Never Fall for Your Fiancee, page 9
That Minerva had not fallen from poor Marigold was a miracle in itself—but at least she was upright.
Almost.
And at least her general demeanor had moved from terrified to simply startled. For a woman who normally moved with an achingly hypnotic economy of motion, who could bring to life the rejuvenating qualities of Pinkerton’s Patented Liver Tonic with nothing but a brush and some ink in her talented, graceful hand, this Minerva might as well be a hat stand in comparison. Her posture was so rigid, all four of her limbs were locked at odd right angles as the group plodded laboriously toward the village. Worse, she still didn’t understand the concept of bouncing in time to the horse’s gait. Instead, she bounced intermittently but stiffly, her lush bottom jarring with each apparently alien motion.
Giles and the others were long gone—at Hugh’s insistence. His friend was enjoying the bizarre spectacle of Minerva in the saddle much too much for his liking while Hugh had patiently walked her in circles around the exercise yard, hoping against hope she might eventually get the hang of it. But alas—a ramrod straight, slightly panicked hat stand was all she was capable of.
Now they were blessedly alone but picking their way cautiously down the lane to the village. With any luck, they would arrive before the shops closed, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.
“I told you I was useless at things like this.” Her voice was despondent and apologetic. “We should probably just turn back.”
“Nonsense. You are doing splendidly.” He smiled encouragingly. “Perhaps if you concentrated less, you would relax more.”
“If I relax, I’ll fall off.” Marigold swished her tail impatiently, and Minerva wobbled precariously for a moment, then looked so miserable he felt dreadful. Who knew something as simple as riding a horse would defeat her? “This horse clearly hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. The thing is…” Hugh took in her granite posture and sighed. “Horses are sensitive creatures who take their lead from us. You need to relax for Marigold to relax, too.”
“And how, exactly, does one relax on the back of a skittish horse!” The snippy tone made Marigold snort and chomp on the bit.
“For a start, you could think about loosening your arms. Look at me.” Hugh made sure he was practically lounging in his saddle. “As you can see—I have a firm hold of the reins should I need to quickly take command.” He shook them for effect. “But the muscles in my arms and wrists are soft. Galileo doesn’t need to feel the bit tight at the back of his mouth to know I am in control, because we trust each other.” To prove his point, he used his left hand to tug gently, and his mount instantly responded by moving a little farther away from Minerva on the narrow lane. “Relax your arms, Minerva.”
She took a deep breath. “Is this better?”
Not even slightly. “A little—however, you do still resemble a woman with a couple of sturdy broomsticks shoved up her sleeves.”
She looked down at her arms, ruler straight and raised almost horizontal from her body, and made a conscious effort to bend them. “Will the terror lessen, do you suppose?”
Maybe it would if he took her mind off what she was doing?
“It occurs to me I have been very remiss in my attentions. I’ve been so wrapped up in teaching you how to be my Minerva, I’ve hardly learned anything about the real one. All I know is your parents are no longer alive and your father was a scholar.”
She frowned, her eyes never leaving the road ahead as she concentrated too hard at relaxing. “I said he was gone, not dead.” She risked flicking him a quick glance. “And I saw no evidence of him actually being a scholar, although he frequently claimed to be one. But then my father often claims to be a lot of things.”
“He’s alive?”
“Who knows?” She shrugged, then wobbled some more. “He wrote us a letter one day saying he was going away for a little while and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”
Hugh was appalled. “He never came back! Even after your mother died?”
“My mother died when I was nine. My father abandoned us promptly after my nineteenth birthday. He left no forwarding address.” She said it so matter-of-factly. “I cannot say I miss his presence much. He was more hindrance than parent, especially in the later years.”
“That is outrageous!” For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to turn his horse toward London, hunt the wastrel down, and then beat the bounder to a pulp. “What sort of a gentleman behaves like that?”
“I never said he was a real gentleman either.” She looked troubled. “Again—he claimed to be. He was an engraver—like me. Oh dear … Is that why you asked me to pose as your fiancée? You assumed I am a proper gentleman’s daughter?”
“It was an easy assumption to make. You are well educated, well spoken. You have a genteel bearing.”
“Those come from my mother, who also claimed to be a gentleman’s daughter.” She winced. “But again, I have no proof of that either. They were estranged from their respective families.”
“It makes no difference to me in the grand scheme of things.” He liked her exactly as she was. “So long as you can convince my mother you are a tiny bit genteel…”
“There may be some tenuous link somewhere—although I sincerely doubt from my father’s line.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. “He was as convincing a liar as anyone I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have made it all up.” She risked another quick glance sideways and offered a pained half smile. “He was quite clever that way.”
“But he lacked the moral fiber to do his duty by his family?” Such a thing seemed unbelievable to Hugh. A chap did not shirk his responsibilities!
“He was a terminal wastrel with questionable morals who preferred an easy life to hard work. He managed to make the minimal effort while we were younger—or at least I assumed he did because he just about managed to keep a roof over our heads. He was a woodcutter, too. A reasonably good one. He taught me, actually. Which ironically freed him to spend more time socializing in the local public houses or with his lady friends as I got older—until he abdicated all his parental responsibilities entirely.”
“And left it all to you.” She nodded. “That’s unconscionable.”
“Yes, it is—but that was Papa. He ran with a very bad crowd by then, and in the final days, and the weeks after, several unsavory characters and more than one Bow Street Runner came looking for him. Clearly he was running away from more than just his familial responsibilities.” She shrugged, resigned, and barely wobbled at all. “The Standish male does not have the monopoly on untrustworthiness, Hugh. In my experience, most men are untrustworthy. It’s in their nature, but my father was in a league all his own. In fact, I would go as far as to say that whatever misdeeds any man in your family has done in the past, I’ll wager my dear papa probably did worse.”
Not a wager he was prepared to risk. “For all their copious faults, a Standish would never leave his family in the lurch.” They would lie, cause enormous heartbreak unrepentantly to said family, do exactly as they wished, betray all trust, and ultimately disappoint, but they never ignored their responsibilities. Even the most scandalous ones.
Chapter Nine
“Enough about me.” The village was blessedly close, and Minerva was done with dredging up her depressing past. “Tell me something about you a devoted fiancée should know.”
“My favorite color is red. It’s daring and bold and just the tiniest bit naughty. Like me.”
“That’s hardly the enlightening revelation I was hoping for.” She’d repeatedly tried to tease something personal out of him for days with little success. Every question was answered with something flippant or amusing, to such an extent she was starting to think he was purposefully being flippant. Which suggested, as she suspected, there was more to him than he wanted the world to see. Something she was also well aware she might be conjuring to justify her peculiar reactions to him, and yet there were distinct flashes of something else. She couldn’t deny that.
Like the odd look in his eyes that first morning when he had held her hand after she had confessed her life wasn’t as carefree as his was. There had been empathy there. As if he immediately understood her situation somehow and felt responsible for it. He kept that Hugh firmly under wraps most of the time, but it was that man she was curious about. So curious, she’d had to resort to pumping Payne for information.
“I suspect you’ve already worked me out and know all you need to. I am exactly as I seem. A gentleman of leisure. Charming … quite spoiled and selfish and incapable of any meaningful purpose above what dreaded duty and my birthright force me to do.”
She risked taking her eyes off the road and the reins to glance at him, and something about his expression bothered her, confirming all her suspicions. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. In view of everything you’ve just told me, I am ashamed to say, I’m as shallow as a puddle. What you see is what you get.”
“Yet I still suspect you have hidden depths. There is something about the whole carefree bachelor exterior which doesn’t quite ring true.” Because he was kind and thoughtful. She had seen that. He also undoubtedly had the patience of a saint. A man with those qualities couldn’t be entirely selfish, and moreover, Minerva liked him a great deal and she wouldn’t be able to do that if he were as shallow as he claimed.
“I’d like to hear your evidence for that grievous accusation.”
“You are an early bird—like me. And usually people don’t get up in the morning unless they have a good reason to.”
“I like to have first dibs on breakfast.”
“Liar. You work in your study. You start every morning at six. Payne told me.”
“Payne thinks I’m working and I’ve never done anything to dissuade him from thinking it. But the truth is I go to my study at six because I’ve usually just arrived home from a night of debauchery and I grab a quick forty winks in my study to ensure I am in a fit state to be seen at breakfast.”
“I think your wily butler would know if you’d been out all night.”
“He’s not that wily.” Hugh was smiling as he maneuvered his horse around a pothole with a confidence she envied. “For years I’ve been pretending to go to bed, purposefully rumpling the bedcovers so they look slept in, and then I climb out of my bedchamber window to do unspeakable things with highly questionable associates.”
“Unspeakable things? Really?” She couldn’t help but smile at the flagrant lie. “What unspeakable things can you possibly get up to in this sleepy corner of Hampshire?”
“Gambling, mostly. Drinking and carousing.” He ticked them off his fingers. “And philandering, of course. I’m a slave to hedonism in all its many forms.” Then he winked at her flirtatiously, looking every inch the dashing scoundrel, and the feminine part within Minerva inwardly sighed at the sight. “Fortunately, after darkness has fallen, the village transforms into a den of iniquity.”
“Payne says you meet your estate manager every day when you are in Hampshire, and when you are not in Hampshire, insist on weekly letters from him and travel down at least twice a month to oversee things.” The wink had made her pulse quicken exactly as it had when his strong arms had lifted her effortlessly onto Marigold earlier. “He claims, despite appearances, you are fastidiously diligent when it comes to estate matters, therefore I must conclude you are a very responsible gentleman after all—against all your vehement claims to the contrary.”
He didn’t deny it. “You and Payne suddenly seem very cozy.”
“You are not the only curious person with questions. At least Payne answers mine honestly.”
“Honestly. Good grief! I don’t like the sound of that. What else has the tattler said?”
“That you haven’t increased any rents for the last five years because of the difficult economy and that your tenants universally love you.”
“If they love me, it is because of my acute and universal lack of business acumen, of which they can easily take advantage.” He gestured to the church now only a little ahead of them. “That’s Saint Mary’s. William the Conqueror built it. He set up home in Hampshire for a while—back when Winchester was still the capital.”
He really didn’t want to talk about himself, or at least the less frivolous side of himself at all, but she decided she wouldn’t be swayed. The more time she spent with him, the more he intrigued her. Yes, he was handsome and charming, witty and addictively likeable, but those twinkling blue eyes of his saw more than they let on, and she was coming to believe the mischievous rogue he played so well covered up a very different sort of man. The sort who rescued damsels in distress and knew exactly what to say to prevent a situation from being awkward. Shallow men weren’t intuitive. Nor were they so alluring. “Payne says you are an excellent landlord who looks after them and treats them with respect. He says you always take the time to listen and frequently heed their advice.”
“I pretend to listen to them. It’s one of my few talents. I can appear completely engrossed in a conversation whilst avoiding hearing any of it at all. My tenants think I listen to them. Payne thinks I listen to him and you wrongly assume I’m listening to you now, when in reality, all I am thinking about is lunch. You see? As shallow as a puddle. Here you are, trying to have a meaningful conversation, and all I can think about is myself.”
Something told her he thought about everyone, which was an admirable trait. It made no sense he would try to deny it. “Yet your estate is thriving—largely thanks to all the modern farming techniques you have implemented. I’ve seen all the new books on the subject in the library. And they have been read.”
“Not by me.”
“Payne says you are a better landlord than even your father was, and everybody apparently loved him, too. He says despite your best efforts to the contrary, you are actually very much like your father. Peas in a pod, in fact. Is that true? You’ve never really mentioned him.”
Something suspiciously like despair skittered briefly across his features before he masked it with dismissal. “What is there to mention? Like you I was young when he died. Talking about him only makes me feel maudlin, and why would I want to be intentionally maudlin?” He nudged his horse to trot a little beyond hers and then pointed to the bustling market square as he blatantly avoided her question. Too blatantly. “Ah—look. I see Giles’s horse tied up over there. The others shouldn’t be too far away, or they better not be. I’m starving.”
Clearly she had hit a raw nerve, as he didn’t wait for her, leaving Minerva to navigate the cobbles and a few pedestrians all by herself, something that took more concentration than keeping her horse walking in a straight line.
By the time she reached the inn, Hugh had dismounted and handed his horse over to a groom. He shook his head and huffed out a withering sigh as he grabbed her horse’s halter. “That was barely ten yards. What kept you?” Another groom rushed forward with the block, and Hugh waved him away. “Believe me, it will only end in catastrophe. I’ll help the lady down.” He held out his arms. “Give those white knuckles a rest and let go of the reins, Minerva.”
Reluctantly, she did and clumsily gripped his shoulders. They felt reassuringly solid and disconcertingly wonderful … and she really needed to stop thinking nonsense like that about a man who was paying her to do a job.
In case he noticed the odd effect he had on her, and because it seemed like the quickest way off the beast, she lunged toward him, realizing too late that she should have taken her stupid foot out of the stirrup first. As it twisted, Marigold stepped sideways to escape her flailing, and the ground loomed.
“I’ve got you!”
Mortifyingly, he did. His strong arms were wrapped tight around her ribs as she hung suspended above the ground. Her foot still tangled in the stirrup, and her face sprawled against his chest as he engulfed her, her breasts scandalously flattened against his stomach. Minerva could do nothing but cling to him, inhaling his fresh, clean, manly scent as the groom wrestled her foot out of its stirrup prison, then suffer the indignity of having Hugh haul her upright in the intimate cage of his arms the second it was free.
For a long moment they stood pressed together, something that her body seemed to enjoy far more than it should, until he abruptly broke the contact, holding her at an appalled arm’s length as he blinked down at her.
“Good grief, woman! When I held out my arms, I didn’t expect you to launch yourself into them at that second. You might have given me some warning you were about to take flight. You’d have flattened a lesser man.”
“I am so sorry. I did warn you I was clumsy.” The collar and lapels of his coat were awry. They gave her wayward fingers an excuse to touch him as she straightened them, and then their eyes locked.
And held.
As if they had a mind of their own, her palms smoothed his lapels flat, and beneath them she felt his heart beating. Sure and steady but as rapidly as hers. In that second, she realized the heady, magnetic, dangerous pull she felt wasn’t one-sided. He felt it, too.
Why didn’t that worry her? When her attraction to him wasn’t wise?
She watched his eyes drop to her lips before slowly returning to hers in question, felt her body leaning to meet his …
“Hugh?” Beneath her fingers, Minerva felt the muscles in Hugh’s shoulders tense the second he heard the other voice, and he instantly stepped back. “I thought it was you!”
His head whipped around to face a very beautiful blond-haired woman on the arm of a very dashing-looking man, and he smiled. It was an odd smile. A strained one. One that never touched his eyes. “Sarah … Captain Peters … hello … You are back, then?”
