As she had feared, the words were scarcely out of the baron’s mouth before the vigilant young Arthur stepped forward leading her beloved stallion. “This un’s Mistress Sarah’s horse,” he said proudly.
Sarah’s smile wavered as Anthony gave a low whistle and said, “He’s magnificent. I had marked him yesterday, and hoped to be able to ride him myself today.”
“He doesn’t take kindly to strangers,” Sarah said stiffly.
“Has he learned that from his mistress?” Anthony asked with mild amusement.
Determined not to let the man disconcert her again, Sarah ignored the remark. “I’ve ridden him since he was a colt. He’s used to me.”
Anthony reached out to run a practiced hand along the horse’s side. “What’s his name?”
Sarah gave a swift glance at Arthur, who was listening raptly to their exchange. Reluctantly, she answered the question. “I call him Brigand.”
Anthony’s hand stopped for a moment, then continued down the horse’s smooth flank. “A bloodthirsty name for a horse belonging to so lovely a mistress.”
When Sarah made no reply, he asked, “Would you consider selling him?”
“Never!” Sarah responded more vehemently than she had intended.
Anthony straightened from his examination of the stallion and turned to her with a half smile that took Sarah back to her dreams of the night before. “Not even to the king?” he asked softly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, regaining her innate dignity, “Brigand is not for sale.”
“I suspected as much. Still, it’s a pity. Perhaps I will be able to persuade you to change your mind during the course of my stay here.”
“You would be wasting your time to try, Lord Rutledge.”
“It would be an interesting challenge, then.”
His intense gaze was focused on her, not the horse, and suddenly Sarah felt herself unsure as to the topic of the conversation. Once again the baron was standing too close to her. It muddled her thinking. Wedged between the wall and her horse, she was unable to move away.
“Mistress Sarah won’t never sell Brigand.” Arthur’s eager young voice startled them both. At many estates, Sarah knew, a servant would be beaten for speaking without being addressed first by the master, but her uncle and father had always encouraged fair treatment and respect for all who worked on their properties. Their idea of Christian brotherhood was not mere abstract theology.
Anthony turned his easy smile on the boy. “I believe you, lad. Though it’s been said that I can be very persuasive when I want to be.” His dark eyes shifted back to Sarah.
“If we’re to get some riding in before the midday meal, we’d best get started. If you like, you may try out my uncle’s prize stallion, Chestnut. I think you’ll find him a worthy mount,” she said hurriedly. She wanted the morning to be over with.
Arthur, now fully under Anthony’s spell, rushed to ready Thomas Fairfax’s best horse for the baron’s use. It was a handsome sable stallion, as high as Brigand, but without quite the breadth of flank that gave Sarah’s horse its extraordinary strength.
They left Arthur staring after them in awe, and Sarah had to admit that they must make a striking sight as they made their way along the well-worn road to the village. Brigand and Chestnut were two of the finest horses in the area, and today both had riders worthy of such impressive mounts. They rode several minutes in silence, enjoying the rare December sunshine.
“If I’d known Yorkshire to have such a mild clime, I’d have visited before,” Anthony said finally.
“We’re fortunate today. Perhaps the sun is shining in your honor, my lord.”
Anthony lifted a dark eyebrow. It was the nearest the lady had come to coquetry since that obviously staged moment when they had first met back at the stables. Most of her conversation was disarmingly direct. He found her completely unlike the ladies he was used to back at court. Yet he remembered his impression that she had been lying about something the previous evening. The truth was, Mistress Fairfax had him perplexed and intrigued. It was an uncomfortable feeling for a man who prided himself on his skill in judging women.
It was on the tip of his tongue to answer with one of his courtly comments—to profess that the sun’s rays were no brighter than the dazzling brightness of her countenance, or some such nonsense. But he stopped himself and said simply, “If anyone should be honored, mistress, ’tis you.”
The unadorned compliment brought color to her cheeks. She answered him with a smile, and Anthony felt his heart skip a beat. “Shall we run a bit, mistress?” he asked brusquely.
“Of course. We can head through the meadow, if you like. The terrain is smooth and flat.”
Anthony nodded agreement and followed her as she let her beautiful stallion stretch out into an easy gallop. Her uncle had been right. Even with the constraints of her riding skirts and a sidesaddle, she rode superbly, moving in perfect harmony with the animal. He let his horse fall back a ways just to enjoy the view, then spurred ahead, not willing to let her get too far from him. When he pulled up to her, she urged her horse to more speed, forcing him to catch up once again. All at once it became a contest, one in which Sarah seemed to have total control.
Finally she let him match her speed and stay with her. They raced side by side for several minutes, then Sarah pointed to a low rise in the grass and began to slow her pace. “There’s a stream beyond. We’ll just let them take a bit of water,” she called, laughing and disheveled.
Her hair had pulled loose from its tight coils and fell to her shoulders in honeyed waves. Her gray eyes twinkled, and she looked so fresh and young that Anthony again felt the curious twist inside his chest. “We’ll have to arrange a race sometime,” she said with a little laugh.
“You’d best me, I fear. You ride like the wind, Mistress Sarah.”
“‘Tis the horse. No one can beat him.”
Anthony nodded. “I’m beginning to believe it.”
They had come to the edge of the stream. He jumped from his saddle, intending to help Sarah dismount, but she was on the ground before he could approach her. Anthony shook his head and observed, “The horse is twice your height, mistress, yet you jump from his back as easily as a cat.”
He moved toward her, trailing his horse’s reins behind him. “You’ve the eyes of a cat, too, sometimes,” he said. “Gray. I’ve never seen their color before.”
With his black eyes intensely focused on her again, Sarah felt the same agitation of the previous evening. In the space of a day, this fancy London courtier had made more observations about her person than she had heard in her entire life. Of course, at Charles’s court such talk was probably the fashion. But for a girl raised pure and Puritan in the countryside, it was hard to answer.
Part of the time she thought that her discomfiture served her well. Her uncharacteristic loss for words must make her look a fool in the baron’s eyes, and that was probably for the best. However, part of the time, she admitted to herself, she felt an overwhelming desire to impress the man.
Her father had shared his love of learning and books equally with her and Jack. She was educated far beyond what was considered desirable for a woman, and not just in the Puritan teachings of William Prynne and the like. With her father’s encouragement, she’d read Shakespeare and Donne, even Hobbes. And she’d come to hold her own in conversations with many of her father’s friends, who had been among the most learned of the land. She had a ready tongue and quick wit, and,