Free Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas Page B

that much weakness.
    But with him it was different. She wasn't afraid that he'd see her as less than invincible. Before him it seemed permissible, somehow, to be frank, frustrated, and, at times, even apprehensive.
    She would mount that horse because she wanted to please him, to make him think that he'd made a material improvement to her life. And perhaps, just perhaps, she could make it fifty yards if she held on tight, clenched her teeth, and prayed to whichever deities had a little compassion for forlorn, uppish females.
    “I promise not to ogle your trim ankles,” he said lightly. “If that's what you are concerned about.”
    “You shouldn't mention my ankles. And they are hardly trim.” And the balmorals she wore were hardly those lace-frilled, eyelet-spangled fancy boots designed to make a man weak in the knees should he happen to catch a glimpse of them peeking out from underneath the hem of her dress.
    “I'll be the judge of that. Now, should we?”
    “Fine, then, fifty yards.”
    The admiration in his eyes almost made the whole mad enterprise worthwhile. He sank down to one knee and cupped his hands together. She expelled a long, ragged breath, took hold of the reins with one hand, the cantle with the other, and placed her left foot on his hands. He gave her a strong boost, she swung her right leg over the horse's rump, and she was in the saddle.
    The horse snorted and shifted. She squealed and reached wildly for the bridle. He caught her arms just in time.
    “Easy,” he murmured, to the horse or to her she couldn't be sure. “Easy.”
    Then he lifted his eyes to her, the most reassuring eyes she'd gazed into since her father had passed away. “Don't worry. I'll keep you safe.”
    “I should have asked you to be my groom instead of my husband,” she said.
    He only grinned. “Hold on.”
    He led the horse to a slow walk. Mercy, the ground must be fifty feet below her and receding. She'd forgotten what it was like to sit up so high on a great big stallion. She knew the horse's motion was gentle and smooth beneath her, but she felt herself perched atop a wild bronco, about to be heaved off any second. An incipient nausea roiled her tummy. She wanted to throw her arms about the horse's neck, clamp her legs around its belly, and hang on for all she was worth. She wanted to get off this instant.
    “You are not really Lord Tremaine, are you?” she said, desperate for distraction. “You are a pauper who looks like him, and the two of you decided to switch places, fool everyone, and have a jolly old time.”
    He laughed. “Well, I am a pauper—an ‘improverished nobody' as you so aptly put—except I'm already related to every royal house in Europe. So sometimes I put on my fancy clothes and go out and drink champagne with my noble cousins. Sometimes I change into rags and work in the stable. In truth, we shouldn't even have kept horses. But my father said then we might as well stop wearing hats and shoes. It was one economy I could not persuade him to make.”
    His answer was so breathtakingly frank that she momentarily forgot her fear of an imminent tumble. “And your parents permitted this . . . this folly?”
    “They turned a blind eye and pretended that somehow I was able to run the house better and for less expense without ever dirtying my own hands. Or running betting games at whichever lyceum I happened to be attending.”
    “Betting games?!”
    “Games that tend to run true to probability. So I could promise a prize of, say, a pound, and charge my fellow lyceans—particularly those who suffer at mathematics—a shilling a try to line up six coins heads up while blindfolded. I always came out ahead.”
    “Good Lord,” she breathed. “Did you ever get caught?”
    “For having a few coins in my pocket?” He chuckled. “No. I was the most courteous, virtuous, promising young man any professor had ever seen.”
    There was such lovely mischief in his voice. He was courteous, virtuous (as far