uncle’s estate.
“A twit, then,” he said.
“No, a twit is even worse than an idiot. I won’t have either of them. It’s true,
isn’t it? You are probably used to having to turn ladies away.”
He cocked his head to one side and studied me a moment. I looked at my
reflection in his boots again. I looked both cold and slightly arrogant. He said
finally, his voice slow and thoughtful, “That is ridiculous. You don’t know what
you’re talking about. You are just trying to rile me. When I first saw you in
Hyde Park, I wanted to meet you.” He shrugged and looked past me. “There was
something about you that drew my interest. I recognized you were in deep
mourning, but I promise you, there was never a wicked thought in my head. Then,
to my surprise, you couldn’t wait to get away from me. You were rude. I remember
wanting to smack you, but I couldn’t, not being a gentleman. No, I bided my time
until I saw you again. But it didn’t matter, none of it.”
He turned away to walk farther down the paddock, gave a light nearly soundless
whistle, and Tempest raised his great head and snorted. He trotted up to John
without hesitation and butted his shoulder. If he had done that to me, he would
have knocked me into the dirt. John just laughed and continued to stroke Tempest’s
nose. He said over his shoulder, “It wasn’t until the third time I spoke to you
that I finally realized what was wrong. For some reason I still cannot fathom,
you were and still are, afraid of me.”
It was like a blow to the middle. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t, and so I said, “That’s
utter nonsense.”
“I believe it to be true, but who cares why now? None of it matters. You are my
uncle’s wife.” He then turned to face me and said in a very deliberate voice, “If
you rode my horse and he managed to kill you, then at least I wouldn’t have to
see you again.”
“Once more. In my casket.”
“I want to know why you married my uncle.”
Amelia called out to me.
I walked over to pat Tempest’s nose. He leaned toward me, well aware that I was
doting on him, and I hugged him as best I could with John in the way.
“I’m leaving,” I said, and climbed down from the paddock fence.
“Why, damn you?”
I said over my shoulder, “Amelia asked me the same question last night when she
took me to The Blue Room. It isn’t any of your business. If you have such a
consuming curiosity, ask your uncle.”
I saw the surge of black violence in his eyes, then it was gone, once again well
controlled. I wouldn’t want to be his enemy in a battle. I saw the pulse in his
throat, throbbing. He was angry. Well, it wasn’t my fault. He said finally, his
voice as hard as those bars would have been when they’d covered The Blue Room
windows. “Evidently you’re not afraid of men in general, since you married my
uncle. Or is it just old men you don’t fear?”
“Shut up, damn you.”
“Ah, have I hit upon something here?”
“You could not hit that barn with a magnification glass.”
“Riled you, have I? Hit you right between the eyes. Ah, yes, here you are three
months later, my dear step-auntie, married to my damned uncle, a man certainly
more than old enough to be your father. Why did you do it?”
“Go away. No, I will. Good-bye.”
He said nothing more until I picked up my skirts and trotted toward Amelia, who
was holding the reins of the sweetest-looking chestnut mare I had ever seen. I
heard his laughter, the bastard. I patted her mare’s nose, gave her a carrot
that one of the stable lads passed to me, and never once considered looking back
at John. I focused all my attention on that sweet mare. “You’re a love, aren’t
you,” I said. “What do you think of Tempest? Would you like to gallop with him?”
“No, Buttercup wants nothing to do with Tempest. I saw you patting him, Andy.