‘Lord, no, sir.’ He sighed, taking hold of the stallion’s tail and slipping his hand down its silky length. ‘No, Lady Celia departs from Portsmouth today. She and her mother and sister will embark as soon as they get a fair wind, and she’s distraught, naturally.’
‘At leaving England, or you?’
‘Both, sir. Nor does she like the idea of marrying her Spanish duke.’
‘Mmm…I heard about that. Her Majesty’s not keen on the connection, but Lord Traverson is adamant about it. Says it’s too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘He would, being of a Roman Catholic family. We ended our relationship weeks ago, but she asked me to meet her, for a last goodbye. Except that it wasn’t the last, of course.’
‘Hah! Never is, man. They say a last goodbye at least three times; I could have told you that. Recriminations, then?’
‘Oh, no, sir. No bad feeling. Just a sadness. Our parting was mutual, but I’d not have wanted her to go all that way, just the same. We were friends.’
‘Sad,’ the earl said. ‘So who’s the unwilling one?’
‘Sir Thomas Pickering’s daughter, sir.’
‘Ah! The Palomino!’ A slow grin spread across his face. ‘The one you hauled out of the river the other day? Well, you’ll not get that one eating out of your hand so easily. Nor will you be the first to try.’
Nicholas was, however, reasonably sure that he had been the first to succeed in areas where others had failed. ‘No, sir. That’s what I heard, but I think now’s the time for some schooling.’ He grinned back at the earl. ‘I also think I’m in for a rough ride.’
Studying the stallion’s beautiful hindquarters, the earl leaned forward and rested his arms across the broad satin back. ‘Then you may be glad of a word of advice, my friend.’
‘Sir?’
‘Keep her guessing. You’ll get nowhere with a woman if you’re too predictable. They can second-guess you every time. And don’t be too kind too soon. Fillies like that one need to know who’s master from the start.’ To his surprise, he saw that his deputy’s chest was heaving with laughter. ‘You don’t believe me?’ he said.
‘Certainly I believe you, sir, but maybe I should tell you what this was for.’ He placed a palm upon his temple.
‘I was hoping you would.’
‘For talking to her as if she were a horse.’
Their laughter made the stallion look round, his muzzle caught by the earl’s hand. ‘So then you began to praise her beauty, I suppose?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact…’
‘Lost your wits of a sudden, man? Tch! You know better than that.’
‘I do now, sir. But I shall have to move fast if I’m to make any headway. There’s Her Majesty’s progress to your castle at Kenilworth in a few days, and young Fowler has got a foothold already.’
‘Argh! She’ll not be serious about him, man. He’s only for show. Nor would her father consider him. Anyway…’ his voice brightened ‘…she can come up to Kenilworth with Sir Thomas, if you wish. Would that help?’
‘Indeed it would, sir, I thank you.’
The earl smacked the stallion’s back and ran a hand down its tail, fanning it like tissue. ‘I’ll see she gets a royal command, then. You need to keep your hands on the reins and stay firmly in control at this stage. As for young Fowler, if he’d been attending to his business, he’d not have let her slip into the river in the first place, would he? Think on it, man. Now, let’s go and take a look at those new Irish geldings. They’re supposed to be fast-goers, too.’
There was probably no other man of Nicholas’s acquaintance from whom he would have accepted advice on such a delicate issue, never having been the kind of man to discuss his love life with others, as many did. But Lord Leicester was as experienced with women as he was with horses, though his stormy relationship with the Queen had been one of the most talked-about since her accession seventeen years ago. At forty-two, they were both as enamoured as ever, though hardly a month passed without some complication arising to set her snarling at him like a wildcat. The earl’s invitation to the Queen to make a royal progress to his magnificent castle at Kenilworth was, as Sir Nicholas knew, a last major attempt to remain permanently high in her favour after so many serious indiscretions, though if the Queen had known what Nicholas knew about his master’s extra-marital activities, she would probably have decided on a progress in the opposite direction instead. His lordship had a huge capacity for intrigue and a magnetism that few women could resist, a combination which seemed to Nicholas like a recipe for disaster.
Had he been faint-hearted, Nicholas might have viewed his own predicament in the same light, last night’s ending being as close as one comes to disaster, thanks to the help of a certain Master Fowler who knew exactly what he was doing. Although he had never before encountered the same relentless resistance in a woman as in Mistress Adorna Pickering, his experience told him that she was certainly not as immune to him as she pretended to be and that her act last evening had been impossible for her to maintain until the end. Then, she had lost it in his kiss, after which he discovered what she had been trying to conceal, even from herself. She wanted him.
With that satisfying knowledge firmly in place, he mused over his master’s advice about the tight rein and decided that a little variation on that theme would not come amiss. She had eaten out of his hand once; she would do it again. Eventually.
Adorna would not at that moment have agreed with this theory if she had known of it. Having wept with anger and other unidentifiable emotions, she had slept badly, waking up to the same reflection of how little regard men paid to the truth in order to win a woman. The truth, she told herself, would have been easier to deal with. At least it would not have left the same sour taste in her mouth as his pathetic lies had done, especially after…no…she would not think about that. But she did. What did it matter, anyway, except that she had given her first kiss to a man to whom it would mean very little except yet another trophy?
Lady Marion could not help but notice her daughter’s swollen eyelids and pink nose. ‘A cold?’ she said, looking doubtfully sideways. ‘Come here, child. I know a tearful daughter when I see one. What is it?’ She took Adorna’s hand and led her back to the cushioned stool she had just vacated. ‘You’ve had no breakfast, and it’s no good saying it’s nothing. It’s men, isn’t it?’
Adorna nodded.
‘Ah! Well, if it’s any comfort, love, there’s probably not a woman in the whole world who hasn’t wept over a man, one way or another. Which one, Sir Nicholas?’ She didn’t wait for a reply, having guessed it already. ‘Yes, well, I admit I got it wrong about having him partner Hester when it’s obvious he’s more interested in you. We can’t tell her so now, of course; that would do her confidence no good at all. But we can soon put it right. I’ll get your father to invite him—’
‘No, Mother!’ Adorna objected. ‘Please, I don’t want him to. I don’t like the man. I prefer Peter.’
‘Don’t like him, love? What is there not to like? I thought he was perfectly charming.’ She scrutinised her daughter’s face for signs, and found them. ‘Ah, I see. So he kissed you.’ Her eyes strayed through the sunlit window where the wobble of green glass distorted the banqueting house grotesquely. ‘So that’s how my best wooden roundels found their way on to the floor. We thought a fox must have got in.’
Adorna laid a hand over her mother’s puffed pink sleeve. ‘I’m sorry about that, Mother. It was my fault, I shall have to find a better hiding place next time.’
Lady Marion’s hand enclosed hers in sympathy, but not too much. ‘Well, you know, love, I’m not so sure that hiding is the answer any more. It served well enough while you were a lass, but your father