“I thought it fully possible you would cause some mischief and lend Miss Hart a nun’s habit,” he said. “You’re contrary that way. No use denying it.”
“Why would I deny it?” she asked. “It’s one of my defining characteristics. But you’re likely correct. Nestor wouldn’t take to a prudish sort of contessa, but rather the obvious sort.”
Valentina bristled with sudden umbrage. “Are you saying I’m an obvious sort of woman?”
Lady Delilah—in fact, all three sets of eyes—gave her a quick up-and-down once-over. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Lady Delilah, hands spread wide in a gesture of helplessness. “But, yes.”
One, then two, heavy beats of time ticked past as everyone waited for Valentina’s reaction.
It was Miss Windermere who broke the silence. “In the loveliest way, of course.”
Valentina couldn’t decide if she’d been insulted or complimented.
Archie gave his thigh another slap with the riding crop. “Right.”
Valentina kept searching for the slightest hint of last night in his eyes, but found nothing. Perhaps ithadbeen a dream…
“Now we ride on to Rotten Row,” he said,moving toward the door along with his siblings.
Valentina hadn’t been looking forward to this moment, but there was no more avoiding it. Her feet remained planted, and she cleared her throat. “There’s a problem.”
One by one they pivoted to get a look at her. It was Archie who asked, “What’s that?”
She would have to put it bluntly. “I’ve never set bottom on a horse in all my life.”
Stunned silence followed. Lady Delilah broke it with her laugh. “Oh, this is too delicious.”
Archie’s dark blond eyebrows collided in the middle of his forehead. He looked utterly flummoxed, as if her confession refused to harmonize with his view of the world. “Everyone rides, don’t they?”
“No,” said Valentina, firm, definite.
“Right,” he said slowly.
“Well, then you’ll just need a quick lesson,” said Miss Windermere with an encouraging smile.
That seemed to rally Archie. “Of course, a quick lesson.” He swung the front door open and waved at Valentina to follow him. “You have ten minutes to become a skilled horsewoman,Contessa.”
Ten minutes later
Valentina had managed to climb onto the horse’s back.
And stay there.
That was something.
For now.
Reins clutched to her chest for dear life, a thin sheen of perspiration coating her body, she kept her gaze fastened onto Archie’s back, as Lady Delilah and Miss Windermere rode to her rear.
“If she comes unhorsed,” Lady Delilah had said, “Juliet and I canscoop her up.”
Not exactly words of reassurance.
Seated on a sidesaddle, and even with one knee hooked over the pommel, Valentina’s position felt precarious and unbalanced. All she wanted to do was set feet on dear terra firma again.
Who had devised this mode of riding for women, anyway? It would be far better if she rode with the sort of saddle that allowed her to straddle the horse. But, oh no, that simply wasn’tdone. Archie had laughed as he’d made that last point. Apparently, she would look like the world’s biggest hoyden straddling a horse in Hyde Park.
Every clip-clop of the horse’s hooves rattled her teeth inside her head. While, just ahead, Archie rode ever so smoothly, as if he’d been born in the saddle. She snorted. Mayhap he had been. She was learning that the lives of aristocrats were as eccentric as the gossip rags made them out to be.
