Free Elizabeth Mansfield by Matched Pairs Page B

found a way to change the subject. “He wishes to run. Why don’t we take a quick gallop right now? Since Tris was rude enough to leave us so abruptly, I feel no obligation to wait for him, do you?”
    “Not in the least. Shall we race to that line of trees?”
    She nodded, and they spurred their horses.
    A few moments later, windblown and breathless, they reached their destination. Canfield grinned at her admiringly. “I think, ma’am, that you are the best horsewoman I’ve ridden with in many years.”
    “Thank you. It’s because I’m a country girl. I have more opportunities for riding than the young ladies you ride with in town.”
    “Perhaps. But whatever the reason, I’d like another race.” He looked over the terrain to suggest a destination, but at that moment caught a glimpse of Tris just riding over the horizon toward them. “Dash it,” he swore under his breath, “I’d hoped we’d have a little more time.”
    He hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but she heard him. “Time?” she asked.
    “Yes,” he said, deciding to be frank. “Time to ourselves. To improve this acquaintance. That little bit of a race didn’t deepen the acquaintance enough to make you ready to use my given name, did it?”
    “Perhaps not quite enough,” she said, softening the words with a small smile, “but the prospect seems less frightening than before.”
    His half smile reappeared. “That, at least, gives me hope.” His horse shied, and he bent to stroke the animal’s neck. When he straightened up again, his eyes swept over her with an appreciative gleam. “The race has loosed your hair,” he informed her. “It’s blowing about in delighted liberation. This sight of you looking so unceremoniously windblown certainly increases my feeling of close acquaintance.”
    Her smile faded at once. “Oh, dear!” she murmured, trying desperately to gather the strands together. “Tris will be so annoyed with me.”
    “Will he?” His lordship peered at her curiously. “Why? What on earth has he to say about it?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t... I...” Her voice died away and her eyes fell.
    “You have my word that you look quite lovely this way. Does it matter so much what Tris thinks?”
    She bit her underlip and held up a hand as if to restrain him from further comment.
    He immediately regretted what he’d said. “I’m sorry. It’s not my affair. I shouldn’t have asked.”
    “No, please,” she murmured in a low voice, “you didn’t... It’s not important.”
    “I should have remembered what Sir William told me.”
    Her eyes flew to his. “What was that?”
    “That you and Tris are betrothed. Or almost betrothed.”
    “No, we’re not,” she said. Her tone was decisive, more decisive than he’d yet heard it.
    “Not even almost?”
    “Not even that.”
    Tris was coming close. Whatever else Canfield wanted to say to her would have to be brief. “In that case, Miss Branscombe,” he said quickly, “I shall feel free to repeat my request for a dance with you at my very next opportunity.”
    She paused in the act of pinning back her hair and looked up at him, a smile lighting her eyes. “Despite the dragon?”
    He smiled back at her. “Dragons don’t frighten me. I’m quite capable of fighting them. I’m determined to dance with you one day, no matter how carefully you’re protected by dragons. Or by not-quite-betrotheds, for that matter. So be warned.”
     
     

 
     
    12
     
     
    Cleo Smallwood had spent the day after Tris’s departure closeted in her bedroom, not even emerging for meals. Her father, listening at the door at intervals during the day, heard either sobs, agitated footsteps or fearsome silences. By evening he was becoming distraught. Such behavior was utterly unwarranted, he believed, and utterly self-indulgent. From time to time he pleaded through the shut door for her to be sensible. “Now, listen here,” he declared when his patience became exhausted, “if you