He gestured to his own clothing.
She couldn’t help shaking her head. “You have to dress a certain way in case your peers see you and judge you lacking?”
“In fact, I do,” he assured her. “Or there will be whispers my father and I have lost our fortune. Before you know it, my accounts will be closed all over town. People will say we’re practically bankrupt. I’ll read in the papers that the destitute lords of Bentley will be selling their townhouse any day.”
She narrowed her eyes. “All that if your cravat is the wrong color, I suppose.”
He shrugged. “Truly, I’m sorry if I offended. It was not well said of me. I don’t usually come here on a Sunday. And at this early hour, I was simply surprised by the throng of people.”
“People outside of your class don’t waste their day off by lying abed,” she informed him. “For some, it’s the only day they can enjoy some fresh air.”
He nodded and a moment later said, “I understand. I am sorry for speaking without thinking first.”
They rode on. She never held a grudge, and he had sincerely apologized. Nevertheless, she would be on the watch for any similar statements. She didn’t think her parents would be particularly disposed to her saying she’d fallen for a snout-nose.
“I don’t come to the park often,” Charlotte admitted, “but I must say I like the view from atop a horse.” Leaning forward, she patted Trudy’s silky neck and ran her fingers through the coarse reddish mane. “It gives one a different perspective. Down on the ground, you can’t see past the person in front of you, but up here, I can see all the way to the Carriage Drive.”
“I’m glad you like riding. Some people, if they haven’t done it much as children, find it frightening.”
She wondered if he had someone particular in mind, like a former lady-love, the person who’d caused Charles’s heartache to whom the duke had made reference.
“It would make me happy to show you my estate and my horses,” he continued. “If you like flowers—”
She laughed. “Who doesn’t?”
“Flowers make some people sneeze. Anyway, we have a particularly skillful gardener and our gardens are superb. Visitors drop by unannounced just to stroll through them.”
“And you don’t mind?” She had a feeling he must be referring to visitors from the aristocratic class, as she couldn’t imagine he would welcomehoi poloiwandering around his property. Perhaps she was being judgmental.
“I’m not there enough to mind,” he said. “Not often enough for my liking, at any rate, but usually three times a year.” He cocked his head. “Are you entirely enamored of Town, or would you be happy with extended stays in the country?”
“I would very much like to see your country home,” she said, then realized how presumptuous that sounded. She hadn’t let him propose but she was already installing herself at — “Where is it again?”
“In Wiltshire, between the mysterious Stonehenge and—”
To her amazement, the viscount’s words were unceremoniously cut off when a ball hit him on the side of his head, making him flinch sideways, losing his hat before unseating himself entirely. His roan reared at being suddenly without a rider, and then took off, although it couldn’t get too far along the crowded path.
As promised, Trudy gave no more notice than a flick of her ears and kept plodding along as if nothing had happened. It was probably a good thing Charlotte hadn’t screamed, but it had happened so quickly, by the time she drew breath in astonishment, the incident was over.
Drawing back on the reins and halting her docile horse, she looked down to see Charles scrambling to his feet and brushing himself off, his face a distinct shade of red.
One of his footmen had dismounted and was rushing after the roan.
“I haven’t fallen off my horse since I was four years old,” Charles said through gritted teeth. “And now I’ve done it in front of half of London.”
He bent down and retrieved his hat, which was not only dirty but crushed beyond repair.
“Look on the bright side,” she said, after ascertaining he was uninjured. “At least most of the people here are not of the nobility and don’t know who you are, nor care.”
He glanced around for a second to see she was right. Except for a moment’s pause when it happened, mostly to discern if they were in danger, the park-goers near them had gone back to their own business unbothered.
“Think how much worse if you’d fallen from your horse on one of the days when this park was cleared of all the low and middle-class workers,” she reminded him. “Then you would have performed such a perfectly mortifying dismount before your peers.”
The footman had returned Charles’s horse to him, and after handing his servant the ruined hat, he remounted with a light, swift movement.
“No,” he corrected her. “I wouldn’t have because there would not have been some miscreant throwing a ball at my head.”
They both looked around, but the child, as most assuredly it was, had long vanished along with his or her ball.
