Marquesses at the Masquerade(101)
He tightened the girth a hole, took up the mare’s reins, and sent Attila a warning glower. “You will walk, with all pretensions to dignity, horse. Set one hoof wrong with Miss Fletcher aboard, and you will never lay eyes on a carrot or apple again, not if you live to be thirty and win the Derby in three successive years.”
“He’s trembling with fear,” Miss Fletcher said, patting the wretched beast. “A quaking mass of equine nerves, my lord. If you’ll show the way, we shall summon all of our courage, put our complete trust in your leadership, and brave all the terrors awaiting us. Is that not what an adventure requires?”
Tyne’s spirits lifted at the sight of her smile—for she was smiling at him, not at the stinking creature trying to impersonate a harmless lamb.
“As long as you’re having an adventure, Miss Fletcher, my joy in the day is complete.”
“As is mine.”
That was ladylike banter, by God. In an entirely acceptable, though unmistakable, manner, she was bantering with her employer and possibly even flirting. Tyne tried not to smile the whole distance back to the house, and Attila came along, as docile as a perfect little scholar.
*
Because the mare was recovering from her stone bruise, Lucy was excused from riding out again with his lordship. In little more than a week, she’d face the choice of whether to keep her assignation with Thor, or let her single encounter with him fade into fond, if frustrating, memory. She had the odd notion that if she discussed her choice with the marquess, he’d offer her considered, disinterested advice, much as a true friend would.
But did she want to limit the marquess to the role of friend? He’d been charming on their dawn ride, attentive, considerate… very nearly swainly. He’d shared a longing to read to some lucky woman on a picnic blanket, to admire her bare feet…
“I find you once again among the fairy tales,” Lord Tyne said, striding into the library on Saturday afternoon. “Where are the children?”
He was looking all too handsome, blond hair slightly disarranged, suggesting he’d been at his ledgers. His blue eyes were impatient and held a hint of mischief.
“Sylvie has taken it into her head that Amanda and I are too old to join the nursery tea parties, and Amanda has decided that sketching embroidery patterns does not require my assistance or the distraction of a younger sibling. That they are amusing themselves, and separately, is a good sign, my lord.”
Tyne gestured to the other reading chair positioned before the hearth, and Lucy nodded her assent. He was so mannerly, so—
He plucked her book from her hand. “I knew it. Mr. DeCoursy has carried you off again. He will simply have to wait his turn today, for I’m intent on carrying you off as well.”
Lord Tyne was mannerly most of the time. “I’m not exactly a sylph, your lordship, and I object to being hauled about.”
“No, you do not, else you’d never have lasted a single waltz at the tea dances you were doubtless forced to attend. From my observation, too many fellows do little more than haul their partners about. Why the waltz hasn’t been outlawed for the preservation of the ladies’ toes is a mystery for the ages.”
He wore no coat, which was unusual for him, and a trial for Lucy. She knew now how strong those arms were, how muscular his chest. She had become fascinated with his wrists—sketched them for an hour last night—and they were on view because he’d turned back his cuffs.
“Perhaps some obliging fellow of a parliamentary bent might draft a bill outlawing the waltz,” Lucy said. “Do you happen to know an MP who might oblige?”
Tyne rose and shelved the book. “Why would I associate with such a prosy old dodderer when I can instead kidnap fair maidens and take them to Gunter’s?”
Maidens, plural. “You’d like to take the girls out for an ice?”
“Not without you,” he said, extending a hand to her. “If I take them by myself, I’m outnumbered. Any papa knows that’s bad strategy. I also lack your ability to settle their squabbles with a calm word.”
Lucy took his hand and rose, though she was capable of standing unassisted. She simply wanted to touch him and wanted him to touch her. The short time she’d spent in Thor’s company had awakened some mischievous inclination in her, or made her loneliness—and her employer—harder to ignore.
“The girls squabble to get your attention,” she said. “If they were boys, they’d resort to fisticuffs for the same reason.”
“Some boys scrap for the pure joy of it. My younger brothers were always at each other, until Papa threatened to send one to Eton, one to Harrow, and one to Rugby.”
His younger brothers had likely been trying to get his attention. “Did you scrap for the pure joy of it?” She’d pictured Lord Tyne as a quiet, dignified boy—or she had until they’d ridden out together.
“I was the oldest, and thus the largest. I had to let them come at me in twos or all at once to make the fight fair. You will think me quite the barbarian, but I did enjoy horseplay as a youth.”
She smoothed her hand over his cravat, which was a half inch off center. “You scrap with the boys in the House of Lords now, don’t you?”
His smile was downright piratical. “You’ve found me out. Let’s mount a raid on Gunter’s, shall we? A spot of pillaging lifts the spirits of any self-respecting barbarian.”