Temper and mood were due to his failure to find a suitable bride. He’d accepted he should and had bitten the bullet; while in London organizing his inheritance, he’d applied himself to looking over the field. Once the Season had commenced, he’d assumed suitable ladies would be thick on the ground; wasn’t that what the marriage mart was all about? Instead, he’d discovered that while sweet and not so sweet young ladies littered the pavements, parks, and ballrooms, the sort of lady he could imagine marrying had been nowhere to be found.
He would have said he was too old, and too finicky, yet he was only thirty-four, prime matrimonial age for a gentleman, and he had no physical preference in women. Short, tall, blond, or brunette were all the same to him; it was being female that counted—soft, perfumed skin, feminine curves and, once they were beneath him, those breathy little gasps falling from luscious, parted lips. He should have been easy to please.
Instead, he’d discovered he couldn’t bear the company of young ladies for longer than five minutes; beyond that, he grew so bored he had difficulty remembering their names. For reasons he didn’t comprehend, they possessed no power whatever to focus, let alone fix his attention. Inevitably within minutes of being introduced, he’d be looking for an avenue to escape.
He was good at escaping. Or so he’d thought, until he’d met Miss Lydia Cowley and her gorgon of an aunt.
Miss Cowley was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, her aunt distantly connected to some Midlands peer. Jack had found little in Miss Cowley to interest him. He, however, had been of great interest to Miss Cowley and her aunt.
They’d tried to entrap him. His mind elsewhere, he hadn’t seen the danger until it had been upon him. But the instant he had, his well-honed instincts had sprung to life, the same instincts that had kept him alive and undetected through thirteen years of living with the enemy. They’d thought they’d cornered him alone with Miss Cowley in a first-floor parlor, yet when her aunt had swept in, with Lady Carmichael in the role of unwitting witness by her side, the parlor had been empty, devoid of life.
Put out, confused, the aunt had retreated, leaving to look elsewhere for her errant niece.
She hadn’t looked out on the narrow ledge outside the parlor window, hadn’t seen Jack holding Miss Cowley locked against him, her eyes starting above the hand he’d clapped over her lips.
He’d held her there, silent and deadly, precariously balanced two floors above the basement area, until the parlor door had closed, and the retreating footsteps died, then he’d eased the window open, swung her inside, and released her.
One wide-eyed look into his face, and she hadn’t been able to get out of the parlor fast enough. He hadn’t tried to hide his understanding of what had happened, or his reaction to that, and her. She’d stumbled through a garbled excuse and fled.
He’d canceled all further social engagements and retreated to the club to brood over his situation. But then Dalziel had sent word that Charles needed assistance in Cornwall. The information had seemed godsent; he’d finished dealing with his inheritance, and, he’d decided, he was also finished with searching for a wife. In company with Gervase Tregarth, another club member, he’d ridden away from London, back to a world he understood.
While the action in Cornwall had ultimately ended in success, he’d suffered a crack on the head that had been worse than any he’d received before. Once the villain had been dispatched and Charles back in his own fort, he’d returned to London, head still aching, for Pringle to check him over. An experienced battlefield surgeon the members of the club routinely consulted, Pringle had informed him that had his skull not been so thick, he wouldn’t have survived the blow. That said, there was nothing seriously amiss, no damage a few weeks of quiet rest wouldn’t repair.
He’d stayed at the club for a few more days, finalizing business, then headed down to Cornwall for Charles’s wedding.
That had been two days ago. Leaving the wedding breakfast, he’d ridden across Dartmoor to Exeter, then the next day had taken the road to Bristol, where he’d rested last night. Early in the morning, he’d set out along the country lanes on the last leg of his journey home.
It had been seven long years since he’d set eyes on the limestone facade of the manor and watched the westering sun paint it a honey gold. He knew just where to look to glimpse the manor’s gables through the trees lining the lane and the intervening orchards. The scent of apple blossom wreathed about him; for all it meant bride, it also meant home. His heart lifted; his lips lifted, too, as he reached the junction of the Tetbury lane and the Nailsworth–Cherington road.
To his left lay the village proper. He turned Challenger to the right; head rising, he touched his heels to the big horse’s flanks and cantered down the road.
He rounded the bend, heart lifting with anticipation.
A little way ahead, a phaeton lay overturned by the side of the road.
The horse trapped in the traces, panicked and ungovernable, attempted to rear, paying no attention to the lady clinging to its bridle, trying to calm it.
Jack took in the scene in one glance. Face hardening, he dug his heels in, urging Challenger into a gallop.
Any second the trapped horse would lash out—at the lady.
She heard the thunder of approaching hooves and glanced fleetingly over her shoulder.
Eyes glued to the trapped horse, Jack came out of his saddle at a run. With hip and shoulder, he shoved the lady aside and lunged for the reins—just as the horse lashed out.
“Oh!” The lady flew sideways, landing in the lush grass beyond the ditch.
Jack ducked, but the iron-shod hoof grazed his head—in exactly the spot he’d been coshed.
He swore, then bit his lip, hard. Blinking against the pain, weaving to avoid being butted, he grabbed the horse’s bridle above the bit, exerted enough strength to let the animal know he was in the hands of someone who knew, and started talking. Crooning, assuring the horse that all danger had passed.
The young bay stamped its hooves, shook its head; Jack hung on and kept talking. Gradually, the horse quieted.
Jack shot a glance at the lady. Riding up, all he’d seen was her back—that she had a wealth of dark mahogany hair worn in an elegantly plaited and coiled chignon, was wearing a plum-colored walking dress, and was unc
ommonly tall.
Sprawled on her back on the bank beyond the ditch, she struggled onto her elbows. Across the ditch, their gazes locked.