‘Well, you’re an oaf. A drunken oaf at that!’ She finally managed to untangle her legs and get to her feet just as three more men came staggering into view.
‘Good God, just look at that,’ said the first of the trio to reach them, a slender, well-dressed man with cold grey eyes and a cruel mouth. ‘Even lying flat on his back in the middle of nowhere, Ulysses can find entertainment to round off the evening.’
Since the man with the cruel mouth was looking at her as though she was about to become his entertainment, Harriet’s blood ran cold.
‘I have no intention of being anyone’s entertainment,’ she protested, inching towards Shadow, though how on earth she was to mount up and escape, she had no idea. ‘I only came over here to see if I could help.’
‘You can certainly help settle the b-bet,’ said the second young man to arrive, flicking his long, rather greasy fringe out of his eyes. ‘Did he reach the C-Cumberland Gate b-before Lucifer unseated him?’
‘It was a wager?’ She rounded on the one they’d referred to as Ulysses, the one who was still half-reclining, propped up on one arm, watching them all with a crooked grin on his face. ‘You risked injuring that magnificent beast for the sake of a wager?’
‘The only risk was to his own fool neck,’ said the man with the cold eyes. ‘Lucifer can take care of himself,’ he said, going across to the stallion and patting his neck proudly. From the way the stallion lowered his head and butted his chest, it was clear he was Lucifer’s master.
Harriet stooped to gather her train over one arm, her heart hammering. At no point had she felt afraid of the man they called Ulysses, even when he’d been trying to roll her over on to her back. There was something about his square, good-natured face that put her at ease. Or perhaps it had been that twinkle in his eyes.
But the way the one with the cruel mouth was looking at her was a different matter. There was something...dark about him. Predatory. Even if he was fond of his horse and the horse clearly adored him in return, that didn’t make him a decent man.
He then confirmed all her suspicions about his nature by turning to her with a mocking smile on his face. ‘It is hardly fair of you to reward Ulysses with a kiss,’ he said, taking a purposeful step closer, ‘when it is I who won the wager.’
She lashed out with her riding crop and would have caught him across his face had he not flinched out of her way with a dexterity that both amazed and alarmed her. Even in a state of inebriation, this man could still pose a very real threat to a lone female.
Keeping her eyes on him, she inched sideways to where she’d tethered Shadow. And collided with what felt like a brick wall.
‘Oof!’ said the wall, which turned out to be the third of Ulysses’s companions, a veritable giant of a man.
‘You got off lightly,’ remarked Mr Cold-Eyes to the giant, who was rubbing his mid-section ruefully. ‘She made a deliberate attempt to injure me.’
‘That’s prob’ly ’cos you’re fright’ning her,’ slurred the giant. ‘Clearly not a lightskirt.’
‘Then what is she doing in the park, at this hour, kissing stray men she finds lying about the place?’ Cold-Eyes gave her a look of such derision it sent a flicker of shame coiling through her insides.
‘She couldn’t resist me,’ said Ulysses, grinning at her.
‘She d-don’t seem to like you, th-though, Zeus,’ said the one with the greasy, floppy fringe.
‘Archie, you wound me,’ said Zeus, as she got her fingers, finally, on Shadow’s reins. Though how on earth she was to mount up, she couldn’t think. There was no mounting block. No groom to help her reach the stirrup.
Just as she’d resigned herself to walking home leading her mount, she felt a pair of hands fasten round her waist. On a reflex, she lashed out at her would-be assailant, catching him on the crown of his head.
‘Ouch,’ said the drunken giant of a man, as he launched her up and on to Shadow’s saddle. ‘There was no call for that.’ He backed away, rubbing his head with a puzzled air.
No, there hadn’t been any call for it. But how could she have guessed the giant had only been intending to help her?
‘Then I beg your pardon,’ she said through gritted teeth as she fumbled her foot into the stirrup.
‘As for the rest of you,’ she said as she got her knee over the pommel and adjusted her skirts, ‘you ought...all of you...to be ashamed of yourselves.’
She did her best to toss her head as though she held them all in disdain. As though her heart wasn’t hammering like a wild, frightened bird within the bars of her rib cage. To ride off with dignity, rather than hammering her heels into Shadow’s flank, and urging her mare to head for home at a full gallop.
She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Harriet urged Shadow into a gallop, as soon as she was out of their sight. They’d thought she was a lightskirt. That was why Ulysses had kissed her, and the one with the cold eyes—Zeus—had looked at her as though she was nothing.
That was why the giant had lifted her on to the horse without asking her permission, too. Even though he’d meant well, he hadn’t treated her with the respect due to a lady.
Because she’d stepped outside the bounds set for the behaviour of ladies.
Damn her aunt for being right! She dashed a tear away from her cheek. A tear humiliation had wrung from her. She wasn’t afraid. Just angry. So angry. At the men, for treating her so...casually. For manhandling her, and mocking her and insinuating she was...
Oh, how she wished she’d struck them all with her crop. Men who went about the park, getting drunk and frightening decent females...
Although they hadn’t thought she was decent, had they? They’d thought she was out there drumming up custom.
She shuddered.
And no wonder. She’d melted into Ulysses’s kiss like butter on to toasted bread. And then been so flustered she’d forgotten to conceal her legs when untangling them from her skirts, giving him a view of them right up to her knees, like as not.
Oh, but she wished she could hit something now. Though she was more to blame than anyone and she couldn’t hit herself. Because it turned out that sometimes, just sometimes, Aunt Susan might just be right. Ladies couldn’t go about on their own, in London. Because if they did, drunken idiots assumed they were fair game.
Why hadn’t Aunt Susan explained that some of the rules were for her own good, though? If she’d only warned Harriet that men could behave that badly, when they were intoxicated, then...
Honesty compelled her to admit that she knew how idiotic men became when they drank too much. Didn’t she see it every week back home in Donnywich? By the end of market day, men came rolling out of the tavern, wits so addled with drink they had to rely on their horses to find their way home.
And men were men, whether they lived in the country and wore smocks, or in Town and dressed in the height of fashion. So she should have known. Because the rules were made by men, for the convenience of men. So, rather than expect men to behave properly, at all times, women just had to stay out of their way, or go around with guards, just in case they felt like being beastly.
She slowed Shadow to a walk as she left the park via the Stanhope Gate, her heart sinking. She’d so enjoyed escaping to the park at first light. It had been the only thing making her stay in London bearable of late. But now, because men rolled home from their