Silk and Shadows (8 page)

"Perhaps," Peregrine said, taking Sara's arm again. "Mr. Tattersall, are you acquainted with my most charming guide, Lady Sara St. James? It was she who said that your establishment was the place to come for horses."

Resigned, the proprietor bowed to her and muttered a greeting. Then he took them for a tour of the available stock. Peregrine dismissed all of the teams with a single eloquent glance, and most of the riding horses were rejected just as swiftly. Then they came to the last loose box, which contained a large stallion of so pale a gray that it appeared almost white.

"I own this horse myself," Mr. Tattersall said proudly. "Today he will be going up for auction. Splendid, is he not? He is of the line of Eclipse. His sire was…"

Peregrine cut the proprietor off with a quick gesture of his hand. "Bring him out."

A groom led out the young, high-spirited stallion. As it tossed its head, pulling at the halter, Sara nervously stepped back out of the way. Peregrine didn't notice. His face rapt, he circled the stallion, once more talking in the language he had used before. Soothed by his sure touch and hand, the gray steadied and watched him, bright-eyed with interest.

Sara thought that the prince would request that the horse be saddled and put through its paces. Instead, he took the reins from the groom and, with one lithe movement, swung onto the stallion's bare back.

"You will permit me?" Taking off his hat, the prince flipped it to Tattersall with a snap of his wrist. Then, under the stunned eyes of the proprietor, the grooms, and the gentlemenly clientele, he leaned forward over the stallion's neck, kicked it in the ribs, and they went bolting across the yard and out of Tattersall's Repository like silver lightning.

Having had time to become accustomed to the Kafir's ways, Sara was slightly less stunned than the rest. Presumably her companion would return when he and the horse had ridden off their high spirits, but meanwhile Sara felt uncomfortably conspicuous.

Then, to her relief, a familiar voice drawled, "My eyes say that it is you, Sara, but my mind flatly refuses to believe it. Pray clarify my confusion."

Sara turned to see the stout, good-natured figure of a distant cousin, Sir Wilfred Whiteman. "Believe your eyes, Wilfred." She offered her hand. "How are you today?"

"Prospering, my dear." He bowed gracefully. "Who is your energetic companion? A Red Indian from the American frontier? I understand that they prefer to ride without saddles."

She shook her head. "He's a friend of Lord Ross's, Prince Peregrine of Kafiristan. He rides well, doesn't he?"

"That he does," Wilfred replied with unfeigned respect.

Sara smiled inwardly; if the prince wanted to become an instant legend, he was going about it very cleverly. Fashionable gentlemen like Wilfred might be startled by his actions, but in an approving way. Even Mr. Tattersall looked indulgent after his shock wore off, though he handed the prince's hat to a groom.

For ten minutes or so, Wilfred amused Sara with scandalous gossip. Then Peregrine trotted in on the stallion, both of them looking vastly pleased with themselves. "Magnificent, Mr. Tattersall," he said as he reined the horse in. "What is your price to sell him before auction?"

The proprietor's eyes narrowed as he speculated how much an ignorant foreigner might be willing to pay. "A thousand guineas."

"Done."

Sara almost laughed at Tattersall's expression when he saw that he might have gotten much more for the horse. However, she did not waste much sympathy on him; a thousand guineas was probably more than Mr. Tattersall could have gotten at auction.

Then Peregrine rode over to Sara. His wavy black hair, which he wore a little long, was tangled from the wind, and he looked untamed and splendid and free, not at all like an Englishman. "His gaits are like silk, Sara." He extended one hand to her. "Come, ride with me."

Sara felt the blood drain from her face. She looked up at him helplessly, knowing that he did not understand what he was asking. Then, as their gazes caught and held, his expression changed. He saw too much, damn him. His green eyes compelling, he said so softly that no one else could hear, "Trust me."

She wanted to turn and run. Instead, before she could think too much about what she was doing, she took a deep breath and clasped the prince's hand. Effortlessly he lifted her onto the stallion, turning her in midair so that she landed crossways in front of him, her legs resting against his left thigh.

He waited a moment for her to settle herself. Then, as she convulsively clenched the gray mane, he urged the stallion out into the street. It took only a few moments to trot through the traffic of Hyde Park Corner and bring them to the park proper.

Peregrine turned the horse into the wide lane called Rotten Row, which was nearly empty at this hour, then put the stallion into a canter. At first the lack of a saddle made Sara's fear infinitely worse. Terror held her rigid, and she bounced against the horse with bone-rattling force. But gradually her fear began to subside, for the prince's warm, hard body held her more securely than any saddle. As she relaxed against him, she felt all the subtle movements he used to guide and control his mount.

As Peregrine had promised, the stallion's gait was sweet and smooth. Sara began to soften into the rhythm of the horse's motion. As her body remembered and her fear ebbed away, she began to enjoy the almost forgotten touch of wind against her face. It had been so long…

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Now I am."

"You have not been on a horse since your accident?"

"No. The usual advice is to remount as soon as possible after a fall, but I couldn't, not for years. And by the time I had recovered physically"—she shuddered— "I couldn't make myself do it. I'm such a coward."

"On the contrary, sweet Sara, you are very brave. Are you not here, defying custom and riding die wind like Pegasus?"

"The credit for that belongs to you, not me," she said dryly. Her mind seemed split in two. On one side was the knowledge that she was behaving in an utterly irrational fashion by riding bareback through a London park with a wild man. Her father would be shocked, her friends disbelieving.

Yet at the same time, she felt as if her actions were completely natural. The mysterious prince had been born on die opposite side of the world, raised with values and customs that were completely alien to hers. Yet no man but Ross had talked to her as directly as Peregrine did, or seen as deeply into her. Ross was very nearly her brother, but what was Peregrine?

Sara's fingers tightened in the stallion's mane as she had a disquieting realization. From the beginning she had noticed how attractive the Kafir was—no woman could fail to notice—but her admiration had been dispassionate. Though Peregrine was splendid and beautiful and masculine, that knowledge had had no personal relevance to her. She was the daughter of a duke, respectably betrothed, of sober mind and habit. Yet here she was in the arms of a man who was in most ways a stranger, and she was reveling in the experience. There was a profound sensuality in their closeness, in the way their bodies moved together in time with the stallion's. It was the greatest physical intimacy she had ever had with a man. What would it be like to have still greater intimacy?

Though Sara had never considered herself a prudish woman, the direction of her thoughts made her blush. What a shameless creature she was becoming! Thank heaven the prince thought of her only as Ross's cousin. Though he had been kind about her disability, he did not seem like the sort of man who would be attracted to a plain woman who was no longer young. But he seemed willing to be friends. That would be more than enough.

Peregrine turned to go back. "Will you ride again now?"

Without his comforting presence, it would be difficult at first, but still Sara nodded her head. "Yes. I have missed riding. I don't want to continue missing it."

"There was a pretty little sorrel mare back in the yard, a fine ladies' mount. Shall I buy it for you?"

"No!" she said sharply. "I couldn't possibly accept such a gift from you."

"What would happen if you did?" he asked with his usual air of curiosity. "You would be disgraced? Ostracized? Refused admittance to the queen's drawing rooms?"

As they halted at the edge of the park and waited for traffic to thin, Sara swiveled about and gave him a steely glance. "This time you will not be able to coax me into relenting. I neither need nor desire that mare, nor will I accept such a gift from you. Is that clear?"

He blinked. Then a wide, slow smile spread across his face. "Perfectly clear, your ladyship. I know when to yield to a superior force."

Laughing, they rode back to Tattersall's. Lady Sara delighted Peregrine with both her open mind and her occasional stubbornness. While his primary goal was to separate her from Weldon, he hoped that he would also be able to coax her into his bed. It would be a rewarding experience for both of them.

The day after his excursion to Tattersall's, Peregrine met Sir Charles Weldon for dinner at the City of London Club. Benjamin Slade had said that this particular club was one where leaders of commerce mingled with the top men in government and society; Rothschilds rubbed elbows with prime ministers. Even without that explanation, Peregrine would have known why Weldon patronized the place, for the lofty, dignified building reeked of money, power, and genteel ruthlessness.

In the days since their first meeting, Peregrine had tempered and buried his fury, and now he could meet his enemy with complete composure. In fact, he found the situation stimulating, like playing chess or some other war game. Weldon's objective was simple: to convince a foreigner to invest money. Peregrine's goal was much more complex; he wanted to foster a spurious friendship with his enemy. Then he would be in a better position to know Weldon's weaknesses, and to exploit them.

They spoke of trivialities over the lavish and lengthy dinner, then withdrew to a quiet corner of the smoking room and settled down in leather-upholstered wing chairs with port and cigars. "If you want to invest in this country, Your Highness," Weldon said as he trimmed the end of his cigar, "I don't think you can do better than to put your money in railroads. Within the next decade, they will revolutionize modern society. Great fortunes have already been made in railway companies, and more will be made in the future."

"Great fortunes have also been lost," Peregrine pointed out. An important move in the game was to prove that he was not a rich fool fit only for fleecing. "A couple of years back, there was something of a mania for railway stocks. Then the bubble burst and most of the prices collapsed. Too many small, badly managed companies were fighting each other, building duplicate tracks, wasting their capital, promising service and profits they couldn't deliver."