dawn yesterday, to hide her usual saddle in the boot.
“I thought Papa’s guard would never leave us, you know. Berengaria must be itching for a run as much as I am,” she commented as she stopped outside the stables, allowing Jacob the face-saving gesture of ordering one of the ostlers to fetch the mare.
“Not a run, Miss Morgan,” Jacob said, for once looking as if he meant what he said. “You said you wanted to ride right out in front of the coach for a ways where we could see you, that’s all. There’ll be no runs, or else—”
“Don’t say any more, Jacob,” Morgan warned cheerfully, “because we both know how difficult it would be for you to carry through on any threat.”
Not caring who saw, because Morgan never cared a snap for what anyone else thought of her as long as she was happy with herself, she raised her arm and draped it around Jacob’s shoulder, then leaned her head against him. “Ah, Jacob, we aren’t children anymore, are we? Isn’t that incredibly sad?”
He turned adoring blue eyes on her for a moment, then quickly put some distance between them, his heart aching. “We could go back, Morgie. We don’t have to go on. You don’t need no London gentlemen to be looking at you, pawing over you. You know I—” He stopped, appalled at himself for almost saying the words. “That is…you shouldn’t have to do anything makes you unhappy, Miss Morgan, so if you want to turn back to Becket Hall, I—”
“Oh, Jacob,” Morgan said, hating herself for upsetting her friend, who only meant the best for her. But now, almost overnight, she was Miss Morgan, not his playmate, his cheerful nemesis, and the sudden transition was proving troublesome for both of them.
She would be a terrible person, indeed, to make the situation even more difficult. “Please stop apologizing, Jacob. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m horribly selfish, and I’m mean. What’s worse is that I know I am, and I still behave so badly to people who certainly don’t deserve such treatment. But, truth to tell, and only between us, I’m nervous, too. I don’t want to disappoint everyone who believes I’m going to have such a brilliant Season.”
Jacob’s slow smile was Morgan’s first warning that she’d almost talked herself into behaving. “Then you’ll ride into London in the coach?”
She jammed her gloved fists against her hips and glared at him. “Jacob Whiting, when did you get so smart? What do you think you just did?”
“I handled you? Well, almost,” Jacob said, his smile fading as he realized perhaps he’d been just a tad too proud of himself. “At least that’s what Mr. Courtland called it. ‘She seems heartless, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly, not on purpose,’ he told me, ‘so just fold on under like a blanket on a bed, and she’ll come around and stop her nonsense.’”
Morgan tried to raise a wave of anger, but found that, try as she would, humor was winning out. “I’ll kill that stick of a brother of mine,” she declared without heat, and then began to laugh. “Oh, Jacob, I don’t know which of us is the worse. You for being so truthful, or me for being so bad. And here I am, going from worrying Papa and my meddling brothers to yet another meddling brother. Why do men think they are here to protect us fragile females? How I long to be in charge of my own life.”
“There’s many who’d say you already are,” Jacob said, his smile wide as he felt that, just this once, he’d had the final word with her.
“Not really, Jacob, but I soon will be, I promise you that. Starting now. That ostler’s taking forever. What do you say we saddle Berengaria together?”
Jacob shook his head. “No, Miss Morgan,” he said, suddenly very serious. “I know my place, and you have to be learning to know yours. You just stand yourself there and be a lady while I go take care of Berengaria.”
“Yes, Jacob,” Morgan said with mocking obedience, lowering her head so that she could look up at him from beneath her dark lashes. “I’ll be very good, I promise.”
Jacob sniffed. “And I’ll be very quick, because you won’t be very good for very long.”
Morgan watched him go, idly tapping the riding crop against her gloved hand, and wondered if perhaps it was time to stop teasing Jacob as if they were still children. He’d almost said something they would both regret forever. He didn’t love her, not really. But he might think he did, and that would be too bad, because her affection for him was real, but quite different in nature. She could never be in love with Jacob. It was much too easy to control him.
Feeling rather ashamed of herself—yet unable to help rejoicing that she would get to ride Berengaria into London, which had been, after all, the point of the entire exercise—she turned on her heel and began to stroll around the yard of the country inn. Perhaps someone would see her in her lovely new riding habit and be impressed all hollow. She’d like that, and it would be a good omen perhaps, a hint of how she and her wonderful new wardrobe would be received in London society.
Except, she realized, frowning, she was very much alone, save for a man just now leading his mount into the yard. No, not leading the stallion, for the reins were loosely tied up on the saddle. The horse was following him like a faithful hound, not looking at all subservient, but more as if he accompanied the man only because it pleased him to do so.
Morgan laughed out loud at the sight, then concentrated her attention on the animal.
The stallion was magnificent. Beyond magnificent. Nearly white in the sunlight, its hindquarters dappled-gray, with a thick silvery mane that flowed to its shoulder, and a proud tail that nearly skimmed the ground.
Not a huge stallion, although the chest was fairly massive for its size, which had to be between fifteen and sixteen hands. Probably closer to fifteen. The ears were small and perfect, and when the horse turned toward her, as if aware she was admiring him, Morgan saw huge, intelligent eyes in a finely shaped head with a slightly convex nose.
Without a thought to convention—something she was definitely unaccustomed to considering at the best of times—Morgan set out across the yard, calling out to the man as she neared, “What a beauty!”
CHAPTER THREE
ETHAN TANNER LOOKED TO his right at the sound of the female voice, and was quick to agree. A definite beauty. He watched, caught between amusement and fascination, as the young woman advanced toward him, walking with the confident, long-legged stride of a man, except that she was most amazingly female.
Lush. Tall, but far from angular. The breeze whipping through the inn yard all but plastered her divided skirt against her long thighs with each step she took, clearly delineating them, and Ethan unexpectedly felt a familiar stirring.
He continued his inspection of this exotic beauty whose appearance was so at odds with the current fashion, which centered on petite, blue-eyed blondes.
Her nearly black hair was brushed sleekly back from her head, probably twisted into a knot at her nape. God, he hoped so, because a man should be able to see that dark silk tumbled over her bare breasts and back before he lowered her onto his bed. The green shako hat was set at a provocative tilt on her forehead, while a thick, sleekly curved lock of almost shoulder-length hair caressed the creamy ivory skin of her flawlessly beautiful face.
She came closer, and Ethan’s inspection continued unchecked by any thought he might be staring like some starving fool with his nose pressed against the pastry shop windowpane.
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