My Unfair Lady (15 page)

   Byron had his arms around her tiny waist, his groin smashed up against her bottom, his face nestled in the fragrant locks of her hair, his lips mere inches from the soft skin of her neck. "Not on your life!"

   Summer grinned and leaned forward, urging the mare to lengthen her stride with the Apache words that Chatto had taught her, a sudden stab of longing for her long-lost friend melting away when the man behind her squeezed her waist and grazed his lips across the nape of her neck. The scoundrel.

   Summer grinned wider, finally slowing her mount when they approached a line of forest, ducking low-lying limbs and maneuvering through bushes and around fallen logs. The hounds had ceased yapping and now growled with fierce intensity, so that when they entered a clearing and joined the ring of onlookers she could actually hear the dog's teeth snapping. A metallic whiff of blood drifted to her nose.

   Her horse heaved beneath her while the huntsman rescued the tail of what must have been a very small fox, and handed it to the prince. Summer couldn't help the look of disgust on her face. This was it? A romp through the countryside, so they could watch dogs tear apart some poor creature?

   The duke had acquired an uncanny ability to read the lady's mind. He could feel her vibration of disgust through her rigid spine. "The sport is in the chase and keeping up with the hounds. Have patience with our traditions."

   Prince Albert circled around to Summer and ceremoniously handed her the bloody trophy of the fox's bushy tail. "In memory of your first hunt, Miss Lee."

   She tried to smile graciously, while Lady Banfour glared at her again. It seemed she'd just been bestowed a great honor, one that the other lady wished for.

   Summer tried to think of something appropriate to say, managed a humble "thank you," before being rescued from further comment by the exclamations of the other guests.

   "I say, Monchester, how long did the two of you practice that stunt?"

   Byron breathed a sigh of relief. The American girl had managed to keep her opinions to herself for a change, and although she held the bush as if it would bite her, she did continue to hold it. "What stunt?"

   "Oh, come now. Surely you're not going to tell me that you two didn't practice that switching-horse maneuver? I say, it puts me in mind of that traveling Wild West show. Buffalo, something?"

   "What's this?" inquired the prince, his beaming face dissolving into a frown of confusion.

   "The duke's saddle flew right off," said another man. "Only missed me by a hairsbreadth."

   "Miss Lee here," added a young woman, "pulled him onto her own horse. 'Tis fortunate that she sits her mount so well."

   This caused a flurry of comments on the benefits of riding astride without a saddle.

   "Are you saying that a saddle from one of my own stables had not been tightened properly by my head groomsman?"

   Byron frowned. "It's what I assumed, Your Highness, until the entire saddle came out from under me."

   The prince scowled. "Take us to where this happened. You, Cromsbey. I want you to ascertain why the saddle became loose."

   The man's eyes widened and he bowed, and once at the site, he made a thorough inspection of the equipment. He shook his head and looked up at the prince. "It's been cut clean through, Your Highness. See here, where the girth meets the straps? The fibers show the small amount that hadn't been cut, so that the saddle was held on by a mere thread, and one good gallop would've torn it the rest of the way."

   The prince's face flushed red with rage. "I'll get to the bottom of this, Monchester. No guest of mine shall fear for his safety!"

   Lord Cromsbey blanched, his self-important grin at the honor of being singled out for the inspection fading to a frown of regret.

   Byron felt the small shiver that rippled through the girl in front of him. The thought that someone must've deliberately tried to hurt him had probably upset her. He suppressed a grin of delight. "We'll follow you shortly, Your Highness. I fear Miss Lee needs a few moments to compose herself."

   The prince nodded tersely and galloped away, his retinue tagging along behind.

   "Summer, are you all right?" He could hear a sob escape her, and when she turned, those amber eyes were brilliant with unshed tears.

   Byron smiled condescendingly and hugged her closer, resisting the desire to kiss the lips that were so close to his own. "It's all right."

   "No, it's not."

   "I'm unharmed, thanks to our mutual good sense. It's just the reaction finally sinking in."

   She pulled back and wrinkled her brow at him. The horse shifted and swished her tail at a fly, the thunder of retreating hooves faded behind them, leaving only the songs of the birds and the soughing of the wind in the trees. A secluded, romantic spot for him to soothe her fears. In any way he deemed fitting.

   "What are you talking about?" she snapped.

   Byron removed his hand from her cheek, unaware that it had strayed there. "Those unshed tears…"

   She held the bloody fox's tail in front of his face. "Didn't you say it was out of season?"

   He snapped his head back. "What?"

   "Babies! I just realized that she must've had little ones and now, because of our sport, they're left with no mother."

   "The fox. Your tears are for the fox?"

   Summer gritted her teeth. Was the man being deliberately dense? "For the babies."

   "I see."

   His face fell, and Summer watched that dreamy look in his eyes fade. His lips twisted in that cynical expression he habitually wore, and the thought that he'd been about to kiss her died with a thump that had her wondering at the feeling of coldness it left inside of her.

   "What did you think was wrong?" she asked.

   "It occurred to me that you might've been upset that someone had tried to… Never mind."

   "Kill you?"

   Those golden brows rose. Summer waved her hand. "Tarnation, Byron, I already told you someone wanted you dead. Why do you think I've been watching after you?"

   He choked. "Me? You've been watching after me?" He felt so surprised, he forgot to correct her for using his first name and tried very hard to feel insulted. Instead, that same elation that had risen when he thought she'd been crying in fear for him filled up his soul again. A single tear escaped from beneath her lashes, connecting two light freckles on the side of her nose, and he didn't even try to stop the urge to catch it with his finger.

   Byron suddenly wanted to kiss every freckle that adorned her face. He wanted that tear to be for him, and then wondered why he wished for such a foolish thing. Certainly no one had ever cried for him, not the father who'd raised him with cold tolerance, nor the governess who had near starved him for misbehavior, nor the stepmother who kindly ignored him. He shrugged. If his mother had lived, perhaps she would've shed a tear for him… Not that he needed tear-shedding, he told himself. It's the rest of the aristocracy that needed it, he'd made sure of that!

   He forced himself to snap out of such self-pitying melancholy and eyed the bushy fox's tail she now clutched to her bosom. "We don't even know that it was a female. Do you remember where the covert was?"

   Her eyes widened beneath her bonnet, and she nodded. He thought she looked like a little child, and he was the parent promising to make it all better. How did one stay detached from someone who had no guile or artifice? She was such a contrast of resourcefulness and innocence that she confounded him at every turn.

   "Well, I daresay we could ask the huntsman where the holes he stopped up are, and a thorough digging might uncover the den."

   Summer squealed and twisted all the way around to throw her arms around him. He froze, fighting the urge to crush her with his own embrace, to run his hands up to the back of that soft neck he'd been staring at during their ride, to feel with his fingertips the downy softness of the tiny hairs that grew there. He tried desperately not to delight in the feel of the smoothness of her cheek.

   Summer felt his rigidity and quickly pulled back, a look of horror on her face. "I'm so sorry, Your Grace, I didn't mean…"

   He flipped back the golden lock of hair from his forehead. "It's quite all right, I assure you. In this instance I'll ignore it due to the unusual circumstances of the day." His voice clipped with businesslike efficiency. "Come now, off we go."

   Summer blinked, spun back around, and spoke to her horse. With a snort the mare turned and lurched off at an incredible pace, causing His Grace to clutch at Summer's corseted waist for balance. They caught up to the huntsman as he and his hounds reached the covert.

   "Good man," shouted Byron over the yips of the dogs. "Would you show the lady where you stopped up the fox holes?"

   The huntsman doffed his hat, his mouth twisting at the unusual request, and with a sigh that spoke of years of being subjected to the odd whims of the nobility, shushed his dogs to the ground. They belly-flopped to the grass, tongues lolling, seemingly grateful for the unexpected respite.

   The duke dismounted, a bit clumsily without the aid of the stirrup, wincing at the pain in his inner thighs from torn muscles. Summer slid gracefully to the ground, skirts settling around her riding trousers while she waved the bushy tail in the man's face. "Was it a vixen, sir? Did she have cubs?"

   The huntsman slowly nodded his head. "Is that what you be seeking?"

   She nodded.

   He started across the covert, signaling the hounds to stay. "Pardon me for sayin', yer ladyship…"

   "Go on," urged Summer.

   "It was a vixen right enough, two cubs in the den, if I recall. Usually feed 'em to the hounds—better'n letting them starve to death, and it gets my dogs more worked up for the chase—but didn't have the time this morn, what with Mangy deliverin' the pups and all."

   His voice trailed off at Summer's gasp of outrage.

   The huntsman turned. "Beggin' yer pardon, for speakin' too bluntly." He glanced at Byron with a worried frown. "Seems I spend too much time with my hounds."

   The duke grunted with exasperation. "Just take us to the cubs, man. Before the lady expires on the spot."

   The huntsman turned and sprinted, finally squatting over a mound of fresh dirt, looking up with surprise that the lady and gentleman had kept pace with him, trying to hide his astonishment as they knelt and began to soil their gloves with digging.

   "Do you think they're still alive?"

   "Most assuredly."

   The huntsman added his efforts to theirs, so that they soon revealed an earthen cave with a nest of two reddish brown balls of fur. Summer stripped off her soiled gloves and picked both critters up, delighted when they showed signs of life, squeaking at their interrupted nap. They turned and began to nuzzle her fingers.

   "They must be fed," she muttered.

   The huntsman opened his mouth, glanced at the duke, and snapped it shut again.

   Summer handed them to Byron so quickly that he didn't have a chance to protest—as he most certainly would have done—called to her horse, and leaped onto her back when she came. The huntsman's mouth dropped open and stayed suspended.

   "Hand them to me," she commanded.

   The duke did so with relief, afraid he was going to drop the cubs, then gestured for the huntsman to give him a hand up to mount, and groaned when she handed the fragile things back to him. She glanced from his face to his cupped hands and bit at her lower lip.

   The Duke of Monchester rolled his eyes. "They're not going to starve to death in a few hours, nor do you need to gallop dramatically back to the house. Take it at a walk, and I promise I won't drop them." He mentally repeated that last promise.
I will not drop
them. I will not…

   Summer rubbed the horse's neck, spoke a few Apache words, and the mare snorted with relief as she broke into her usual stride, a walk slow enough that she managed to snatch mouthfuls of tall grass along the way.

   Summer sighed. The duke's muscular legs were snuggled up behind her own, the wind smelled full of late-blooming flowers and musky loam, and the sun warmed the back of her neck like one of the duke's— Monte's kisses. She swayed with the horse's walk and wondered why she had such a difficult time conjuring up Monte's face. They hadn't been in England that long, but the man's features were becoming blurry and indistinct whenever she tried to recall them. The duke's face kept superimposing itself over her attempts to recall her intended. Could it be possible that she was falling in love with Byron?

   Summer took a quick glance over her shoulder. Byron's head was bent over the bundles in his hands, his full lips were moving as he repeated something to himself, his face frowning in total concentration. He carried the two baby foxes as if they were the most precious of burdens—creatures he'd called "vermin"—just to make her happy. Their business arrangement didn't extend to her own personal happi ness, yet time after time, he'd made it obvious that it was important to him.