“Hedidrefuse to sell me the horse. The man is hideous!” Thea declared, absently smoothing her hands over her skirts.
“Hideous or odious?” Maggie asked as she pulled the needle through the cloth.
Thea snorted again. “Both!”
“Very well, but was he handsome or not?” Maggie prodded.
Thea crossed her gloved arms sharply across her chest and glared at her friend for a moment while she contemplated the question. It made her even more angry to admit even to herself, but the fact was that the manwashandsome, blast it all. When he’d first entered the room, she’d assumed he was a steward or some other servant sent to send her away, but when she’d realized he was Viscount Clayton himself, she’d been somewhat taken aback by his looks. Of course she hadn’t allowed herself to show it, as she’d been entirely distracted by the fight she was primed to have with him, but the man was tall, blond, and slim with the most heavenly lidded blue eyes she’d ever seen. They’d looked at her as if they’d known all her secrets and they carried a shrewd wisdom that told her that her normal theatrics were not about to work on him. She’d tried them at any rate. Tried and failed.
“What does it matter if he’s handsome or not?” Thea shot back, thoroughly annoyed with Maggie for even asking something as inconsequential as the man’s looks.
A sly smile spread across Maggie’s face. “Oh, that means heishandsome.” The maid nodded knowingly.
Blast it. Maggie knew her too well. The maid could tell by Thea’s refusal to answer that the answer was yes. “Being handsome doesn’t negate the fact that he’s odious,” Thea insisted, lifting her nose into the air. She stared out the coach’s window into the brightly colored autumn trees as the carriage rumbled further and further away from her beloved Alabaster.
“Very well,” Maggie replied, still attending to her needlework. “What did the odious man say?”
Thea took a deep breath. “Not only did he refuse to sell him to me, he refused even to allow me toseehim.”
Maggie lifted her brows. “Well, that does seem odious of him. What did you say to him to make him so set against you?”
Thea pressed her lips together and wrinkled up her nose. “Why do you think this is my fault? Perhaps he’s just odious.”
Maggie glanced up from her needlework long enough to give Thea a highly skeptical look. “Shall I remind you that I know you well enough to know that whatever words were exchanged between yourself and Viscount Clayton, yourshadto be provoking. Provoking enough to see you expelled from the house without so much as a visit to the horse.”
Thea shifted uncomfortably in her seat. As usual, Mag was right. Thea had to unhappily admit to herself thatshewas to blame for angering the man to the point that he’d refused to allow her access to Alabaster. Why had she allowed the viscount’s callous refusal to negotiate to make her lose her temper?
“Never in my life have I experienced such a vehement dislike of someone upon first meeting him,” Thea declared.
Maggie sighed. “You still haven’t answered my question. What did you say to him to make him so angry?”
Thea frowned, but there was no use lying to Mag. “Very well. I may have asked him if he were mad.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped open. “You didn’t!”
“He was being entirely unreasonable,” Thea retorted. “I have every reason to believe he’s insane.”
Maggie closed her mouth and shook her head. “Because he didn’t want to sell you a horse he purchased fairly at auction? That is his prerogative.”
“But I offered himdouble,” Thea replied, as if that bit of news should explain away the entire ordeal.
Maggie’s eyes went wide as moons. “Double? Double what?”
“Double the price he paid at auction.” Thea turned her head away. She couldn’t watch the judgement in Maggie’s eyes as she admitted her folly.
Maggie’s voice was an incredulous whisper. “You don’t have that sort of money.”
Thea traced a finger along the bottom of the window. “Iknow that, but he doesn’t. What sort of a madman would refuse that amount of money?” She dared a glance at the maid.
Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes as if she were experiencing a headache. “So, you called him mad, and he asked you to leave?”
Thea nodded slowly. “I called him mad and then asked to see Alabaster andthenhe asked me to leave. But not before displaying the unmitigated gall to tell me that he believed I’d never heard the word ‘no,’ before and I was sorely in need of it.”
A bark of laughter escaped Maggie’s lips and she clapped a gloved hand over her mouth. “He didn’t,” she said in an amazed half-whisper.
Thea rolled her eyes. “Yes. He did.”
Maggie moved closer to the edge of her seat. “What did you say in reply? I can only imagine how pert it was.”
