Putting Miss Hart in trousers, that was.
Quite simply, Archie hadn’t anticipated how fetching his muse would be in the attire of a stable lad.
How could he have?
Though she’d worn trousers last night, he hadn’t gotten a proper view of her in them—or more precisely, a specific view of her in them.
From behind.
How could he have predicted how fetching a female bottom would be in a pair of trousers?
Miss Hart’s female bottom.
He was giving himself a cockstand just thinking about it.
Which was why he had her trailing him like a good servant as they strolled Tattersall’s subscription rooms and courtyard to see if Nestor was there. Every twenty or so steps, he stopped and greeted a friend or acquaintance, and Miss Hart stood discreetly away, hands clasped before her, eyes turned to the ground, as they’d agreed. She wasn’t to make eye contact with anyone. She was entirely too pretty, and their ruse would be immediately discovered.
Not that Archie would suffer many consequences. In fact, thetonwould expect such a jape from Lord Archer.
So, they’d agreed that when she spotted Nestor, she would give two quick tugs on his overcoat.
As they left the last subscription room, Archie knew he’d been wasting their time. There was but one place Nestor would be—the stables.
Miss Hart drew abreast with him. “I have a question for you,” she said, low, for his ears only.
“Ask away,” he said, nodding at a family acquaintance. Of course, ninety percent of the occupants of Tattersall’s were acquaintances of the family or friend variety.
“Does someone in your household play the piano?”
If a question could command his full attention, that was the one. “All of us Windermeres took lessons as children,” he said neutrally.
She shook her head. “Someone who could play in any music hall in England.”
Though he walked, he felt a still concentration take hold of him. “Why do you ask?”
“I heard music before I came down to the morning room. Beautiful music,” she added.
It was all he could do to maintain an air of indifference. “Perhaps a neighbor across the back garden was playing and the music drifted in with the breeze.”
“Perhaps.” Thatperhapsentirely lacked the ring of belief.
Though he tried to tamp it down, gratification soared through Archie. Miss Hart thought the music beautiful… She thoughthismusic beautiful.
He was just about to press for her thoughts on the music—it was a fact that artists were a needy bunch—when her gaze shifted and widened. Then he felt it. Two sharp tugs on his overcoat. He knew before he followed the direction of her eyes.
Nestor.
There he stood, at the end of the rowof horse stalls.
Further, the fact that Miss Hart had tugged on his coat at the sight of the man meant something. Lord Nestor was, indeed, the very lord who had swindled her father and countless others out of their savings.
The game was on.
“Follow my lead,” said Archie.
Blithe smile on his face, he slowed his step to a leisurely amble down the row, giving each stallion, thoroughbred, and pony careful consideration, keeping Nestor in the periphery of his vision. He stopped a good ten feet from the man, close enough for Nestor to hear him, but far enough to acknowledge they weren’t exactly on greeting terms.
There wasn’t precisely a history between him and Nestor beyond the fact that Archie had simply never liked him, not at Eton or later at Cambridge or as adults in London. It was simply that Nestor had the presence of an oily shadow and navigated the world as such.
