His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(39)

Ham gave an energetic double kick out behind, snorted at nothing, and subsided into a gentlemanly gait.

“Kicking in public. You should be ashamed, you naughty boy.” Though fresh morning air generally made Ham frisky.

Flower-girls wrapped in thick cloaks yawned as they set up their stalls. Link-boys, lanterns extinguished, wearily searched for a quiet place to rest from the night’s labors, and dairymaids paused to visit with one another in misty alleys.

All was not right with the world—the Braithwaite woman had to be dealt with, for example—but in Hessian’s world, all was moving in the loveliest of directions.

“I am so inspired by the pleasure of my next appointment that I can admit—only to you, my trusted friend—that Worth was right to bludgeon me into coming to London for the Season. Jacaranda doubtless put him up to it.”

The gates of Hyde Park emerged from the thin fog, and Hessian brought his horse to the walk. “One must cling to a modicum of dignity, horse.”

Though with Lily, Hessian was increasingly unconcerned with dignity or posturing of any kind. He could be honest with Lily Ferguson—about his frustration and challenges, even his fears—and he loved that she was honest with him.

Esteemed her forthright nature, rather.

Respected her pragmatism.

Bollocks. He was mad for her.

The lady herself was waiting just inside the gate. Hessian’s heart leaped—what a hopeless cliché. His heart hopped about like a March hare, he was so pleased.

Though he was equally displeased to see a weathered groom perched on a dappled cob five yards away. Hang the proprieties—Hessian’s intentions toward Miss Ferguson could not have been more respectable.

He tipped his hat. “Miss Ferguson, good day.”

She saluted with her whip. “Your lordship. I see I must add promptness to your list of virtues. Patience does not number among my mare’s attributes. Shall we be on our way?”

Miss Ferguson’s habit was several years out of date, but the color—a soft brown trimmed in red braid—flattered her, and she sat her chestnut mare well.

“Let’s be off,” Hessian said, turning Ham to the path along the Serpentine.

They cantered off the fidgets, and thank the kind powers, the park remained quiet. The mist was slow to lift, and thus sounds were muffled, the horses’ hoofbeats a quiet tattoo on a quieter morning. The trees were only beginning to leaf out, the daffodils not yet finished with their display, and the whole park had an enchanted, secluded feel.

“Shall we let the horses blow?” Miss Ferguson asked. “I confess my outings are usually more sedate.”

Hessian’s whole life was usually more sedate. “Shall I check your girths? Wouldn’t want the saddle to come loose.”

He swung off Ham and looped the reins around his wrist. Miss Ferguson’s girths were doubtless snug enough, but Hessian wanted to be useful… to be gallant, to use Miss Ferguson’s words. She swept her skirts aside while he tightened the buckle one hole.

“We’ve outpaced my groom,” Miss Ferguson said.

“Then you’d best kiss me now, lest I expire for want of same.” Oh, that was subtle, about as subtle as Hammurabi in pursuit of his carrots, or—

Miss Ferguson bent down and cupped Hessian’s cheek in a gloved hand, then kissed him with a lingering thoroughness. She tasted of peppermint, and the combination of soft lips on Hessian’s mouth, leather against his jaw, and his hat tumbling to the grass made the moment perfect.

The kiss ended too soon, and not soon enough, for Hessian’s self-restraint had gone tumbling as well. Desire stirred from one stolen kiss, and that would not do when the outing was to continue on horseback.

“We must talk,” Hessian said, taking half a step back.

“I prefer kissing you,” Miss Ferguson replied. “I like conversing with you too, particularly when we’re not plagued with demands for stories, games of catch, or tales of pirate treasure.”

Hessian assisted her to dismount, and when the groom came bouncing up on his cob, Hessian passed him the mare’s reins and Hammurabi’s.

“If you’d walk them both, please. A brisk canter works up a sweat when they’ve yet to lose all of their winter coats.”

The groom apparently saw the logic of Hessian’s request—or the threat of retribution in his eyes—for he collected the horses and wandered into the mist with them.

“Of what shall we talk?” Miss Ferguson asked.

Of passion, of intimacies beyond mere kisses, of vows spoken with joy and enthusiasm, and a wedding night that—

“The day looks as if it will remain overcast,” Hessian said, retrieving his hat and dusting off the brim. “I like the occasional cloudy day.”

“I should not have kissed you, but I’m glad I did.”

“I like your honesty—and kissing you. Like both rather a lot. One might even say…” Hessian took the lady by the hand and escorted her—he did not drag her—behind a lilac hedge weeks away from blooming.

This time, he took the initiative, bolting into the kiss with all the longing of a man who’d spent his nights dreaming of naked bodies, heated embraces, and long, long Cumbrian winter nights.

“The fashionable crowd gets it all wrong,” he murmured against Miss Ferguson’s lips. “They come to the Lakes in summer.”