Trial by Desire

“If Meat here panics on the way to the knacker, you’ll be out far more than that in property damage.” The man glanced at Kate, where she’d been sneaking away from the battered cart.

It was the first time he’d looked at her directly, and Kate felt his gaze settle against her, disturbing and familiar all at once. She pressed against the wall.

The gentleman simply shook his head and looked away. “You should be brought up on criminal charges, for endangerment.” He reached into his pocket, produced a small purse, and began to count coins.

“Here, now. I haven’t agreed. How am I supposed to move my cart?”

The gentleman shrugged. “With that shaft broken? I don’t imagine a horse would prove much help.” But as he spoke, he added a few more coins from his purse and then dropped them on the cart driver’s seat. “There’s a village yonder.”

The carter shook his head and collected the pile. Then he stood and left his cart, trudging on toward the village. The gentleman watched him go.

While the man was still distracted, Kate began to walk away. The horse was safe, and if she left now, her secret—Louisa’s secret—was safe, too. Whoever this man was, he couldn’t have recognized her. No doubt he thought her some servant, off on her mistress’s errands. An unimportant thing, as nondescript as the beast he’d rescued.

He touched his hat at her, and then turned back to his own manicured steed, which waited in nonchalant obedience ten yards down the track.

Kate had supposed the newly purchased beast would follow docilely in the gentleman’s footsteps, beaten-down specimen that it was. But it did not hang its head; instead as the fellow led it back to where he’d loosely tossed the reins of his steed, Horse Meat tossed its ragged mane. It lifted one lip in disdain and stamped its bone-thin, lacerated legs.

The gray mare ducked its head and backed away a step.

“Do you suppose they’ll walk calmly together?” the gentleman asked.

With the carter gone, there was nobody else around. He had to be addressing her.

Kate glanced at him, in the midst of her escape. She didn’t dare speak. Her voice would betray her as a lady, even if her clothing hadn’t. She shook her head.

Horse Meat curled its lips at the mare, showing teeth. It could not have communicated more clearly, had it spoken: Stay away from me. I am a dangerous stallion!

The gentleman looked from animal to animal. “I suppose not.” A soft smile of bemusement passed over his lips, and he turned to meet Kate’s eyes, once again halting her forward progress.

There was a restless vitality about those eyes that resonated with her. Something about him—his voice, his easy confidence—set her skin humming in recognition. She knew him.

Or maybe she just wanted to know him, and she’d invented this subtle sense of familiarity. She would have remembered a man like him.

Unlike other gentlemen, underneath his hat, his skin was sun-warmed gold. His shoulders were broad, and not by any artifice of padding. He was walking away from his steed, toward Kate.

No, she couldn’t possibly have forgotten a man like him. His gaze on her made her feel uneasy, as if he knew all her secrets. As if he were laughing at every last one.

“Well,” he said, “this is a pretty pickle, my lady.”

My lady? Ladies did not wear itchy gray cloaks. They didn’t cower under shapeless bonnets. Had he seen the fine walking dress she wore underneath when he lifted her up? Or did he know who she was?

His eyes flicked up and down, once, an automatic male survey of her figure, before returning to her face.

Kate was not fool enough to wish he’d let the horse trample her. Still, she wished he’d been on his way earlier. At least he didn’t remark on her outlandish garb. Instead …

“This,” he told her, gesturing with the reins of the animal he’d just acquired, “puts me in mind of one of those damnable logic puzzles a friend of mine used to pose when we were at Cambridge. ‘A shepherd, three sheep and a wolf must cross a river in a boat that fits at most two….’”

Understanding—and disappointment—took root. No wonder he wasn’t courting her ire by asking inconvenient questions about her cloak and her lack of companionship. He was one of those men. He addressed her with easy intimacy. A tone of expectation warmed his voice, entirely at odds with his formal “my lady.” She recalled his hands on her waist, that brief flash of heated contact, body to body. At the time, she’d noticed nothing more than a fleeting impression of hard muscle pushing her out of harm’s way. Now her skin prickled where he’d touched her, as if his gaze had sparked her flesh to life.

If he knew her well enough to attempt to win that wager, then he knew her well enough to gossip. He knew her well enough to spread the word in town, and well enough for that word to travel round until it reached Harcroft’s ears. It was no longer a question of if Harcroft would hear about this episode; it was a matter of what and when.

Kate didn’t dare panic, not now. She took a deep breath. She needed to make sure that the crux of his story had nothing to do with the clothing in which he found her.

“This isn’t the time for games of logic,” she said. “You know who I am.”

He stared at her in befuddlement. One hand rose to touch his chin, and he shook his head. “Of course I know who you are. I knew who you were the instant I set my hands on your hips.”

No true gentleman would have alluded to that uncouth contact. But then, no true gentleman would make her want to wrap her arms around her own waist, to press her palms where his had been before.

She cast him a brilliant smile, and after a moment he responded with a like expression. She crooked her index finger at him, and he took a step toward her.

“You’re thinking about that bet, aren’t you?”

He stopped in his tracks and shook his head stupidly—but all that false bewilderment could not fool Kate. She’d seen too many variants upon it over the years.

“It’s been on the book for two years now,” Kate said. “Of course you’re thinking of it. And you—” here she extended her gloved hand to point playfully at his chest “—you have convinced yourself that you will be the one to claim the five thousand pounds.”

His brows drew down.

“Oh,” Kate said with false charity, “I know. A lady ought not to mention a gentleman’s wager. But then, you can hardly be deserving of the term gentleman if you’ve entered into that pact to seduce me.”

That brought his shoulders straight up and wiped all expression from his face. “Seduce you? But—”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Kate asked with pretend solicitousness. “Are you perhaps feeling as if your privacy has been violated by my inquiry? Now, perhaps, you can imagine how it feels for me to have my virtue discussed all over London.”

“Actually—”

“Don’t bother protesting. Tell the truth. Did you linger here, thinking you would have me in bed?”

“No!” he said in injured tones. Then he pressed his lips together, as if tasting something bitter. “To be perfectly truthful,” he said in a subdued tone, “and come to think of it, yes, but—”

“My answer is ‘no, thank you.’ I already have everything a lady could wish for.”

“Really?”

He was watching her intently now. She could imagine him reporting this speech to his friends. If he did, the sum of the gossip would be her words, not her clothing. Harcroft would hear, but he’d think nothing of it. Just the story of another man who failed to collect. Kate counted items off on her fingers. “I have a fulfilling life filled with charitable work. A doting father. Virtually unlimited pin money.” She tapped her little finger and shot him another disarming smile. “Oh, yes. And my husband lives six thousand miles away. Now why in heaven’s name do all you fools believe I should want to complicate my life with a messy, illicit love affair?”

He froze, then recovered enough to reach up and rub the tawny bristle on his chin. “Would you know,” he said softly, “my solicitor was right. I should have shaved first.”

“I assure you, your slovenly appearance makes not one iota of difference.”

“It’s not the beard.” His hand clenched briefly into a fist at his side, and then relaxed.

She felt a grim delight at that sign of confusion. It wasn’t fair to take all men to task for her husband’s failings—but then, this one had set out to seduce her, and she was not in the mood to be kind. “You seem out of sorts,” she said, imbuing her voice with a false charity. “And foolish. And bumbling. Are you quite sure you’re not my errant husband?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” He glanced at her almost apologetically. And then he took another step toward her.

This close, she could see his chest expand on an inhale. He reached for her hand. She had time to pull away. She ought to pull away. His thumb and forefinger caught her wrist, as gently as if he were catching a dried leaf as it fell from a tree. His fingers found the precise spot where her glove ended and her flesh began. She might have been that leaf, ready to combust in one heated moment.