How much more alive the beat of her heart felt now than it had thirty seconds ago.
Chapter 9
Percy had been trying to ignore Isabel’s approach. He had several dozen questions to ask her. But not here. Not in front of the Duke.
However, her question made her impossible to ignore. “You don’t ride?” He sounded like a popinjay who couldn’t conceive of a world where people didn’t know how to ride a horse.
Through the seriousness of her gaze glinted an amused light. Was she toying with him?
“Percy,” began the Duke, “you can’t have a wife who doesn’t ride. I hardly know how you would spend any time together.” He turned to address Isabel. “You see, my dear, you won’t find a better horseman in all of England. Percy was born to the saddle.”
Isabel’s lips tipped up ever so slightly. Ever sowickedly. “Lord Percival,” she began, “is the sort of man who would be the best ateverythinghe attempts.”
“You couldn’t put yourself in better hands,” said the Duke, ignoring the clear double entendre.
Isabel met Percy’s eye. “I can’t imagine anyone whose hands I’d rather put myself into.”
Percy’s eyebrows nearly lifted off his forehead, and the Duke cleared his throat.
He couldn’t say no—thatPercy understood perfectly—not without alerting his father’s suspicions.
And the woman with the knowing glint shining in her eyes and smirk pulling about her mouth knew it, too. She’d located the chink in his armor—that he didn’t want his family to know he’d brought home a wife who wasn’t really his wife—and decided to use it to her advantage. She’d changed the rules of the game. If he wasn’t so annoyed, he might admire her for it.
He’d be damned if it didn’t stir him.
“My hands are ever empty without you in them,my love,” he said, matching her sauciness note for note.
The spark of triumph in her eyes fizzled, and she shifted on her feet as if he’d thrown her physically off balance.
Again, the Duke cleared his throat, this time pushing away from the paddock fence. “I shall leave you to your lesson.” He took Isabel’s hand and kissed it. “It’s wonderful seeing you settle into the family.” He directed one last parting reminder toward Percy. “Consider what we discussed. The time has arrived for us to make the transfer.”
Percy watched his father stroll away with an added layer of guilt. Now that he was a settled married man, the Duke wished to gift him Gardencourt Manor. Percy had always known it would be his. But that day had ever been somewhere in the hazy future, if he survived that long. Well, he’d managed to survive, and the day had arrived.
Last night was gaining a momentum of its own and barreling down his mountain of lies and sweeping everyone along with it. He met the eye of the woman who had somehow become his co-conspirator. He caught a flicker of nerves in there now that they were alone.Good.
“Lord Percival—” she began.
“We’ve shot past such formality, don’t you think? Percy will do.”
“Percy, if you would rather not—”
“Oh, you’ll be learning to ride today. I don’t welsh on my promises.”
She’d lost her nerve and was offering him the opportunity to beg off. Why was he insisting on the lesson? Could it be because she now looked like she’d rather not?
Perhaps he would teach her to be careful what she asked for, she might get it.
“Meet me inside,” he commanded as he gave a light squeeze of his knees. The gelding responded with a well-disciplined pivot and began trotting toward the interior of the stable. Immediately, Percy questioned his decision. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself alone with Isabel. Something about her sparked parts of him alight that he’d rather starve in the cold dark.
He’d just dismounted and handed the reins over to a groom when he heard at his back, “This must be the most magnificent stable in the world.”
Head tipped back, Isabel’s eyes roved across the vaulted thirty-foot ceiling that hung high above their heads. “I don’t think I could get my arms around those timbers,” she said of the massive exposed support beams.
“They have a heavy slate roof to support,” Percy supplied.
Her gaze met his. Her eyes . . . Emeralds had nothing on them for jewel green. “Was this structure built at the same time as the manor house?”
Percy found himself warming to her interest. “The stables were built about a hundred years after Rosebud Cottage when it was Gardencourt’s main house. Horses began making their way to England from Marrakesh and Arabia, and a good many lords went horse mad with this new stock.” He spread his arms wide. “And they had to build stables worthy of those splendid beasts.”
