A Lady Risks All. Bronwyn Scott

inn had a table, who was the big player in the area. He’d have the lay of the land and a new ‘best friend’ by the time they arrived.

      Mercedes glanced overhead at the sky. It was noon. They’d be in the village by two o’clock at the latest. There would still be plenty of time to stroll around the fair and enjoy the treat. They could have all gone together. An hour wouldn’t have cost her father anything. But he’d wanted to go alone. There was a reason for that. She’d have to be cautious and not acknowledge him unless he wanted her to. Perhaps he wanted them to appear to be strangers. He and Kendall had done that sort of the thing in the old days.

      ‘Mercedes, your plate.’ Greer had finished assembling the food and, to her surprise, the plate he’d been concocting had been for her. Of course it was. It was what a gentleman did and Greer did those things as effortlessly as he uncorked wine. She wondered how he would respond to the kinds of confidence games her father liked to play? The kind of games where the limits of honesty were grey areas?

      ‘Thank you.’ She settled the plate on her lap and watched him put together his own plate, long, tapered fingers selecting meats and cheese with purpose.

      ‘I was thinking you might like to ride this afternoon since the weather turned out to be nice,’ Greer offered. ‘I noticed both you and your father brought horses.’

      It would be perfect. The afternoon was far too fair to be cooped up in the carriage. It was the ideal conversational offering as well.

      They spent lunch talking about riding and horses, something she didn’t know half as well as she knew billiards. She liked listening to Greer talk about his stallion, Rufus, and other horses he’d owned. He had a face that came alive when he spoke, and an easy manner that was fully engaged now. She’d caught glimpses of it before; when they’d played billiards and this morning in the carriage, but always somewhat tempered by the side of him that never forgot he was an officer and a viscount’s son.

      This afternoon, sitting under the oak, he was quite simply himself. And she had been quite simply herself, not Allen Lockhart’s daughter, not always planning the next calculated move. It was nice to forget and she did forget right up until the flags of the fair came into view and it was time to remember what they were there for.

      ‘Should we find your father?’ Greer asked, looking for a place to leave the horses until the carriage and servants caught up to them.

      Mercedes smiled and dismounted. ‘I think we’ll let him find us. Meanwhile, you and I shall enjoy the fair.’

       Chapter Six

      This was pure recklessness, Mercedes privately acknowledged as they tethered the horses on the outskirts of the fairground. She was inviting all sorts of trouble being alone with the Captain. Not the usual kind of trouble. She was too old to need a chaperon and the Captain wasn’t likely to take advantage of her. Her danger lay in mixing business with pleasure. She was on this trip to groom him, introduce him to the world of professional billiards. She was not here to picnic under trees, or walk fairgrounds, or to play parlour games in coaches with him.

      Those all led to perilous places where business became confused with emotions. But she was not ready to let go of the afternoon. That would happen soon enough. Her father would have plans for the evening that would demand it. But not yet. For now, the afternoon was still hers.

      They browsed at the booths, smelling milled soaps from France and laughing when a few of the little cakes were reminiscent of cloying old ladies. They admired the bolts of fabric at the cloth merchant’s, the vendor mistaking her for Greer’s wife as he tried to convince her to buy some chintz for recovering seat cushions in her sitting room.