The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(34)
Peters the head groom had been her loyal, if unwilling, accomplice in those escapes and at her orders he had sent the man’s saddle down to the Dower House stables. Shaw worked for her and her alone, so if she told him to make Tempest ready he would do so unquestioningly.
Before she knew it she was pulling her breeches and jacket from the bottom of the chest of drawers. She buttoned up the linen shirt, tugged on her boots and shook her hair free of its confining pins. As an afterthought she tossed a lightweight cloak over her shoulders and scooped up some linen towels from the washstand.
The candle was flickering in the window of the groom’s room above the carriage house. Marissa banged on the door and, when Shaw came stumbling down the steps, ordered him briskly to saddle up her mare. ‘The man’s saddle, please.’
Briefed by Peters, the under-groom did as she said, only his unusually wooden expression betraying his surprise at seeing his mistress in breeches. ‘Shall I saddle up the hack and accompany you, my lady?’
‘That will not be necessary, thank you. And there is no need to wait up for my return. I am quite capable of unsaddling Tempest and I would not keep you from your bed.’
‘Yes, my lady, thank you.’
Marissa walked the mare quietly across the cobbles and past the front of the Dower House. It would never do to wake Jane. Once they were through the wood she eased out the reins and Tempest, with a toss of her head, settled into a canter that sent the wind through her long mane. The cloak flew out behind Marissa and she shook her hair free to catch the wind too. It felt as though she and the horse were one, flying over the moonlit turf of the parkland, cutting diagonally across the front of Southwood Hall. The big house lay silent and still, lit only by the dim lights of the watchman’s lanterns.
In the master bedroom Marcus lay, hands behind his head, and gazed up at the plaster moulding of the ceiling overhead. He hadn’t moved for the last half hour and he was restless, yet unable to either get up or settle. Sleep was eluding him for some reason and he found his mind turning again to the thought of Marissa, cold and angry, so very attractive in the clinging riding habit.
He grinned ruefully to himself, reflecting that enforced celibacy was doing nothing for his equilibrium. He and Diane had amicably ended their liaison over two years ago and since then there had been a number of charming entanglements of which, thankfully, his sister knew nothing. But those too had ended when he had left Jamaica and the provocative presence of Marissa only served to highlight his lack of intimate female companionship.
It was no good, he had to get up and do some work. There were some suitably soporific estate accounts he had promised his agent he would look at. As he crossed the room he heard, faintly, the sound of hoof-beats on turf.
Poachers? Smugglers? Marcus threw back the curtains and looked out on the park, so bathed in silver light that it seemed almost as bright as day. A grey horse was cantering across his view, its mane flying. On its back was a slim figure, cloak streaming behind it, a mass of hair swept back by the breeze.
It was Marissa. There was no mistaking the rider despite, he realised with a shock, the fact that she was riding astride and clad in breeches.
‘What the devil?’ He stared at the wild creature who had Marissa’s form yet who could not, surely, be the same controlled, proper young widow who had spoken so coldly to him earlier that day. As he watched she turned the horse’s head towards the coast road and dropped her hands. The mare responded immediately, breaking into a gallop that swept them out of his sight in less than a minute.
His astonishment turned to nagging disquiet. What had prompted this wild ride? Had her despair finally over-mastered her control? He remembered again her tears in the Long Gallery, the almost too-casual way she had said she did not care where she spent her time. It obviously made no difference to the depths of her misery whether she was in Norfolk or in London; she was still in hell.
The image of that cold expanse of sea beyond the dunes was suddenly very vivid in his mind. Marcus tried to tell himself he was overreacting, but even as he told himself he was an over-imaginative fool he was tugging on breeches and boots, shrugging into a shirt.
He ran down the stairs, across the hall and out through the front door, startling the dozing watchman as he snored in his hooded chair. Marcus pounded into the stableyard and flung open the door of the stall that housed his hunter. He had thrown the saddle over the startled animal, tightened the girth and reached for the bridle when Peters emerged, hair tousled, eyes heavy with sleep.
‘My lord? What is wrong?’
‘Nothing. Go back to bed. I have a fancy to ride.’
The groom wisely refrained from commenting on either the time or his dishevelled appearance and went back up to his rooms with a muttered, ‘My lord.’
Marcus swung up into the saddle without putting his foot in the stirrup and was urging the big chestnut hunter into a canter before it had even cleared the stableyard arch. The park was empty when he reached it, but he guessed where Marissa was headed and urged the horse into a flat gallop, headlong down the driveway to the sea.
On the beach Marissa sat for a moment, breathed in the cool sea air and watched the moonlight lay a path of silver across the waves. The light breeze stirred her hair, but it was not cold. The sea would be, she knew, but it was irresistible, and so shallow, even on the rising tide, that it would be safe to swim.
She dismounted, tied Tempest to a branch and pulled off her clothes, leaving them in a heap on the cloak. The breeze caressed her naked body and she stretched luxuriously, then walked slowly down the beach, kicking the fine sand, letting it run between her bare toes.