“Entertain away. As long as I have a few good hunting and fishing companions, I can always manage to avoid the rest of the company if they prove too tedious.” As he was speaking, they walked around the animals being walked about the courtyard.
“What do you think of this one?” he asked Gillian of the black horse snorting and pawing the ground.
The groom holding the animal spoke up before giving Gillian a chance to reply. “Oh, he’s a high-spirited fellow, but you’ll get sixteen miles an hour outta ’im once you’ve got ’im well broken in…”
“He’s not broken in?” Gillian asked.
As the groom continued listing the selling points to Gillian, Sky walked around the animal. He bent down and examined his knees and fetlocks, then went to his hindquarters. When he felt the animal’s hock and cannon, the horse fidgeted.
“You take it easy,” the groom spoke to the horse.
Straightening, Sky asked the groom, “Has he ever thrown a splint?”
“Naw, me lord, never!”
Sky touched Gillian on the arm. “Come, let’s see what they have in the stables.”
“But guvner, this one here’s the finest you’ll see today. He’ll be up on the block soon.”
They left the man talking and entered the stalls.
“You didn’t like him?” Gillian asked curiously.
“The groom was lying about him. That horse has clearly had some injury near his hind cannon.”
They ignored the hunters and matched pairs and concentrated on the riding horses. Gillian liked a high-stepping bay mare. Sky kept going back to a gray gelding.
“He’s a beauty,” agreed Gillian, smoothing down his forelock. “Aren’t you?” she asked, directing herself to the horse.
“We’ll see how he performs,” Sky said, watching her fondness for the horse. She had an affinity for animals, and the tenderness in her manner drew him. Her skin was so soft he craved to reach out his forefinger and touch her cheek, but he didn’t know how she would react. Her embarrassment over his mention of their wedding told him she wasn’t ready to face the physical aspects of marriage. It was understandable. She was a young lady, probably as innocent as a babe. He’d have to be patient and initiate her into the ways of a man with a maid gradually.
“Shall we stay for the auction?” he asked.
She turned to him with an eager smile. “Oh, yes. I haven’t been to one since Papa passed away. Will you bid for this one today?”
He shook his head. “Likely not. There’s still time. I just came to look around today.”
“You must have been quite a whip in your London days,” she said in a teasing voice as they continued along the dim, straw-strewn passages of the building.
He smiled. “Yes, I was a member of all the clubs…the Four-in-One, the Jockey, the Whip…Edmund and I would compete against each other. Our favorite pastime was bribing the jarvey of the stage to let us have a go at the reins. We’d start out at the White Horse and ride neck-or-nothing between London and Salt Hill.
“We’d come roaring into the inn, our horses in a lather, all of us caked in mud, our poor rooftop passengers hanging on for dear life. It’s a wonder we didn’t break our necks. Father would be livid when he’d find out. But Edmund would just laugh and tell him it was nothing he hadn’t done himself when he was young, and Father would have to admit the truth of that.” Sky sobered, remembering his brother’s end.
“I never thought it would be a coaching accident that would get my brother.”
“Were you and Edmund close?” she asked softly.
“We were only a year apart.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Not anymore. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade.”
“Why didn’t you come back to London in all those years?”
He shrugged. “There was nothing for me here once my mother passed away.”
Before she could ask him anything more personal, he said instead, “Enough about me. Tell me instead how a young lady would ever have been inside a place like Tattersall’s. I imagined you with the typical upbringing.”
She gave him a saucy smile. “What is that, may I ask?”
“Oh, a French governess until you were about twelve, then off to Miss Something-or-Other’s fine establishment on the outskirts of London. You’d see your parents on the rare occasion until your come-out….”
She laughed. “How did you know? And what about you? Your boyhood, let’s see…” She put her finger up to her lips, pondering. “Eton, then Cambridge, probably sent down a few times.”
“You can’t imagine how many,” he replied dryly. “I probably wouldn’t have graduated if not for a young lad I met in my last year at Eton—a brilliant fellow. Latin declensions rolled off his tongue with the ease of a Roman orator.”
“So, you were a lazy scholar.”
“I never believed in exerting myself over anything until—”
“Until?” she prompted.
He shrugged. “Until I made a bargain with Father. In exchange for his paying off my last gambling debt, I would go out to the Indies and take over a failing plantation. I told him I’d turn it around and make it yield a profit.”
“Did you?” she asked.
“Not at first. It took a few years longer than I’d anticipated.”
They walked back into the sunshine of the stone courtyard in time for the auction. Gillian became wrapped up in the bidding. When the black horse went for a hundred pounds, Sky shook his head and looked at the young buyer in disgust. “He wants a showy mount and doesn’t bother to look further than its appearance.”
After the auction, Sky returned Gillian to her house. Before helping her down from the carriage, he removed the small jeweler’s box from his pocket. “I got you this the other day. I was going to give it to you at the Prince’s fete, but now seems the best time.”
Her eyes widened in delight as she reached for the box he held out to her. “What is it?”
He smiled at her childish enthusiasm. “Why don’t you open it and see? If you don’t like it, you can pick out something yourself.”
She bowed her head over the velvet box and, with a flick, undid the tiny clasp. Inside lay the diamond-and-ruby ring. The ruby shone brightly against the white satin cloth.
He heard her sharp intake of breath. “It’s beautiful!”
“May I?” Before she could move away, he took the box from her hands and removed the ring. He held it
