Untamed Rogue, Scandalous Mistress

‘Literally by accident is a more accurate retelling of our encounter,’ the man put in, his blue eyes flickering with challenge and something else, quite possibly humour. ‘I am looking for Rory Calhoun. I need a place to board my horse. I was told he might have a stall to lease.’

Aurora was torn. It wouldn’t precisely be a lie to say he didn’t have a stall to lease. After all, Rory wasn’t a man. She couldn’t imagine anything more disturbing at the moment than having this man underfoot on a daily basis. Then again, there was the allure of having that splendid beast of his in her stables where she could study it up close. Perhaps she could even convince him to put the stallion to stud with her mare. She thought the stallion carried Arabian bloodlines. Mixed with her standard-bred mare, she could produce an excellent jumper. In the end temptation won out, but not without some parameters.

Aurora crossed her arms. ‘Let’s be clear. First, it’s not “he”. It’s “she”. I’m Rory Calhoun to my friends, Aurora to the rest. You’d be in the latter group in case you were uncertain on that account. Second, I do have a stall you can lease, but there are some stipulations. Foremost, you cannot interfere in any way with my riding academy. The horses, my pupils, and my lessons are off limits. In fact, I’d prefer that you not schedule any of your time here during the afternoons on lesson days. You can come before or after lessons, but not during.’

‘Don’t want the village knowing the women ride astride and in trousers?’ he queried with keen insight.

‘We have trouser days just as we have habit days here at my school. Riding astride is a much safer way to learn the jumps,’ Aurora countered fiercely. She did not care to have her methods challenged or her secrets exposed. It was not public knowledge the girls rode in trousers on occasion, or astride. It was one of the reasons she banned unannounced outsiders from practices.

Petra moved past them with her horse, leaving them to sort out the details. Smart girl, Aurora thought. She’d like to leave too. Better yet, she’d like him to leave. Once the girl was out of earshot, Aurora delivered her next dictate. ‘She’s off limits. I will not have you behaving as you did with me in the road this afternoon. I don’t want to catch you with her, not walking with her, not talking with her. Nothing.’

The man had the audacity to laugh. ‘That might be a bit difficult. Petra Branscombe is my sister in-law.’

Aurora’s mind did the genealogical maths at rapid speed. ‘Then that makes you…’

‘The earl’s brother,’ he finished for her.

‘The Honourable Crispin Ramsden?’ Aurora said drily. It seemed the height of irony that this rough-around-the-edges, broad-shouldered man would bear such a title.

He seemed to think so too. ‘Technically speaking.’ A slow smile spread across his mouth, highlighting the lips that had kissed hers only hours ago.

Crispin raked her form with a gaze that seared as it travelled down every inch of her in deliberate contemplation. ‘I would have thought someone like you would be less tempted to judge, Miss Calhoun. It appears you have already catalogued and classified me. I wonder? Should I do the same to you?’ He chuckled at her overt reaction. ‘That’s what I thought. You don’t care to be pigeonholed any more than I do.’

He took a step towards her, his strong gaze holding hers with a teasing glint of challenge. ‘So, you think you know all about me after our brief acquaintance?’

He didn’t look honourable so much as rakishly unprincipled. Not even the moment he’d taken at some point to pull his long hair back with a leather thong into something more orderly could give him an added measure of respectability. Aurora made a special effort not to back up under the onslaught of his advance. ‘I’ve met men like you before, earl’s brother or not.’

He had a seductive smile for her alone as he leaned close to her ear and whispered, ‘I doubt it, Miss Calhoun. There are no other men like me.’

Four hours later, Aurora was ready to concede Crispin Ramsden might be right. She’d succeeded in getting him out of her stables, but not her mind. Aurora stretched her long legs out, feet resting on the fender of the fireplace absorbing the warmth of the flames in her converted apartments at the back of the stable. By rights, this was her favourite time of day. The horses were bedded down, their quiet snuffles keeping her company as she ate her dinner. But tonight, the usual peace the evening routine brought didn’t come.

She was restless. She’d made endless excuses to herself: it was the rain drumming on the roof that made her restive, it was because she had a new horse in the stables. But she’d been out to check on Sheikh twice now and the visits hadn’t alleviated her agitation. Neither the rain nor the horse was responsible for her current state. It was Crispin Ramsden that made her uneasy.

Perhaps it was nothing more than like recognising like. She’d certainly seen more than one set of horses test each other out before mating, nipping and biting. Their methods weren’t all that different than Crispin Ramsden’s. Aurora thought of Crispin’s kisses in the road and blushed, glad no one else was there to see her. There had been plenty of nipping and biting involved that afternoon.

Aurora bent forwards and stirred the fire, forcing her mind to focus on more pleasant issues. There were tomorrow’s lessons to plan. The rain would make the outdoor arena too muddy to be useful or safe. The Wednesday class would have to ride in the indoor arena. Eleanor, one of the girls in Petra’s class, had wanted to talk with her after the lesson today, but by the time she’d dealt with Crispin Ramsden Eleanor had left. She’d have to make a point to speak with Eleanor on Thursday when Petra’s class returned.

She knew what Eleanor wanted to talk about. The girl’s father, Gregory Windham, was a very wealthy gentleman who wanted a title for his daughter. He was dead set on seeing her married to an impoverished baron who led a dissipated life. Eleanor was frankly against the match, but Aurora could feel the girl weakening under her father’s pressure.

Eleanor wasn’t the only student with needs. Young Mrs Twilliger was new to the area after marrying an intimidating older man who clearly had her cowed. Catherine Sykes was worried to death over her impending London Season this spring, fearful she’d be a wallflower, and Lettie Osborne spent most of her days dreaming up ways to bring the new, single vicar up to scratch.

Whatever their needs were, the riding school was a place to start. Here, Aurora gave them a place in which they could discover their own power and build their confidence. If one could master a horse, one could master a man. That was Aurora’s philosophy. Perhaps a lucky few would do more than master a man. Perhaps a few would find a true partner for life if they had the confidence to do so.

It was the same principle with riding. She’d ridden two horses in her life that had been her partners. When she rode, she and the horse were equals. Nothing could compare with that. The other horses had been mounts to be mastered. She could get them to do what she wanted, but ultimately it hadn’t been about giving and taking with them, it had been about control.

Aurora understood the enormity of the task she’d set herself. Her girls came here to learn to ride, to learn the art of looking pretty in the saddle, their habits spread out behind them, the traditional teachings of young English womanhood firmly ingrained in their minds. Aurora wanted to change that for them, wanted to show them how to think on their own. On a horse there was no one to think for them; they had to rely solely on themselves. If they could do it on a horse, they could do it in other places in their lives.

She didn’t pretend her task was an easy one or an acceptable one by the standards of most people. It had been her experience that the local men wherever she’d been weren’t receptive to her lines of logic regarding male and female behaviour. On more than one occasion she’d been forced to leave a village once word got out that she was imparting more than horsemanship to the women she instructed. She wondered what Crispin Ramsden would make of that? Would he be a man who supported tradition or a man who could open his mind to the possibilities of equality between the sexes?

Crispin Ramsden. Again. Apparently she’d not been successful in directing her thoughts away from the earl’s brother. She gave herself a mental scolding. This was not the time to be considering any kind of flirtation. There were more important concerns. The St Albans steeplechase was coming up in March. She’d trained hard, her hunter, Kildare, was ready. Kildare was the best horse she’d ever ridden, better even than her beloved first stallion, Darby. If she could win, it would garner a great amount of prestige for her fledging stables, opening the gateway to good breeding opportunities.

There were difficulties to be worked out, not the least was how a woman was going to legally ride in a gentleman’s race. She could always hire a rider, but the thought of turning Kildare over to another rider filled her with trepidation. The other option was to risk all and ride in disguise. She’d done such a thing before, but only in small venues with very little at stake.

If she were caught, she’d be disqualified and made the fool. Her stables’ prestige would be sacrificed. But where would she find a rider that could work intimately with Kildare in the short time remaining? Rebellious images of Crispin Ramsden and his midnight stallion threatened the edges of her mind. Aurora rose from her chair and stretched. She’d do best to leave those contemplations for another day or she wouldn’t sleep at all. It was time for bed. Morning always came early at the stables.

Dinner came early in the country, but it was still half past seven before the Dursley clan was assembled at the long dining room table. As Crispin had expected, Tessa turned his sudden arrival into an excuse for an impromptu dinner party, which explained the slight lateness of the meal. Even on short notice, the Dursley clan managed to fill up the table: Petra and her fiancé, Thomas; Annie, Tessa’s youngest sister who was thirteen now; and Cousin Beth, who had run Peyton’s household for years before Peyton married Tessa.

‘Where’s Eva?’ Crispin asked, taking a mental roll call in his head once they were all seated and realising one of the four Branscombe sisters was missing.

‘She’s in London with Aunt Lily,’ Tessa answered from the foot of the table.

‘Isn’t that a bit early?’ Crispin had never liked the Season and it was beyond him to imagine why anyone would go up to town earlier than necessary. That Eva had gone months in advance bordered on the point of ludicrous.

Tessa smiled. ‘She’ll come out this year. She turned eighteen immediately after Christmas. She and Lily wanted to get a good start on her wardrobe.’

Crispin wondered how his brother did it, acting as a legal guardian for Tessa’s three sisters; three Seasons to put together and then weddings to follow if those Seasons were at all successful, extra Seasons to follow if they weren’t. Either way, there would be more endless twaddle. The very thought of all that frippery and nonsense was enough to put a man off his oats. Yet, Peyton looked as if he’d weathered the first two débuts quite well. In fact, his brother looked to be a well-satisfied man, sitting comfortably at the head of his table. There’d been a time not long ago that Crispin had doubted Peyton’s ability to embrace such a life. Then Peyton had fallen in love with Tessa and that love had changed him, as it had his other brother, Paine.

Crispin took a bite of excellent roasted beef and suppressed a shudder. He was not falling in love. He had no desire to be changed. It was all right for his brothers to change. But he had no intentions of giving up his wandering and adventures. He liked his life just the way it was. All he needed was a horse beneath him and the wide world spread out before him. Women had other expectations.

Still, coming home for a while felt good. Crispin ate the well-cooked food with gusto and enjoyed the conversation flowing around him as everyone brought him up to date on events in the family. Although there were several family members at dinner, there were others missing besides Aunt Lily and Eva. His brother Paine had taken his family to visit his wife’s cousin, Greyson. Greyson was interested in Paine’s opinion on some new investments and Greyson’s wife, Elena, was expecting their second child in late spring. Petra and Thomas had set the date of their wedding for September particularly out of consideration for them. Crispin wondered if he’d still be here for it.

At last, Tessa rose, giving the signal for the women to join her in the drawing room. Thomas rose too. ‘I’ll join the women tonight, Dursley, and leave you alone with your brother. No doubt there is still more to catch up on and I don’t wish to intrude,’ he offered graciously.

‘He’s a very nice young man,’ Crispin commented as the group trooped out of the room.

Peyton nodded with a smile. ‘We couldn’t be more pleased for Petra. They’re very happy together and wellsuited.’ Reaching for the decanter, he poured them each a glass. ‘Cheers, brother.’

‘Ah, this is the good stuff.’ Crispin drank down the brandy with relish. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had brandy of this calibre.’

‘The perks of being home,’ Peyton offered cryptically. ‘Did you work out an arrangement with Rory?’

Crispin chuckled. ‘Tessa could have told me Rory was a woman and a sharp-tongued one at that. A little forewarning wouldn’t have gone amiss.’

Peyton grinned. ‘Aurora Calhoun is strong minded.’

‘To say the least.’

Peyton poured them each another glass. ‘Tessa likes her. She and Petra helped her get the riding school started a couple of years ago.’

Crispin eyed his brother over the rim of his snifter. He wasn’t surprised to hear that Tessa had championed the unconventional Miss Calhoun. Tessa might look like an English angel on the outside, but he knew his brother’s wife well enough to know it was merely a façade. ‘Do you know what goes on out there?’

‘You mean the riding astride and wearing trousers part? Yes, I am quite aware of it, although I must caution you that it is not common knowledge. Don’t tell me you’re shocked? You’re the most untraditional person I know besides Tessa. I would have thought you’d applaud her. A woman’s lot alone in this world is almost impossibly difficult, yet, against all the insufferable odds, Aurora Calhoun has found some degree of success. As much as she can hope for, I think, given the circumstances of her gender and situation.’

Peyton’s remark was quite telling. Crispin took a moment to digest the layers of his brother’s comment. His brother was devoted to his wife. He would tolerate his wife’s eccentric friends for her sake. But Peyton’s comment implied he did more than tolerate Aurora Calhoun; he respected her and, for that reason, was willing to make exceptions on her behalf. Such a concession from Peyton made the interesting Miss Calhoun all that more intriguing.

‘I don’t care what she does. She’s entitled to her own eccentricities,’ Crispin said shortly, realising it was true. It wasn’t the unconventional nature of her school that bothered him. It was simply she who had him all churned up inside for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She definitely stirred his blood.

‘I rather thought the two of you would be good friends. She knows horses as well as you do,’ Peyton was saying. ‘That black of yours looks exotic. She’ll be interested to hear about him. For that matter, I’d be interested to hear about him too.’