Free Besieged by Bertrice Small Page A

Shane seemed pleasant enough, but she did not like Lady Jane for all her sweet speeches. She wanted a chance to be with the handsome William Devers, and see if he pleased her. If there was any spark that might be ignited between them. “Would you like to ride?” she asked him.
    “I have no horse,” he said. “We came in the coach.” He looked disappointed.
    “We have plenty of horses,” Fortune laughed. “Adali, go and tell the stables we will need two horses. I’ll go change into something more suitable. Is it all right, Mama?”
    “Of course,” Jasmine agreed. She understood what Fortune was doing, and approved.
    Fortune dashed from the hall, returning some minutes later to call to William Devers, “Come on, William!” Then she was gone again.
    He followed after her, grinning, even as he heard his mother behind him expressing shock at Fortune’s garb.
    “Your daughter rides astride? In breeches?”
    He didn’t hear the duchess’s answer, but suspected it was pithy. He thought Fortune’s breeches rather charming. They were not baggy, but rather nicely fitted, revealing her well-shaped legs and bottom. She was also wearing a sleeveless deep blue silk doublet with silver buttons over a white shirt with balloon sleeves. It was all quite fetching.
    The stableboy was holding two horses, one a fine dappled gray gelding that Fortune immediately mounted. The other was a tall, big-boned, shining black gelding. William took the reins from the lad, and swung himself up into the saddle.
    “His name is Oberon,” Fortune told William. “Come on! Follow me!”
    He trailed after her out of the castle’s small courtyard, over the drawbridge, and through the village, gradually edging his mount up until they were finally riding side by side. “You do not ride a mare?”
    “Nay, Rory Maguire, our estate manager, feels Thunder and I are suited to one another. I like a horse with a bit of spirit, and Thunder has a spritely nature. Do you like to ride?”
    “Aye, I do. Sitting about pouring over accounts as my father does isn’t my idea of great amusement.”
    “That’s why we have an estate manager,” Fortune said.
    “Aren’t you afraid he’ll steal from you? After all he is Irish,” William Devers said.
    “So are you,” she replied. “At least on your father’s side.”
    “I have always thought of myself as British,” he said.
    “You were born in Ireland. You live in Ireland. Your father is Irish. You are Irish,” Fortune told him with perfect logic. “Now I, on the other hand, have a slightly more complicated lineage. My father was an Englishman. My stepfather is a Scot. My mother is Indian on her father’s side, and Irish, English, and French on her mother’s side. I am the niece of the current Grande Mughal, and my Leslie half-brothers are related to the Ottoman sultan. We have extremely knotty, complex, intricate, and elaborate labyrinthine of a family tree, William Devers.”
    “You are utterly fascinating,” he said. “I have never met a girl like you at all. Why do you want to marry me?”
    “I don’t know if I do,” Fortune said honestly. “I have yet to find a man to love, and love I must if I marry. I suppose that all sounds very romantic and silly, but it is how I feel, William Devers.”
    “I am known as Will to my friends,” he said. “I hope you will learn to love me, Fortune, for I think I am already half in love with you. You are so alive!”
    “What a lovely thing to say, Will.” She smiled at him, and then, “Oh, look! That is the tree from which my mother hung my father’s murderer. That very limb up there.” She pointed. “They say my mother never flinched but ordered he be hung with my father’s belt, and stood watching as he died. He actually meant to kill mama. She and my father were riding, and had stopped to speak with my sister, India, who was only a small girl. She wanted to be taken up on mama’s horse, and when mama bent down for her, it was then the shot