Ripe for Pleasure

CHAPTER 15   



Viola clamped her arm to her side, pinning the unruly skirt of her habit up and out of her way, and resolutely walked down the path that led to the stable block. She’d been so sure of her plan to wear breeches, but one look in the mirror had laid that plan to rest.

Leo’s buckskins, nobly handed over the night before, had clung to her thighs but sagged about her waist and hips, and the less said about the baggy horror of the seat the better. She was well aware that breeches were always somewhat full in the backside, but clearly they needed to be matched up with the posterior for which they’d been cut and paired with a coat for cover.

As she reached the stable block, she could see Leo running his hands over a gray with a long tail tipped in black. The horse swung its head to look at her, ears swiveling about.

Leo turned. His eyes widened, and his lips quirked with mirth. “No breeches?”

“No, I—”

“Don’t think for a moment that I’m going to put on skirts because you changed your mind.”

Viola wrinkled her nose at him. “God’s honest truth? They didn’t fit.”

“Vanity won out, did it?”

Viola dropped her skirt and gestured down the length of her oatmeal habit. It strained across her bust, swung about her waist, and had a stain down one side of the enormously long skirt that appeared to be a mix of ruddy earth and grass. “When I tell you this is better, you’ll understand the full implication of what I mean when I say the breeches were worse.”

He grinned widely. “Beau’s a good bit taller than you, but none of that will matter for what we’re doing today. Your maid can winkle about with it later if you don’t break your neck.”

“Your sister won’t mind if your mistress steals her habit?”

“I don’t think Beau’s worn that since she was a hoyden of fifteen. I doubt she’ll even notice it’s gone, and if she did, no, I don’t think she’d care. Come and meet Oleander. She’s a sweet-tempered little goer, and I fully expect the two of you to become fast friends.”

Viola eyed the mare. Oleander stared back, large brown eyes surveying her with clear contempt. “Do you have something smaller?”

Leo laughed, and the horse blew out a loud and derisive-sounding breath, nostrils fluttering rudely. “The only other horse in the stable trained to carry a lady is Quiz, and since my goal today is something other than cementing your affection for sedan chairs, I’ll not put you anywhere near him. Now come here and let me boost you up.”

Viola suffered a moment of pure panic as Leo grasped her about the waist and tossed her up into the saddle. She wobbled, and his grip tightened, shoring her up.

“Get your knee around the pommel. Yes, like that. Now other foot in the stirrup.” He let go of her waist, hands sliding down her hips and legs, and guided her foot into place. “You want to keep the pommel firmly between your knees and the ball of your foot balanced across the bar of the stirrup.”

Leo took the reins from the metal ring they’d been looped through. “Just hold on. Get a feel for the rhythm. No, no. Don’t twist about. You’ll unbalance yourself and tumble over.”

Viola blew a drifting curl out of her eyes and glared at Leo. “Whoever invented the sidesaddle should have been murdered on the spot.”

Leo laughed and set her firmly back into position. Blood pounded in her ears, making it impossible to think.

“You can thank Good Queen Bess for having taken a shine to them.” His hands pushed up under her skirt, found the naked flesh of her thigh, and checked the placement of her knee over the pommel with ruthless efficiency. Heat flooded through her, bringing a ridiculous surge of longing. The man had bewitched her. They’d made love twice the previous evening and again after breakfast and still she wanted more.

He gave the horse a smart slap on the shoulder, and the mare turned to nuzzle his shoulder. He absently rubbed her head, large capable hands caressing the horse’s jaw and ear.

“Don’t poker up so. Relax.”

“I could happily get down now and never ride again, my lord. In fact, I fear I’m going to slither off at any moment.”

Leo shook his head, clearly not taking her words at all seriously. He really couldn’t grasp that someone might not want to ride. Just like a man, to assume his own passions must be shared by everyone.

“Nonsense, my dear. You’ve found your seat. Now all you have to do is maintain it. Keep your weight to the left. Lean into the pommel, grip it with your knees, and relax.” He made a tsking sound, and the horse ambled forward. Viola clutched at the mane, knees gripping the silly, curved pommel until her thighs shook.

The horse stopped. Her ears went back flat, and her coat twitched in a horribly disconcerting way. “Relax. You’re upsetting Oleander.”

“I’m upsetting her?” Indignation bubbled up, choking her.

“Yes, a horse knows what its rider is feeling, and you’re telling her that something’s wrong. Do you feel the slight hump of her back? Do you see the set of her ears? She doesn’t understand why you’re so stiff, and she doesn’t like it. So relax. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. And neither is Oleander, no matter how much you annoy her.”

Viola glared at him again and attempted to do as he bade her. She sat up straight, let go of her death grip on the horse’s mane, and took several deep breaths. She felt the mare do likewise, and then the hump left her back and her ears flicked about as though she were awaiting a command.

“See? Now try and keep that position while Oleander begins to walk. We’re not going to do anything faster than a walk today. I just want you to catch the rhythm. To learn to feel secure. That’s right. It’s all right to let your body shift with the horse’s. It’s preferable in fact.”

“I just feel as though I’m liable to tumble over the side at any moment.”

“But you won’t. Oleander here is too much a lady to tip you off. Even my sister, madcap that she is, has never come off her, much as she’s tried. Beau prefers Quiz. Mostly because I think she’s trying to break her damn neck. Oleander knows her own limitations. Quiz doesn’t think he has any, and neither does Beau.”

“Does the daughter of a duke have limitations?”

“You should know she does.”

“Me?”

“Lady Sarah Lennox’s birth didn’t preclude scandal and ruin, did it? In fact, I’d be prepared to argue that having so far to fall made it worse. And poor Beau, much as she might argue otherwise, is subject to gravity, just like the rest of us.”

Viola bit her lip. She’d never thought about it that way. She herself hadn’t had all that far to fall, but yes, many of her friends, in particular the members of The New Female Coterie, had learned the hard way that their birth provided little protection if their relatives abandoned them.


If a woman’s family was powerful enough, and if they backed her, she could brazen through almost anything. But how many of her friends had discovered too late that their families were afraid of scandal and wouldn’t stand by them?

Her own family had certainly abandoned her when she’d been fool enough to elope. Though at the time she hadn’t cared, and perhaps still wouldn’t if Stephen hadn’t died. It hadn’t mattered until then. She’d been too happy to care that her letters had been returned unopened. And she’d assumed she had all the time in the world to bring her parents around.

“I see the secret to making an Amazon of you is to distract you from the fear of falling.”

“What—”

His laugh cut her off, and Oleander’s step faltered, causing her to slip precariously. Leo caught her before she could fall and he propped her back into place.

“To distract you and not startle you,” he added with one of his infectious grins. “Clearly when you’re talking, you’re too busy to worry about falling. You’ve made seven circuits of the area with nary a problem, but the second you thought about what you were doing, you nearly tumbled off.”

“So I’m to somehow not think about what I’m doing?”

“I think what’s vital here is that you not think about the consequences of what you’re doing. And eventually, all the little actions that keep you in the saddle will become second nature.”

Viola raised her brows, doubt pinching them together. What he said was nonsensical.

Leo slipped the reins over the mare’s head and held them out to her. “Here, keep your hands busy, too. I’ll stay beside you, not to worry. Grasp the reins so.” He arranged her fingers on the narrow strips of leather. “Relax your fingers forward when she’s moving, and curl them back to stop her. If you keep her softly on the bit, there’s no need to saw at her mouth or yank on the reins like a drunken squire.”

He stepped back slightly, and Viola eased her grip on the reins. The mare began to walk, and Viola tried to fall back into the rhythm. The mare balked, ears going flat again. Viola dropped the reins and grabbed hold of the horse’s mane.

“No, don’t try, don’t think about it. Pick up the reins again and talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Is there nothing you can do without thinking about it? No game you played as a child? Swinging a cricket bat? Hitting a shuttle? Conkers?”

Viola laughed, and the mare sped up into a trot. Viola kept her shoulders squared but allowed her hips to follow the new pattern.

“See there,” Leo said with a hint of pride, quickening his pace to keep up with them. “Ease back on the reins, and she’ll fall back into a walk.” Viola did as he directed, and as promised, Oleander dropped back into a more sedate pace.

“It’s like magic.”

“No, it’s simply a skill, and you just mastered your first lesson. Let’s keep at it for a bit longer though. Tell me why the subject of conkers should make you laugh?”

“Conkers were a great passion among my siblings and me. There was an enormous chestnut tree in the village green where we lived when I was small. We used it much as you used your grandmother’s folly. It was our Sherwood, our playhouse, and the provider of the largest, toughest conkers in all of Nottinghamshire.”

“So, a childhood filled with epic battles?”

Leo couldn’t stop himself picturing her as a wild Maid Marian, armed with a mighty chestnut on a string. She laughed, fingers inching up on the reins, seat secure. She’d passed the hardest fence—that of fear—but the light had gone out of her eyes.

“Of one sort or another, yes. Epic battles seem to have been something of a family hobby,” Viola said, her mouth tight and hard.

Leo gritted his teeth. He shouldn’t have asked. She wasn’t one of the bits-o-muslin who’d risen from humble origins, and however pleasant her childhood, some unfortunate event had led to her present circumstances. The fact that he wanted to know the particulars, that he cared at all, was a very bad sign. Caring made the pleasure of their idyll all too real, all too dangerous.

“Isn’t that the rule in most families?” Leo said. “Spats among siblings are as natural as those between cats and dogs.”

Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to control her breathing. A muscle quivered in her cheek, betraying the suppression of some strong emotion.

“I never fought with my brothers. At least not over anything but whose conker would be king.”

Leo nodded, trying to appear as if her answer closed the subject. He’d bet Dyrham itself she was the product of some stalwart Tory bastion of respectability and rigidity.

Had hers been a transgression of epic proportions, or had she been cast out for some small slip that his own family would have glossed over with money and power?

“Lucky brothers. I fought with mine like two dogs locked in a kennel with only one bone. Still do, in fact, when the occasion calls for it.” Leo smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

Her expression was shuttered, cold. He wanted the light back, badly.

Without a word, she tightened her grip on the reins and tsked, imitating the noise he’d made to set Oleander into motion. The mare’s ears perked, and she broke into a trot. Viola maintained her seat with obvious effort, but she kept the pace for a full circle before reining the mare in.

Oleander came to a full stop, and Viola gave Leo a wavering smile. The bleak tightness that gripped his chest loosened its hold. Whatever happened between him and Charles, he was going to make damn sure she wasn’t hurt by it. She deserved a better hand than she’d been dealt, that much had become plain.