It had been the most lowering four hours of her entire life, though she refused to admit it to anyone. His withdrawal should not have affected her. She didn’t wish to be his duchess any more than he wanted to take on a wife he’d deemed too unsuitable for his brother, let alone his august self. They didn’t suit. They’d make each other miserable. She resented him already. Masterful kisses were well and good, but they didn’t merit saddling herself to an icy, judgmental husband for the rest of her days.
She had made a grievous mistake, first in going to the duke’s private library and then in kissing him and allowing him to take such shocking—if delightful—liberties. She was to blame for her current predicament, and she knew it. Lady Lydia, who had set her cap for Bainbridge if her ceaseless prattle and moon eyes were any indication, was particularly snide in her congratulations.
By grim morning light, Bo wasn’t certain how she’d managed to suffer it all. Back in the privacy of her chamber, she’d toed off her painful heels, let down her hair, and allowed herself a thorough session of self-pity after her lady’s maid had let out her tight lacing and gone to bed.
The only way she could work out her frustrations now was by soaring over the earth with the magnificent mount beneath her. If nothing else, the Duke of Bainbridge was an excellent connoisseur of horseflesh. He had a stable of pure Arabian stallions and mares that put any other she’d seen before to shame. Not even her father, who was a dedicated lover of horseflesh, possessed such impressive bloodlines. Perhaps after her marriage to the Duke of Disdain, she could at least find solace in the stables at Boswell Manor.
Dear God. Before long, she would be the mistress of this vast, palatial estate. She urged Damask Rose into a faster pace, needing more speed, more wind, more space between her and the duke and his insufferable mother and his equally insufferable guests…
Oh, blast.
Her heart pounded as she raced her mount straight into certain peril. Caught up as she’d been in the tumult of her thoughts, she’d failed to notice that the field dipped into a valley. At the bottom of the valley, a crumbling stone wall bisected the field. But she was galloping too fast, and the wall was too near for her to adjust. Her mind raced in the scant seconds before disaster. If she slowed Damask Rose, she chanced not clearing the wall. If she continued at this pace and jumped her mount, she risked being thrown.
She could not put the beautiful, trusting horse in danger because she’d been too selfish and reckless to mind that she was riding on unfamiliar terrain. Bo had no choice, really. Time was running out anyway.
“Three, two, one,” she whispered.
Damask Rose leapt into the air with muscled grace, clearing the wall with ease. Bo knew a moment of pure, unadulterated joy as the height and speed of the jump rushed through her. And then, something happened that had never happened to her before.
She lost control.
Her horse landed. Bo’s momentum continued. She lost her seat on the saddle, the violence of the jump jostling her free of the stirrups. At the last moment, she released the reins before she went soaring through the air. Lord in heaven. Everything seemed to move slower for a moment as she twisted her body away from the horse to avoid being trampled.
The landing took her by surprise, hard and bone-jarring. Her teeth gnashed together, her rump taking the brunt of her fall. Pain, sharp and angry, split through her from her bottom upward. She gasped for air, stars swirling in her vision.
“Lady Boadicea!”
Perhaps she had hit her head as well. That was the reason why, in this moment of anguish as she lay on the hard, cool ground, unable to catch her breath, she heard the voice of the Duke of Bainbridge, accompanied by hooves pounding on the earth.
Or she had gone to her reward, which was clearly not heaven as one would have hoped. She’d landed in one of Dante’s circles of hell, where she was to be tortured by a contemptuous duke for all eternity. Was it the second circle or was it the eighth? Each seemed likely. She coughed out a groan as her lungs seemed to work at last, once more taking in air.
Hands touched her shoulders. A dark shadow fell over her. A voice again. His. And that familiar, decadent scent of pine and musk and soap.
“Lady Boadicea, speak to me.”
She blinked, and he was there, his handsome face hovering over hers. His jaw was rigid, his expression severe. Unless she was addled, she detected concern in his emerald eyes and the frown lines bracketing his sullen mouth. Was it just a puzzling side effect of the fall she’d taken, or was he even more lovely to behold out of doors than he was within them?
If she hadn’t gotten there already, the second circle, she decided, was where she was bound. How could she be capable of feeling such wicked warmth deep inside her at his proximity even when she could scarcely breathe? Why did she feel so drawn to a man who was as cold as ice?
He isn’t always cold, a depraved voice inside her reminded. No, he was not. And that most decidedly was the trouble, wasn’t it?
“Lady Boadicea.” He gave her a shake. “Are you hurt?”
Of course she was hurt. Every bone in her body seemed to ache. Her breath was coming in fast, uneven gulps. She didn’t think she could manage a coherent word. She stared at him, mute, wondering at the misfortune that should have led him of all people upon her in this moment of supreme ignominy.
His grip on her upper arms tightened, and she realized belatedly that he was on his knees before her. If she hadn’t just suffered the horse fall of the century, she would have taken great pleasure in the sight, which seemed to have become a habit of sorts for him. Yes indeed, some perverse part of her rather rallied to the notion of the Duke of Bainbridge as her loyal vassal, even shaken and sore as she was.
The duke, however, was not struck by the same sense of whimsy clouding her fogged mind. His frown was severe enough for a funeral. “Damn it, say something. What in the hell were you doing, riding Damask Rose hell for leather on your own? She’s a hellion. You could have been killed, you bloody fool.”
“Damask Rose,” she forced through a mouth that had gone dry. “Was she injured?”
It was the first lucid thing she could think of to say. Truly, she would hate for her actions to have caused such a beautiful mare to be hurt.
The duke glowered at her. There was no other word for it. “She is fine, cantering in the field ahead, no thanks to your foolishness.”
“Go to her,” she urged, as much because she wanted the mare to be secured as she wanted to be free of his presence. In her vulnerable state, bruised and shaken, she could not control her emotions, and above all, she did not wish to be weak before this man. “I am fine.”
“You are most certainlynotfine,” he gritted, running his hands all over her person in inspection. Across her jaw, the back of her head, down her arms, lower still, riffling through her skirts, and sliding beneath them to find her ankles. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
