Scandal At Christmas - A Christmas Novella Read online

  Letitia’s mind was whirling, her hands clammy with rising anxiety as she gripped the handle of the bucket and ducked outside to find the well. She began to pump, willing herself to stay calm. To find a way out of this predicament as quickly as she could with no one the wiser. And oh, dear lord, there was Lord Weybourne standing at the other end of the building, in profile to her as he reached through a fence to stroke the forelock of a chestnut mare. Letitia’s heart kicked up its beat and she forced herself to keep pumping when all she wanted to do was stop and stare at this splendid example of masculinity. She had more pressing matters to deal with than indulging herself with thoughts of Lord Weybourne, but her heart was in hopeless rebellion. And so were her eyes, unable to look at anything else but the earl....

  The water bucket overflowed, jarring her back to the present, and she slammed the handle down on the pump and hurried back into the stable, where she found the sour Mick waiting for her.

  “Ye’ll have to be faster than that if ye want t’ impress His Lordship,” Mick muttered, stalking down the neatly-swept aisle. “Hurry up, time’s a’ wastin’....”

  Letitia glanced over her shoulder, hoping Lord Weybourne would come back. She was still reeling over the unexpected fact that he was so handsome, so personable, so ... virile. What would it feel like to be kissed by that firm, sensual mouth? What might his hair feel like beneath her fingers?

  Horses. Look at the horses and stop thinking about him! She peered into the stalls as they passed each one. Here, a dark bay mare with a blaze ... there, a liver roan colt, obviously on his way to gray. Her eyes widened with appreciation, and she nearly plowed into Mick’s back as he finally stopped behind a last stall containing a seal bay colt who could only be the notorious Amir.

  “Watch him, ’e bites.”

  The colt stood behind the vertical bars of his door, nostrils pressed against the iron. Behind them, his dark eyes were flat and showed no emotion whatsoever. Letitia knew the look and she knew the ploy. Convince you into thinking they were bored or sad, convince you to put your hand in there.

  Then say goodbye to your hand.

  “Hello, Amir,” she said.

  The horse didn’t move.

  “I hear ye dine on people’s fingers.”

  The colt lowered his eyelids a fraction of an inch.

  “I know. Ye’re trying to lull me into lettin’ down my guard, aren’t ye?”

  The colt’s lashes drooped a tiny bit more.

  “Nasty little bugger, he is,” Mick said sourly. “Not like his sire a’ t’all.” He handed her a lead rope. “Here. Take him out. Let’s see if ’e takes to ye.”

  Yes, take me out, the colt seemed to say, never moving a muscle, his big, dark eyes still flat and hard. If you dare.

  I dare.

  Letitia hefted the lead rope in her hand and then she saw it. A tiny, barely perceptible twitch of the colt’s ear in the direction of Mick.

  “Can I ’ave some time alone with him?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I—” She bit her lip. “I don’t think ’e likes you.”

  Mick bristled. “He doesn’t like anyone. And if I give ye time alone with him, there’ll be nobody to pick up the pieces when he ends up killin’ ye.”

  She held the colt’s gaze, admiring his wide, intelligent forehead, his huge dark eyes and enjoying the feeling that she was standing with royalty. Somewhat dreamily, she murmured, “I don’t think ’e’ll kill me.”

  “Ye don’t know this wretched beast,” Mick said, frowning. “But I do, and I’m tellin’ ye, he’s—”

  “Is there a problem here, Mick?”

  Letitia gasped. Lord Weybourne had come back into the stable so quietly she had never even heard him and neither, apparently, had Mick, who looked suddenly uncomfortable. And sullen.

  “Ledyard here wants me t’ leave so he can take this wretched little monster out.”

  “If you stopped callin’ him names,” Letitia said quietly, “maybe ’e’d like ye better. He knows ye’re afraid of him.”

  “I’m not afraid o’ him!”

  “He thinks you are.”

  “And ye’re not?” the little Irishman shot back, hands on his hips.

  “No.” She reached out and gently, reverently, traced the shape of the colt’s huge, velvety nostril through the bars of his stall. “I’m not.”

  She was aware of the fact that Lord Weybourne had moved closer to her. Closer than personal space dictated he should be, and she shivered. Did he suspect she wasn’t the lad she pretended to be? Those penetrating gray eyes of his didn’t look like the sort to be easily fooled.

  Heat clawed its way up to her cheeks, reddening them, and she wished she dared pull off her cap so she could pass her sleeve across the back of her suddenly-damp brow.

  “I have a commitment next week that begs both a degree of travel and my attendance,” he said. “Not exactly an event I’m keen to attend, but it would give me far more pleasure to head off in the dead of winter over wretched, muddy roads if I could convince you to work for me instead of your present employer. I’ve not seen Amir react so favorably with anyone before, and I confess, I’m most impressed.” He turned and smiled at the bristling little Irishman. “And you, Mick. Go take the afternoon off. I know your wife has been feeling poorly these past few days with a head cold. I’m sure she’ll welcome your presence.”

  Mick brightened. “Why, thank ye, m’lord. Thank ye kindly, indeed.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  The man ambled out, leaving a suddenly very breathless Letitia standing in the stable with Lord Weybourne.

  Alone.

  Chapter 4

  It was on the tip of her tongue to chastise him for standing so close to her, to rebuke him for putting her—a lady—in such a tenuous, reputation-shattering situation, but she remembered just in time that she was supposed to be a young lad, not a lady, and as long as Lord Weybourne still behaved as if she were a male and not a female, she would assume he knew no better.

  “I like your manner around horses,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Most of the young lads that have been hired to work here are terrified of Amir. He’s the most valuable horse in this stable, the one on whom I’m pinning my hopes, and I can’t have those to whom I’m entrusting his care and future running scared of him. It only makes him worse.”

  She turned away, unwilling to look for too long into his eyes for fear he’d guess her secret. “I only came here to see your famous horses, m’ lord,” she said quietly, hoping her nervousness, her racing heart, didn’t show in her voice. “I’m loyal to my mistress. She treats me well, and I should get going before she misses me.”

  “I wish you would stay,” he said. “Ledyard.”

  Something in the way he said her supposed name sent a prickle of fear up her spine. Did he know? Did he? Oh, she had to find a way out of here, and quickly!

  He leaned against the stall door. “Do consider,” he said. “If you stay, I’ll give you charge of this colt. You would answer to me, not Mick or anyone else. He likes you. You like him. What do you say?”

  “I cannot, m’ lord.”

  Something in his face fell. He turned and slid back the bolt on Amir’s stall and looked pointedly at the lead rope she still held in her hand. “Before you go, then, at least take a few moments to step into the stall with him. If nothing else, satisfy my own curiosity, Ledyard. I am keen to see how this young savage responds to someone who is truly not afraid of him.”

  She hesitated, at war within herself. The knowledge that she had to get out of this stable and this situation with pressing immediacy weighed on her, but oh, here was the chance to share space with the son of the famous Shareb-er-rehh, to experience royalty first-hand and, if her pride would admit it, to impress the handsome Lord Weybourne with her own confidence and abilities. Doing so served no purpose, of course, except to stroke her own pride and to add to memories that later, she could take out and treasure. This day of clandestine daring
, of magic, of a few moments spent with both a Norfolk Thoroughbred and the unimaginably handsome Lord Weybourne....

  She opened the door wide, stepped into the stall—and clamped her eyes shut as the colt struck out, teeth bared, as quick as a cobra and just as intentional.

  The bite hit her hard, in the shoulder, though the fabric of her coat remained intact. The colt’s head jerked up and back as he waited for her to take her hand to him in punishment.

  She didn’t move.

  “Amir,” she said softly, still not moving. “I will not harm ye.”

  Lord Weybourne stood quietly watching, not saying a word.

  “Someone’s been abusing ’im,” she said. “He’s testin’ me. He bit me, then flung his head up, expectin’ to be hit.”

  “He is about to bite you again.”

  She turned just as his bared teeth snaked toward her once again.

  “Amir!” she said firmly.

  The horse stopped, his eyes no longer flat and hard, but dangerous, angry and intentional. He was testing her. Trying to find her breaking point, the point where she would flee the stall, never to try again, and he would be left alone and unchallenged and chafing with unspent energy. This was a horse with plenty of spirit and plenty of fight—with those attributes properly channeled, she had no doubt that he might indeed prove himself to be the “fastest horse in the world.”

  “Ye don’t frighten me, Amir.”

  She stood her ground as the colt, confused by her reluctance to show fear, to run for her life from his stall, lowered his head, his nostrils flared, squared, and quivering as he tried to discern what she was about.

  Quietly, she extended her arm, palm up, and allowed him to slowly and purposely sniff her.

  He raised his head. He was a striking colt, a dark seal bay with a thick, shaggy black mane and a forelock that tumbled down over his eyes. Powerful hindquarters. Long, strong legs, good layback of shoulder, a proud neck set on high. Intelligence and canniness in the eyes, small ears set atop a wide skull, big, flat cheekbones set wide apart to allow plenty of air to get to the great lungs that would power him.

  “Ye’re a glorious horse,” she said, and smiled as the colt, one ear twitching back and forth, raised his head another inch ... closer to her hand ... and closer.

  There.

  Finally.

  Velvet against the skin of her palm, the soft whiskers of his muzzle, the warmth of his breath.

  The colt sniffed her hand, the wariness going out of his eyes, his head dropping an inch ... two.

  “Ye can bite me over and over again, Amir,” she said softly, as he took a hesitant step forward, pressing his muzzle against her hand, “but I’ll never strike ye back.”

  She extended her fingers and gently scratched under the colt’s jaw, smiling as he dropped his head another inch and moved a step closer. She looked up then and saw Lord Weybourne a few feet away, watching her with the intensity of a gun dog on a pheasant. He didn’t say a word. Just stood there watching her, until heat began to bloom deep in the pit of her belly.

  “I think,” he said softly, “I have witnessed a miracle here tonight.”

  “No miracle,” she said, looking away. “Just a horse who’s desperate to find someone to stand up to ’im without hurtin’ him, to not be afraid of him. He’s smart.”

  “As are you, Ledyard.”

  There was something in his voice that made her head jerk up. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”

  “What is your real name ... Ledyard?”

  Alarm prickled the base of her spine and flooded her face, causing her to blush, and it was all she could do not to bolt. He can never discover who I am, or my name will be ruined and my family will never survive the scandal!

  “Ledyard,” she said with false affront.

  But Tristan knew that she wasn’t telling him the truth. He stood looking at her, a slow smile spreading across his face as he noted her increasing discomfort, her panic. The game was up.

  “I think not,” he murmured and reaching up, grasped her cap and pulled it off.

  Thick, lustrous piles of golden-brown hair spilled down, fanning over her shoulders, tumbling down her back, and confirming what he knew to be true all along.

  That she was a woman.

  “Aha,” he said thoughtfully, watching her sea-blue eyes go as wide as the perimeter of a tea cup. “And you thought you had me fooled ... Ledyard.”

  She swallowed hard, and he saw the panic growing in her eyes. She took a step back, out of the stall.

  “I must go,” she said, flustered.

  His hand seized her wrist, staying her when she would have fled. “You are no lad, Ledyard. Why are you here, dressed as one?”

  “I told you, I only wanted to see a real Norfolk Thoroughbred. Please unhand me.”

  “And you could not do that, dressed as a female?” He shut the stall door and stepped closer. “What are you running from, Ledyard?”

  The girl looked him straight in the eye. “My mother,” she said honestly. “And marriage to a man with a hair growing out of a nose-mole, a man to whom I’m to be thrown like a ball to a child if I don’t find a way out of it. I needed to think. I think best on the back of a horse and when I’m around horses.”

  “And you could not do that, dressed as the lady I suspect you are?”

  “I needed to sneak away from the household for an hour. That would be impossible dressed as my true self.” Her chin came up a fraction of an inch as his smile spread. “Besides,” she said mulishly, “I did want to see a real Norfolk Thoroughbred.”

  “And now you have.”

  “Now I have, and now I must go.” She pulled free of his grip and moved out of the stall. He followed, intrigued. She was an enigma, this “Ledyard.” Trying to pass herself off as a lowly, horse-crazy lad when she was, judging by her speech and her sudden poise now that the charade was over, most certainly of the upper classes. Or at least, associated with them. He wondered who her “mistress” was.

  “You must go,” he repeated. “You, the only person who has ever come into this stable and shown fearlessness and promise where Amir is concerned. The only person he has ever softened toward. And what do you wish to do, now that you’ve befriended my horse that hates everyone, now that you’ve charmed and intrigued me with your fearlessness and your ability?”

  She kept walking, trying to put distance between herself and him. “Run away, I guess, before you discern who I really am.”

  “And I thought you were fearless.” He caught up to her, quickly moved in front of her and stopped, so that she was also forced to halt or slam up against his chest. “I’d pay you well to stay, you know.”

  “That is absolutely out of the question.”

  “Surely this is a better deal than being married to a man you detest.”

  “It is. I’d sooner marry Amir. At least he doesn’t have a mole growing out of his nose.”

  Tristan laughed. She said it with such earnestness, such a serious look on her face that he couldn’t help himself, and with some surprise, he realized that it had been a long time, a very long time, since he had actually laughed so hard and with such pure and utter delight. He liked this sassy little miss. Of course she couldn’t stay, not if she had a mama who was arranging a marriage for her, but nevertheless she intrigued him. And he was having a bit of fun teasing her and watching the play of emotion dance across her lovely face.

  “So you reject my offer to stay,” he said. And then, with sheer daring: “But before you leave, how about a kiss for me to remember you by?”

  He hadn’t thought that her eyes could go any wider.

  “What?”

  “A kiss.” He smiled, enjoying her shock. “I did, after all, let you see the horses.”

  “I cannot kiss you!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because ... well....”

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  “I can’t answer that question. I am becoming distressed, the ruse is up, and I n
eed ... I need to leave.”

  Tristan walked a little distance away, folded his arms and leaned against the smooth, varnished wood of an empty stall. “And here I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”

  “I’m not, except discovery and scandal.”

  “And me.”

  “I am not afraid of you!”

  “Then prove it.”

  He saw the indecision in her eyes, the desire warring with panic, with desperation, and again, wondered who she was. Her skin had too many freckles from being out in the sunshine for her to be as well-bred as her speech would otherwise have marked her. Probably some vicar’s daughter, or a governess fleeing a house where a hairy-moled gentleman lay in wait to ambush her.

  He stepped forward, and when she didn’t move, he reached out and drew her into his arms.

  She made a faint sound of protest, but there was otherwise no fight in her. His hands cupped her jaw, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks and forcing her to look up at him. He saw her throat move, the desire darkening her eyes as he pushed a hand into her lustrous fall of silken, glossy hair, relishing its thickness, its weight, its good health. He dragged his fingers through the thick, shining locks, down over her shoulders and into the curve of her back, there to press gently, to urge her closer to him. She moved shyly into his embrace, wide-eyed and unsure, but Tristan felt none of her uncertainty. She fit him like a well-tailored coat—just the right size, just the right shape, the top of her head coming up to just below his chin.

  “Kiss me, Miss....”

  “Lettie,” she murmured a bit breathlessly, and he dropped his face into her hair. It smelled of lemons and summer long-gone, reminded him of primroses and sunshine and a happy, playful feeling that had long since abandoned his work-too-hard life that left no time for play, for joy, for simply kissing a very, very pretty young woman.