Tempted By His Secret Cinderella (Allied At The Altar Book 3) Page 13

  His mother nodded, her agile mind sifting through his decision with approval. He reached for the next letter on the pile and casually scanned it. He reread it, this time far less casually. It was from the stable.

  ‘What is it?’ His mother leaned forward in concern.

  ‘The mare, the one in foal.’ It had turned into a high-risk pregnancy. The mare was only eight, but she’d not taken the other two times she’d been bred. Now, he feared she’d taken too well. ‘I think it’s twins.’ It would be a rare occurrence, but he’d sworn he’d felt two babies and the mare’s size was tremendous. ‘She wasn’t due until the end of August.’ After all this business was done. The party would be over and he’d be wed. By August, he’d have the consolation of returning to normal life. But now, the mare was in labour three weeks early. He stood up, his decision made. ‘I have to go. I’ll leave immediately. Please make my apologies. I’ll be back when the crisis has passed.’ He knew that wasn’t much of an answer. It could be anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days.

  ‘Sutton! You can’t walk out on your own gathering.’ His mother was aghast. ‘This is unorthodox, even for you. Wharton and the others will not tolerate this. They will sink you.’

  ‘I cannot do otherwise. The mare needs my help. She won’t make it without me.’ She might not make it anyway if there were complications. Sutton halted at the door. ‘Quietly tell Wharton, the Marquis, the Bradleys and the Fenworths they are front runners. That should placate them.’

  ‘But the shopping trip!’ his mother cried. ‘Wharton will be furious.’

  Sutton smiled. ‘You planned an amazing house party in five days that drew England’s finest. I have every confidence, Mother, you can smooth Wharton’s feathers.’ He slipped out the door. There was no more time for protests. He would change clothes and be at the barn within the half-hour.

  * * *

  She wanted to be gone from here! Elidh pressed her back up against the corridor wall, trying to be invisible. She clutched the basket holding her gosling tight to her chest. She shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but once she’d started she couldn’t stop, horrible as it was. She was supposed to join the girls for a morning of correspondence writing in the blue sitting room but when she’d approached, the gossip had stopped her short. They were talking about her.

  ‘She’s a fortune hunter and a liar, telling all of us she was just here to see an English house party.’ That voice belonged Isabelle Bradley. Elidh would know that spoilt whine anywhere. ‘But she’s no different than the rest of us.’

  ‘Maybe even worse.’ That dart came from Imogen Bettancourt, who was always happy to parrot the opinions of others since she seemed to have none of her own.

  ‘What do you mean?’ someone asked in feigned shock designed to invite disclosure, and Imogen complied, eager to be the centre of attention for once on her own merits instead of her father’s. Even Elidh found herself craning to hear.

  ‘You know those foreign types. The Continental nobility is wrecked. A Continental conte isn’t worth nearly as much as an English viscount, for instance. Everyone knows English titles are the only ones with any real weight. The Princess and her father are probably paupers when it comes down to it, nothing but a title to recommend them.’ Oh, that girl was cruel! Elidh winced at the words.

  ‘That might be true.’ Isabelle was back at it. ‘She’s worn that red dress twice.’

  ‘I thought the dress was lovely,’ A shy voice spoke up. Eliza Fenworth, Elidh thought. ‘Besides, she’s travelling. She doesn’t have her whole wardrobe with her. It just proves she wasn’t planning on coming. If I was allowed a red dress like hers, I’d wear it every day. I think the Princess has such beautiful, colourful clothes.’

  Elidh smiled at Eliza’s kindness. But her smile faded almost instantly. ‘Colourful. Like her morals, no doubt.’ That was one of the Bissell twins. Leah. She had a lower voice than her sister, not that anyone ever noticed. But Elidh did. It came in handy telling them apart. ‘Italy is a land of passion and I dare say she’s indulged. You can tell. That music she played last night, the dancing. The way she kissed Mr Keynes on the balcony.’ She kissed? Sutton had kissed her. They had that part wrong.

  ‘She’s always throwing herself at him, it’s shameless, really. She went off in the woods with him for croquet and then last night...’

  ‘Don’t forget the boating.’ That was the higher-pitched twin, Rachel. Elidh stomped her foot. Didn’t they remember he had asked her? That she hadn’t even walked down to the lake with them. She’d walked ahead with Michael Peckworth. ‘They were out on the lake for ages,’ Rachel continued in a scandalised tone, ‘and they even disappeared.’

  ‘Slut.’ Isabelle Bradley made a knife out of a single word. ‘I don’t know what he sees in her.’

  ‘Don’t be naive, Isabelle.’ Leah laughed. ‘All men want the same thing. I know exactly what he sees in her. A tumble to entertain himself with while he decides on a wife. She’s easy and he’s...hard.’ She giggled at her wicked juxtaposition.

  Virginia Peckworth spoke up, sounding pious. ‘Be careful, Leah. You’re not much better, you and Rachel, going off with Louie Fenworth. You don’t want to end up tarred with the same brush.’

  Leah snickered. ‘You’ve been sweet on Louie for months and he’s never noticed you. You’re just jealous.’

  ‘Well, it’s common knowledge that Englishmen will flirt with easy girls like the Princess, but they will marry a respectable, English virgin.’ Virginia preened. Elidh could almost see her sitting up straighter, tossing her glossy chestnut curls.

  ‘Even your brother, apparently.’ Leah wasn’t ready to concede the field to Virginia. ‘He was quite taken with the Italian slut before she ignored him for Keynes.’ She laughed meanly. ‘I guess size does matter. Your brother’s...er...fortune can’t match Keynes’s.’ An ominous silence followed. Elidh held her breath, hoping no one came stomping out of the room. She’d be seen for sure and they would all know she had heard. Perhaps they didn’t care. She could imagine Virginia’s brown eyes shooting darts at Leah. She half wished Virginia would do more than stare her down. Maybe stab her with a fountain pen. But that thought was petty and hardly worthy of her. It was a sign of how the masquerade was getting to her and how much the situation with Sutton was spiralling out of her control into emotions she didn’t want to feel.

  ‘Ladies, we shouldn’t fight,’ Alexandra Darnley, a friend to both the Bissell twins and Virginia, intervened. ‘We should be united against a common enemy. Whatever she’s done, it’s working for her. She has Mr Keynes’s attention and we don’t. We have to neutralise her if any of us are to stand a chance. But look at us, we’re fighting among ourselves and she’s not even here. Do we know where she is? Has she somehow wangled yet more time with Mr Keynes while we sit here dutifully writing letters to our aunts? This is war, my friends, and we are being defeated. The Princess must be eliminated.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eliminated. What an awful word. The gosling began to cheep, restless in his basket. She would have to move on soon or risk discovery.

  ‘We can’t kill her, Alexandra!’ someone cried. Elidh was beyond caring who.

  ‘Heavens, no.’ Alexandra was a cool customer. ‘But we can minimise her. I have a plan.’ The voices dropped to whispers and Elidh squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. They hated her. She could not go in there. This was naked female aggression unveiled. She didn’t want to go anywhere they might be. Eliminate. Neutralise. Minimise. She was tired of being brave, tired of pretending she could face them down and win. There were simply too many of them.

  She turned and ran, hoping to make the sanctuary of her room before the tears fell. Princesses didn’t cry. Princesses were not intimidated by the likes of Alexandra Darnley. But she couldn’t be a princess right now. It felt as if she was besieged from all sides: girls who thought she was competing against them; her father
who was scamming everyone, even her, by pushing her forward in this competition she wanted no part of; even Sutton was against her in his own irresistible way, with his insistence about spending time with her, with that ill-advised kiss he’d stolen last night. She was fighting on all fronts and she just couldn’t keep it up. She took the first corner and ran straight into a wall—a wall with arms, a wall that had also been moving in a distracted hurry.

  ‘Where are you going in such a rush?’ Sutton steadied her, taking in her stricken face. ‘Chiara, what’s happened?’

  She couldn’t breathe for a moment from the impact. But it was long enough to gather her wits and to take in the fact that he’d been running, too, his own breathing uneven. ‘Where are you going?’ Far better to ask a question than to answer the one he’d asked.

  ‘To the stables, I must leave immediately. A mare is in distress.’ And so was he. It registered now that he’d changed clothes. He was dressed in a work shirt and old breeches. She forgot about her problems and focused on his concern. She’d yet to see him worked up over anything like this, but he was definitely upset. ‘I have to save her and her foals.’ The concern was etched all over his face as the words tumbled out. He’d been distracted, it was why he hadn’t seen her sooner. Elidh made a split-second decision.

  ‘I am coming with you.’ It would be an escape and perhaps she could do some good.

  ‘Chiara, there’s no time to lose. I cannot wait for you to get ready.’ He was setting her away from him even as he spoke, his urgency driving him to bluntness.

  She held up her basket with the gosling inside. ‘Then stop arguing. I have everything I need. Let’s go.’

  It was the most impulsive decision she’d ever made in her life. It was the kind of decision her father would make: rash, well intentioned, but with unlooked-for side effects such as being thrown up on Sutton’s big gelding, Sutton’s body behind her on the saddle, his arms about her as he took the reins and kicked the big bay into motion with only the tersest of warnings—‘Hold on’—something easier said than done when holding a basket with a baby goose in it. Then they were off, galloping across the estate to stables she hadn’t known existed.

  That had been her first miscalculation. She’d assumed they were going to the stables closer to the house, where Sutton’s gelding and the guests’ mounts were boarded for easy access along with the carriages. But these stables were working stables and further away on the edge of an estate that encompassed acres upon acres of land.

  Distance was her second. Her impulsive decision to accompany him might have secured escape from the girls, but it had also played into their gossip. She was unchaperoned and alone with their host, flying across fields between Sutton’s legs. Frightening as the ride itself was—Elidh wasn’t much of a rider—she could not overlook the intimacy of the experience, something she was reminded of frequently as she jounced between his thighs—his rock-hard, well-muscled thighs that she suspected flexed endlessly to keep them both in the saddle. Whatever the girls had accused her of, she’d certainly given them cause. She knew exactly how this would look if anyone discovered she’d left with him. It would not look altruistic and there wouldn’t be anyone who’d believe she’d thought they were just going to the riding stables and checking on a mare.

  With relief, she saw the stables come into view and, shortly after, Sutton reined his horse to a halt in the yard. He dismounted with efficient athleticism and helped her down, a somewhat less athletic dismount on her part. A man raced out to greet him. The two of them were already in deep conversation, striding towards the barn, leaving her to trail behind at her own pace as a boy came to take the gelding.

  The first thing Elidh noticed when she entered the barn was the overwhelming smell of manure and urine, which was a fairly significant thing to notice considering the stable floor was brushed clean, not a stick of errant straw in the aisle, and exotic camels lined the stalls, their long necks poking over their half-doors. Out of reflex, in defence against the smell, she pulled out her handkerchief. Ahead of her, Sutton strode unbothered by the stink. Camels! She’d never seen one up close, but there was no time to explore the excitement of that if she wanted to keep up with Sutton, who was nearing the end of a long stable. The smell was better here. Camels gave way to horses in the stalls until they reached the end where a mare lay on her side in a big box stall full of hay.

  ‘How long as she been like this?’ Sutton asked the groom as he knelt beside the mare’s head, crooning soft words.

  ‘Since this morning when we brought the hay. She was sweating for a while and I thought she might foal, but nothing has happened and she’s stopped sweating.’

  ‘Foaling in the morning would be unusual,’ Sutton mused, moving to reach over her back to feel her belly, careful to stay away from any sudden flailing hooves.

  Elidh watched in the silence as he conducted his examination. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked softly once he’d finished and they were alone.

  ‘If she was in labour, there’d be contractions. I don’t like that they seem to have stopped.’ Sutton furrowed his brow, his usually neatly combed hair falling forward over his face. He pushed it back and ran a hand over his mouth in thought. His gaze met hers. ‘I think she might be carrying twins.’

  Elidh worried her lip. One didn’t need to know horses to know delivering twins of any sort was dangerous. ‘Perhaps if we get her up, have her move around, that might wake the babies up,’ Elidh suggested. ‘It could be that the grooms mistook kicking for contractions.’ They’d had a goat once, which the troupe had used first as a prop for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and later kept on for milk. The goat had been one of her father’s more impulsive purchases, but Elidh had loved that animal. The troupe had discovered rather unexpectedly the goat was pregnant. A farmer who’d let them camp on his land had recommended they walk her as labour neared.

  Sutton nodded. ‘Stand at her head and help me get her up. When I give the signal, tug at her halter.’

  Horses were bigger than goats. A lot bigger. But Elidh didn’t hesitate. The mare’s distress overrode her own fears. This was no time to be afraid. The mare was clearly uncomfortable, clearly in need of help, and Elidh’s heart went out to her, much as it had gone out to the goat years before and the gosling snuggled in the basket. On the third try, they got the mare up, Elidh pulling at the halter and Sutton pushing from behind. The horse came to its feet in an unsteady lurch, bulky and unwieldy. Sutton was beside her, attaching a lead rope to the halter and clucking to the mare. ‘We’ll take her outside and walk, nice and slow.’

  The fresh air helped. The mare seemed more relaxed and Sutton did, too. They walked slowly, one on each side of the mare. Under other circumstances, the outing would be ideal. The weather was warm, the sky blue, a perfect July day. But Sutton was worried about the mare and she knew there were other things on his mind as well. ‘Tell me about the camels,’ she asked in hopes that, for just a few moments, she could take his mind from his troubles.

  ‘They’re my project.’ He smiled across the mare’s nose. ‘I am studying the effects of their milk across breeds. I am a proponent of feeding camel’s milk to thoroughbred foals as a supplement to their usual diet after the first month to enhance their nutrition and strengthen their bones. Maybe even help them grow faster, stronger. In the past, it hasn’t been uncommon to feed camel’s milk as a substitute to foals, but I’d like to see if its properties can be more than a substitute. I think camel’s milk could be good for humans, too.’

  Elidh wrinkled her nose playfully. ‘They smell.’ She couldn’t imagine drinking something that came from such smelly creatures.

  ‘It’s because they recycle their urine internally. It causes them to give off an odour...it permeates, or infiltrates their skin.’

  ‘Recycled urine? Lovely,’ she choked out. Well, that certainly explained the smell at the other end of the barn.

  Sutton laughed. �
��You should see the look on your face.’ Then he sobered. ‘I am sorry, I have shocked you. At last, I have found Princess Chiara’s limits of good sense.’ The remark stole the joy from him.

  ‘Oh, no! Don’t think that. It’s just a rather new concept.’ She smiled, embarrassed that she’d not responded better. His face had lit up when he’d spoken of his camels. She should have known. ‘So, do you drink camel’s milk?’ That seemed to be a safer topic to return to.

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’ He was grinning again and it was infectious. His joy had returned.

  ‘What does it taste like?’ Elidh asked with cautious curiosity. ‘I’d like to try it sometime.’ She’d drink anything to see him smile, further proof of how far she’d fallen where this man was concerned, this man she wasn’t supposed to feel anything for, whom she wasn’t even supposed to have noticed.

  ‘It tastes like milk, of course.’ He laughed. ‘It’s creamy like cow’s milk, maybe a little saltier, a little more filling.’ They stopped at a white painted fence and let the mare rest. Sutton leaned against it, a booted foot on the lowest railing, the breeze ruffling his hair. He looked good, despite his worry. Natural even, in a way that was different from the confidence he exuded in dark evening clothes. There was an informal confidence that emanated from him as if he knew he’d found his place in the world.

  ‘You belong here.’ The words slipped from her without conscious thought. It was a conclusion as intuitive as breathing, and as obvious. He did belong here, with the horses and the camels, here among the paddocks and stables. There was an ease to him that was missing from the man he’d been at the party. ‘I’ve only seen a glimpse of you until now, I think,’ Elidh said softly, still in quiet awe of her discovery. Then she made another one. ‘It must be hard to be away from it.’ No wonder he resented the party so much.

  ‘More than you know,’ came the reply. ‘Sometimes I think I am better with animals than people.’