Free His Lordship's Filly by Nina Coombs Pykare Page A

though no more beautiful in her new gown than she’d been in her leather breeches. The thought of those breeches sent the blood rushing to his face. He had wanted her then, too, though he’d denied it to himself. Well, now he didn’t need to deny it.
    He swallowed hastily, bringing his gaze back to her face. “That is, I’ll be up if you don’t mind.” Some fine way to begin a marriage! He should simply have taken it for granted that she would expect him to come to her.
    But then everything about this marriage was bewildering. He had never expected to win a wife in a horse race—actually, a wife and a stallion. And he had really no idea how to go about helping Bridget fit into what he was now perceiving was really a very constricted society.
    Their chance meeting with the Lindens, though Bridget had handled it well, had made him aware, quite forcefully aware, that the ton would find his marriage subject for gossip and innuendo. And Bridget a topic of rare amusement.
    He sighed. He didn’t want her to be hurt, but he didn’t quite know how to protect her. There were too many people like the Lindens out there, ready to talk about anyone, ready to make Bridget a laughingstock for things she didn’t even understand.
    She had reached the door and turned. The smile she sent him was shy, but definitely inviting. “I’ll be waiting then, Andrew.”
    Smiling back, he watched her go, his beautiful young wife on her way to their wedding chamber. She was a wild thing, his Bridget, free and independent. Like the filly Sable, she wanted her own way, to follow her own path. With patience and loving care he had tamed Sable. But Bridget? He didn’t know.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    Early the next morning, in the big silk-draped bed, Bridget stirred, sighed briefly, and reached a hand out to the space beside her. But the space, though still warm, was empty. She stretched and opened her eyes. Andrew’s getting up must have brought her from the depths of satisfying sleep. She looked toward the door to his room, but it was closed tight. Probably he had gone softly out, not wanting to wake her.
    She stretched luxuriantly and smiled. The rising sun coming through the bed curtains set the golden coverlet to gleaming much like the precious metal itself. The whole chamber shimmered in a warm golden sheen, but nothing could be warmer, more golden, than the wonderful glowing feelings she had experienced in this very bed last night— in Andrew’s arms.
    She raised herself on one elbow. There on the floor lay her new blue nightdress, the one embroidered in dainty white roses. Probably she should get out of bed and pick it up. But she slid back under the warm covers, smiling. The nightdress would still be there later. She was a lady now, and ladies could sleep late if they chose.
    She turned on her side toward the place where Andrew had lain. The pillow still held the indentation of his head, and she fancied she could still smell the faint elusive masculine scent that was all his.
    She laughed softly. At first last night Andrew had seemed embarrassed. That was odd because she knew for certain that she was not the only woman he’d bedded. That first day he’d come out to the stables, that day she’d heard the boys telling tales about him—one of the best men in the ton, they said, good with horses, and with beautiful young ladies fluttering about him like moths to a flame, and him burning them all.
    She smiled to herself. If those young ladies had known the Andrew she’d known last night, they would have thrown themselves even more willingly into the fire. She sighed, her smile slowly disappearing. She liked Andrew, she liked being his wife. And what they’d done last night—well, Papa had been quite right. She liked that, too, she liked it quite a lot.
    But still, it didn’t seem right—Papa tricking Andrew about the wager. She’d tried to tell him she was sorry about it, but he’d hushed her with a kiss—that was after her