Free Elizabeth Mansfield by Matched Pairs

he knew, but it was for a greater good. So he merely turned his back on her and said gruffly, “Now, let’s stop this bickering and play some billiards.”
     
     

 
     
    11
     
     
    Tris and Lord Canfield met a little after eight the next morning. They’d not been riding long when Tris heard the bells in the Amberford clock tower strike the half hour. “Come this way,” he said to his companion. “There’s a fine bridle path along the river.” And without waiting for an answer, he guided him over a rise toward the riverbank. There, precisely as he’d directed her, he saw Julie, a lone horsewoman silhouetted against the glowing morning sky, riding toward them. He smiled in self-satisfaction, for everything was going exactly as he’d planned. His clever machinations were apparently going to succeed.
    But his pleasure was short-lived, immediately changing to anger when he saw that Julie was wearing neither her new riding habit nor the cocked hat. His teeth clenched in fury. Damnation he swore to himself, I ought to wash my hands of her!
    But as they drew closer, he saw with a twinge of relief that she was not wearing her shabby old habit either. She’d chosen a walking dress of dark blue kerseymere with a full skirt. It covered an underdress of some sort of gauzy white material, with long sleeves and a soft collar that he had to admit was very becoming. She’d also pinned back her hair in a tight, neat bun so that it couldn’t fly about her face as it usually did when she rode. Of course she was wearing her time-ravaged riding gloves (he’d not thought of ordering her to find herself a decent pair), but by and large, he concluded in relief, she looked passably presentable. “Look, Peter,” he said aloud, “there’s my friend Miss Branscombe. Do you mind if we ride over and greet her?”
    “Not at all,” Lord Canfield assured him, having already recognized the lone rider as the young woman whose eyes —and legs—he’d so admired.
    Tris shouted a loud hello and rode quickly ahead of Canfield to exchange a word with Julie alone. “This makes once that you’ve disobeyed my orders,” he muttered sternly, reining in his horse close to hers. “I’ll say no more this time, but the next time you do it, I shall consider our bond broken.”
    She bit her underlip guiltily. “I’m sorry, Tris. I tried, really I did. That habit was just too dreadful...”
    “All right, never mind it now,” he whispered, scarcely moving his lips as he glanced over his shoulder. “You look fine. He’s coming, so smile!”
    The three horses pulled up together on the riverbank. Tris made the introductions. Julie gave his lordship a shy how-de-do, but, for some reason she could not explain, neither she nor Canfield indicated that they’d met before. Tris, to cover the ensuing silence, asked with sham innocence what she was doing out so early.
    Julie, not liking the sense of subterfuge that seemed to permeate his every utterance, threw him a look of reproach. “I often ride before breakfast, as you well know,” she said.
    “Without escort?” Lord Canfield asked, throwing her a surreptitious glance.
    “There’s no real need for an escort,” Tris explained. “We’re only moments from the Larchwood lands. Besides, a young lady can ride safely in these environs. It’s very quiet here.”
    “I see,” his lordship said with his slow half smile. “I seem to be habitually thinking like a Londoner. In town, you know, it would not be permitted.”
    Another long silence followed, during which Tris studied Canfield’s face, Canfield studied Julie’s, Julie studied her hands, and the horses pawed the ground. “Why don’t we follow the river to the Larchwood south fields?” Tris suggested at last. “We can have a good gallop there and then ride over to Enders Hall for refreshment.”
    The others agreed, and they turned their horses toward the south. As they rode, Tris managed to pull up close enough to Julie to whisper,