No Choice but Surrender (11 page)

"I take it all back
. '
Tis you after all," she stated after successfully dodging his advance.

He laughed and swung open her bedroom door behind her, making her almost lose her balance. Catching her firmly
with ,
both arms around her waist until she was steadied, he then let her go. But before he left her, he took her hand and bent over it, placing a soft, warm kiss directly in the middle of her sensitive palm.

He curled it up after he straightened, and she heard him say as he was leaving, "Think of me, wildflower, when your head touches the pillow." Then he quickly descended the stairs, leaving her with no doubt at all that she would.

The largest bay stud Brienne had ever seen in her life loomed over her. His head nudged her playfully and rubbed his forehead across her stiff, frightened back.

"Ah! Stop that, you mawkish fool!" Avenel snapped at his mount and pulled his horse away from her. He handed the reins over to the young stableboy, Kelly, and then attended to her.

"I'm not sure they like me." She took a step back from the dappled mare, who was not as large as the stud but still
as
 
intimidating
. "Perhaps we could do
this another
day?" She turned around, but much to her chagrin she found Avenel blocking her way.

"Are you a coward?" He looked down at her, and his eyes confirmed what he thought.

"Most certainly not!
But I do not see the necessity of learning to ride." She shrugged her shoulders, tightly bound in a jacket that was too small for her. She hadn't had an occasion to wear the indigo-dyed wool jacket for several years, and now she found it to be fitted for a smaller girl than herself. The largest was still fine
homespun,
it fell down to her knees
and provided sufficient protection to her violet wool dress. Still, she was uncomfortably looped into it from the waist up, and she was concerned that her movements on the horse would cause the fabric to split.
"Perhaps on another occasion?"
She twisted her shoulders once more, trying to find some give in the weave.

"I would like a companion on my rides. That reason alone should suffice." He tossed the reins on the mare's bridle over the animal's head and placed them at the end of the pulled black mane.

"Then could not Cumberland take these rides with you?" She searched every avenue to avoid having to perch atop that huge beast.

"Cumberland is not a young man, and I daresay he would not find it pleasurable to jog in a saddle for hours at a time."

"And you believe I will?" She looked doubtfully at him.

He smiled; his lips curled with a boyish twist.
"Perhaps not at first.
But at least you are young enough to weather the bumps and bruises well. Besides, the exercise will tire you out, so I won't have to listen to you pace in your room when I visit the library in the evening."

"I have no need for exercise,
nor
for the accompanying bumps and bruises," she said, her pretty lips curling in disdain.

"It may not be so bad. I would think that, under that bum roll you don, you're comfortably padded."

She gasped and glared at him like a startled, hissing cat. How dare he be so crude as to mention her underthings in the presence of a stablehand! She started to turn away from the horse, but Avenel blocked her way. He came just a little closer and rested his hands on the fine French leather of the mare's saddle. She was aware of the masculine scents of glycerine- rubbed saddlery and well-groomed horseflesh that clung to him. When he demanded her attention, Brienne made herself look at him so that her overcome senses could return to normality.

"If you would rather avoid testing out on the mare," he said, keeping her head caged between his arms. He then continued in Welsh, knowing full well that she was the only one in the stable block who could understand the dialect, "we could go back to my bedchamber and . . . you could ride me." He whispered this last statement, making her legs, which had seemed strong and mobile before, go weak. He bent down to her once again giving her a scent of that elusive masculinity that seemed to exude from his every pore.

Sputtering with embarrassment, she gave the stableboy Kelly an anxious glance to see if he had understood what Avenel had said. Gratefully, she saw that he was busy with Idle Dice, Avenel's large bay stallion. When she was free from that mortification, she turned on Avenel and said viciously, "You heathen!
Speaking of such things to me!"

"Mayhap.
But that still doesn't satisfy my curiosity. Is it the mare or me?" He gave her a cocky look that she fervently wished she could scratch off his face. But she knew there would be no way around his other offer if she refused the mare. So finally she complied and allowed him to give her a leg up onto the sidesaddle.

She quickly grabbed the reins but made them too short in her hands. The mare obediently started backing up and, there seemed to be no way to stop her from going all the way to London. Feeling terribly out of control, she didn't know what to do next, but Avenel comfortably took the lead, swinging easily into the saddle of his stud and taking a mild trot over toward the northwestern fields.

Much to her rising terror, the mare followed, progressing into a bouncing, jarring trot also. Brienne almost feared for her life, for she didn't have the vaguest idea how to go along with the miserable gait.

"Is it that you are trying to kill me now?" she screamed at Avenel when they finally stopped in a closely clipped pasture. She hung over the pommel of the saddle, relieved and grateful that the mount had stopped moving and was now standing calmly beside Idle Dice. "Is that the plan you've had all .along?" Huffing, she tried to pull up her bodice, which had fallen during the uncomfortable ride. She then pulled the edges of her dark blue jacket closer together, noting that one of the frogs on it had become undone. Fastening this while she shot Avenel looks of molten
rage,
she firmly decided that learning to ride was utterly dispensable and that she would find another way to be free of the man.

"Just think of this, if it becomes too much for you Lady Brienne." He untied his shin and pulled the shiny black cord from around his neck. He dangled the key seductively within her grasp, but she was not such a fool as to grab for it here. Balefully she tried to give the key and him her complete disregard.

"I will learn to ride, Master Slane," she conceded; the key held the power of persuasion, "if that will please you. Anyhow, riding is far better than anything else you've suggested, no matter how painful and awkward it is."

"Wonderful." He noted her forced compliance. "And to make it more comfortable, I will ask you to keep your hands loosely upon the reins and to hold them like so." He draped his reins over the right shoulder of his mount and then laced them through his little finger, holding his wrists at a relaxed angle.

"Good," he said when she begrudgingly emulated him. "Now, 'tis important for you to keep your hands down near her mane. You'll gain more control over her mouth, and it is more pleasing to the eye." He watched her lower her hands, and then he instructed, "Now walk her. Shift forward slightly in the saddle and nudge her with your calf."

She did as she was told, and miraculously the mare started to walk. "But how do I tell her where she should go?"

"A demure tightening on the left or right rein will suffice for now. You'll learn more effective ways later."

He sat on Idle Dice and watched as she and the mare went around him in circles. He showed her how to turn the mare around. Suddenly, feeling more in control, she wondered if she would like riding after all. It was a relief to be outside and away from Osterley. The day was a glorious repeat of yesterday; the blue azure sky provided lots of strong yellow sunshine. The air smelled of fresh grass, and it was truly a great spiritual uplift to be on horseback, looking at the faraway fields alternately of green alfalfa and bright gold flax.

"I think you've taken to her already," he said as she rode around him.

"What is her name?" She leaned forward and patted the side of the mare's dappled neck, forgetting her uncomfortable jacket and falling bodice in her pleasure.

"She has no name yet. You may name her."

"Me, name her? Then I will call
her . . ."
She bit on her lower lip with her gleaming front teeth, looking very much like a little girl trying to name her first doll. "I will name her . . . Queenie. She looks very much like a queen, don't you agree?" She looked up at him, her face full of happy anticipation. The sun had given her cheeks a pretty blush, and her eyes had never before seemed so full of light and so uncommonly purple.

Brienne was mildly puzzled by the way he watched her. It was as if she had done something extraordinary and he simply could not believe his eyes. But his look was quickly frozen over by his icy blue eyes, and he looked away, apparently finding something more interesting to gaze upon in one of the far-off clusters of oak trees.

The ride did not continue much longer after that. Gruffly, Avenel gathered his reins and bade her follow him back to the stable. He took off at another damnable trot, and Queenie instinctively followed him, despite the precarious seat of her rider. Inwardly, Brienne silently prayed that she would be able to stay in the back-twisting, awkward saddle. She tried with all her might to anticipate the next jolt and sway, knowing the embarrassment she would suffer if she fell off. It was with much relief and annoyance that she finally followed Idle Dice and his master back into the stable yard.

"Must I endure that maddening gait coming and going?" She shot him a sour look as his hands spanned her small waist and helped her to the ground.

" 'Tis
the only way to learn to ride," he said abruptly. She watched as he handed Queenie's reins over to Kelly. Then Brienne almost stamped her foot in exasperation when he left for the house without saying another word.

She heard splashing from the Etruscan room and took this for a sure sign that the master of the house was bathing. Having fumed all day after their ride, Brienne had hoped for such a moment. Hiding in the niche between the state bed and the door to the south passage, she heard Avenel's voice excuse his manservant and finally the quiet splashing sounds of bathing.

Here was her last chance. The key lay as a gold temptation on the commode in the pier. She moved closer to it, hoping the firelight would not betray her. For through the cracked door to the elaborately painted dressing room beyond, Avenel sat just out of sight in a giant, oblong, copper tub. She pulled the hood from her cloak over her dark shining hair to lessen its reflection in the light. Then she quickly made her way across the bedroom to the key that lay enticingly bright atop the black japanned chest of drawers.

Taking her time, she took the key into her shaking hand and ever so slowly put it into the proper keyhole. There was an almost imperceptible click as the lock was sprung. Her heart beat so loudly in her chest that she was sure that even if Avenel had missed the sound of the drawer opening, he would not be deaf to the wild pounding in her chest. Hardly daring to breathe, she almost collapsed when the sound of trickling water from the Etruscan room stopped. She saw through the barely opened door of the dressing room that the shadows that had played with Avenel's movements along the opposite wall of the fireside were now still and cold.

But after a time, Avenel seemed to be assured that there was no sound from his bedchamber. His bath continued, and Brienne heard him scrubbing his chest with a sponge. Her lungs filled with badly needed air, and she trembled with relief. Returning to her task, she vowed to be even quieter, cursing the man in the other room for having an uncanny sense of hearing.

In complete silence she guided the drawer out far enough to spot the sparkling gems that encrusted her comb. She reached for it and enclosed it lovingly in her palm. She hid it among the folds of her cloak, smoothly rolled the drawer into-its closed position, and placed the key back on the top, taking extra rime to place the black silk cording around it in the same position as she had found it.

"That should fool him," she said to herself, happy with her work, "and give me some extra time." Slowly breathing in, she felt refreshed by the heavy, comforting burden of the comb near her side.

Turning to make her way out of the bedroom, she knew there would be one last obstacle to her freedom. That was once again getting by the slightly open door to the dressing room. Brienne knew he was finishing his bath by now, and she heard the water fall from his body as he stood up from the tub. Soon she heard him drying off with the household linens.

As she passed the dressing-room door, she saw that he stood with his back to her. The picture of him
tall,
and naked before the fireplace lingered in her mind long after her eyes had passed it over. His wide, smooth shoulders rippled and flexed as he rubbed a towel over his damp hair, and his lean, powerful thighs tapered up to high, muscular buttocks that bunched with every motion. And then she saw that the hair on his legs seemed to become denser close to his groin. The very thought of that mysterious male flesh that almost appeared between his legs when he bent down to dry his legs made her blush.

Closing her eyes, she stumbled near the door to the passage and grabbed at one of the columns on the bedstead to stop her fall. It was as if he had a sixth sense; she heard Avenel walk to the door of the dressing room and open it to see if something was amiss. Without even thinking, she pulled back against the darkened wall near the bedcurtains, hoping against hope that he would not come into the bedroom. She heard him pause uncertainly as he stood out of her sight in the doorway. Figuring he'd seen nothing out of place—particularly the gold key, which lay just as he had left it on the commode—she heard him start back into the dressing room to warm his naked body by the fire.