialised from the
incident at the lake. They were starting to feel safe, or at least safer.

‘Nothing,’ Phaedra affirmed drowsily, letting the sun work its
magic. There would be nothing better than falling asleep with Bram. The only
thing that marred her happiness was the reality that it was finite. This affair
with Bram would have to end and her happiness with it.

She was living on borrowed time as it was. Warbourne had come
down with a minor bout of lameness in his left leg, not uncommon when a horse’s
diet changed from winter grain to fresh spring clover. But it had put her off
mounting him and continuing his training. As soon as Warbourne was healthy,
she’d have to decide on a departure date for Epsom. She had no illusions Bram
would be there when she got back. Tom Anderson had fully recovered and was able
to take over his responsibilities.

‘You’re a million miles from here, Phaedra,’ Bram prompted.
‘Thinking about Warbourne? He’s fine. I checked on him this morning. You should
be able to mount him tomorrow.’

Phaedra sat up slightly. Bram would be surprised to know she
thought about him more than she thought about her horse these days. She didn’t
want to think about tomorrow or any of the tomorrows that were to come. They
would only be one step closer towards heartache. ‘What about you?’ Phaedra said
playfully. ‘Are you fine?’ She slid a leg over his hips and straddled him with a
knowing smile. ‘I’d like to mount you today.’

Bram grinned up at her, banishing her worries. ‘Me today,
Warbourne tomorrow. I’m moving up in the world.’

Phaedra reached a hand between them to stroke his member where
it rose against her. ‘You certainly are.’

* * *

‘I’m losing her.’ Giles pulled back the heavy fabric of
the curtains, watching Phaedra and Bram lead their horses into the stable yard
as dusk fell over Castonbury. They didn’t look like a groom and his charge. They
looked, well, they looked ‘together’. That disturbed him greatly.

Lily came to stand beside him, a soothing hand at his arm.
‘You’re not losing her, Giles. She’s just growing up, finding her own way, as we
all do.’ She’d come up earlier in the day to help Aunt Wilhelmina take care of
some details for the gala and he was glad she was here. Her presence was a piece
of calm, an anchor, in his very chaotic world.

Giles shook his head, unwilling to accept Lily’s verdict. ‘He’s
not the sort she should be finding her way with. I regret hiring him. My only
consolation is that Tom Anderson is up and about now. I won’t need Basingstoke
any longer.’

He’d made a mistake when he hadn’t asked for references. He
knew nothing of the man except that he was good with horses and a handy man in a
fight. For a temporary worker those qualities had seemed enough. But Giles had
seen the way Basingstoke had looked with Phaedra. There were other things too,
when he thought about it. They had ridden out on several occasions Giles knew
of. He’d thought nothing of it. He’d been thankful Phaedra was following
protocol at last and riding with an escort. Now, he wasn’t so sure that was the
safest course of action, the two of them alone out in the vast Castonbury
lands.

Lily smiled up at him. ‘You’re a good brother to worry about
her but she’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not a good brother. I’m a man, and I’m remembering what
you and I got up to on our rides.’ He and Lily had gotten up to plenty but
that
was different. He was a man of honour. He was
going to marry Lily. More than that, he
loved
Lily.

Giles hugged Lily to him and returned to his desk where mounds
of paperwork awaited him. Phaedra confounded him.

He knew how to lead men through the bloody fray of battle but
what did he know of shepherding young women into adulthood? Of helping them make
matches that would see them well-settled and happy with a family of their own?
That was women’s work. Women instinctively knew how to arrange these things. He
hoped Aunt Wilhelmina’s party worked. More than anything, he wanted Phaedra
settled and fast.

Phaedra needed a husband to protect her, a husband who
understood her as well as the ways of the world. She didn’t need a
fortune-hunter or a man who would use her for her connections. What she didn’t
need was the handsome likes of Bram Basingstoke, a no-account bounder with
nothing to his name but his good looks.

Giles picked up a report and tried to focus. It was good news,
he should be glad. Finances were starting to stabilise but other things at
Castonbury were more unsettled than ever, primarily Alicia’s claim that she was
his brother’s widow and this child of hers the rightful Rothermere heir.

Giles spread his hands on its polished surface. Alicia had been
all that was patient and kind since her arrival in the fall. He doubted he would
have managed the protracted situation with as much
élan
if it had been him. But then again, the cynic in him spoke, she
could afford to be patient. She had a roof over her head, a very nice roof too.
The Dower House was no mere cottage, and she was playing for high stakes: a
dukedom.

Giles started through the reports, glossing over the first two
which he was already familiar with. He hated thinking of Alicia ‘playing for
stakes,’ as if he’d already decided she was a fraud. But the implausibility of
the marriage was ever at the fore of his thoughts. The timing fit but Jamie knew
his duty. A whirlwind war romance was
not
his duty
no matter how pretty the chit was.

Giles couldn’t fathom Jamie doing it and Alicia had on occasion
fed his doubts with a few little ‘slips,’ things she’d said or done that seemed
out of place, like that bit at Kate’s wedding. One way or another, her situation
had to be decided.

For himself, he’d never coveted the dukedom for his own, but he
did care for his family. Harry could take care of himself and Kate was settled
in Boston with Virgil. But Phaedra was young. She’d been raised to privilege. If
his father died and Alicia’s son inherited, who knew what would become of
Phaedra. Phaedra was not entitled to anything the new duke did not want to give
her and that included the stables and her horses. That was why Phaedra needed a
husband.

‘You’re worrying again,’ Lily said softly from her chair.
‘You’ve been looking at that same sheet paper for the past twenty minutes.’

‘Of course I’m worrying. What will Phaedra have if Castonbury
betrays her? My father won’t live for ever.’

‘She’ll have us, Giles,’ Lily answered simply. ‘Family doesn’t
change even when circumstances do.’

Lily was right. As usual she’d seen to the heart of matter,
looking past the peripheral issues. That was why he loved her. But it still
couldn’t hurt to have a word with Bram just to be sure.

* * *

Bram stepped out bare-chested into the stable quadrangle
and took a deep lungful of the fresh morning air. It wasn’t supposed to be like
this, beautiful mornings, days filled with the satisfaction of hard work,
passionate nights, even passionate afternoons. If life got any better, he’d
think he’d died and gone to heaven, the one place his father had assured him he
would never go.

Bram sought out the pump and doused his head with a healthy
gush of water. He’d be dirty by the time the day was over but he’d at least
start clean. It had been six weeks since he’d come to Castonbury. He should be
tired of Phaedra by now, tired of his little rustic sojourn. He should be elated
that Tom Anderson was back to work. It meant he could leave. Indeed, he’d
probably be asked to leave any day now. That had been the agreement.

Only he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to return to being
the idle Bram Basingstoke whose days were fundamentally useless. More than that,
he didn’t want to leave Phaedra. Not yet. He was sure a time would come when he
would want to leave; it always did with his affairs.

He reached for his towel and began drying, his eyes looking
past the stable yard to the rows of paddocks and beyond to where the heather was
starting to show some colour against the land, his mind fixed on the business of
the day. It was either think of that or think about how many precious days he
had left. There was no doubt about it though, those days were numbered.

Bram shook his head free of the last of the water droplets and
draped his towel about his neck. Today would be a perfect opportunity to
exercise the more vigorous mounts who didn’t do well constrained to the riding
arena and the turn-out paddocks. The boys wouldn’t mind. Everyone was feeling
spring in their bones, even him.

Spring had made him reckless. He’d let his intrigue with
Phaedra grow, something he’d not expected. He had a weakness for a pretty face,
to be sure, but it was a short-lived one easily satisfied and overcome after a
period of regular association.

Like many things in his life, pretty faces could only hold his
attention so long. Phaedra and horses had proved to be the two exceptions in a
long list of items that conformed most disappointingly to the standard of
brevity. Both of them were also likely to cause him trouble. He could leave and
get away with his masquerade. But Phaedra and Warbourne kept him rooted here in
spite of his gambler’s common sense.

He was also rooted by a disturbing sense of honour that hinted
at deeper emotions. Phaedra may need him yet. He could not walk away while the
situation with Captain Webster lay unresolved. He would not let Phaedra face
that danger alone. In this case, Giles would be of no protection. Giles Montague
couldn’t shelter her from things he didn’t know about. If he and Phaedra chose
not to tell Giles about the incident, Giles could not stand between Phaedra and
Samuelson’s threats when they came,
if
they
came.

A loud whinny from the riding house drew Bram’s attention. That
was unmistakably Warbourne.
She hadn’t waited.
Bram
reached for his shirt and tugged it over his head in a hurry. Phaedra would be
foolish enough to mount that colt alone. Visions of Warbourne tossing Phaedra
and stepping on her in his rebellion urged Bram into a run.

He wasn’t too late. The horse was saddled and prancing under
the weight but Phaedra had things well in hand. Bram eased himself into the
shadows of the doorway. He would be there if she needed him. He watched, body
tensed with expectation, as Phaedra approached the colt and swung up in a fast,
fluid motion. She was seated before the colt began to shift under the unfamiliar
weight, the reins tight in her hands for control, her heels jammed down in the
stirrups for balance.

Warbourne turned in circles but Phaedra was in command, her
words floating across the arena in snatches. ‘You remember this, don’t you, boy?
You know how to take a rider.’ On it went, the soft pattern of her voice, the
rigid control of her feet and hands at his neck and sides, until she had him
patrolling the arena in a collected trot. Bram laughed to himself. He’d been a
fool to have worried.

Bram stepped out of the shadows, careful to wait until she
brought the colt to a halt. He didn’t want to take a chance that Warbourne would
spook. ‘I don’t think I could have done any better.’

Phaedra tossed him a smug smile and urged Warbourne towards
him. ‘That’s high praise indeed.’ She brought the horse to a halt. ‘Things will
happen fast now. I’ll take him down to our training track and see what his
reaction is to being outside. As soon as that’s settled, I can do some race
training.’ Bram noticed the singular reference. She was determined to do it
alone. He’d have to change her mind about that. Warbourne wasn’t a horse one
rode alone.