She pouted. Her hair was falling down all over her shoulders. He looked back at the road. It shimmered in front of them, looking as straight and clean as an English toll road.
"The clouds have blown away for the moment," she pointed out.
He hesitated. "You're not drunk," she said acidly. "I'm sure you'll have much steadier hands with your mount than you are accustomed to."
"Fine!" he snapped, backing his horse next to hers. He glanced at her and frowned. "Why are you riding like that?"
She was poised above her saddle, bottom tilted slightly in the air, legs gripping her horse.
"It's more comfortable," she said cheerfully. "I'm afraid I don't have a great deal of padding where it most counts." She looked down fleetingly.
He felt a surge of lust such as he hadn't felt in years. He swallowed. It must be the effect of giving up liquor.
Actually, he couldn't remember the last time he felt desire for a woman. One advantage, to put against all the disadvantages of not drinking. Even if he did have to recover his desire in the presence of his least desirable ward.
"Your choice," he said, shrugging.
"The jockeys ride this way," she said, clearly uncon-cerned by the fact he was seeing every curve of her bottom, clad only in the lightest cotton. A lady she wasn't. "That means I shall win."
"No, you won't," he growled. "We'll go to that bend. On my mark."
He won. But only by a hairbreadth, and only in a terrific gallop at the end of the road and a wild scream of laughter from her.
"Oh, that was marvelous!" she cried when it was over. "Luna, you're a beauty, a true beauty! We would have had you if you weren't riding such a monster of a horse," she said to Rafe.
Rafe grinned back. But he noticed how she winced as she sat back on her horse. "Perhaps we should walk them now," he suggested. "After all, it's the middle of the night, and they must be tired."
"All right," she agreed, too quickly. So he jumped off his horse and then came to the side of hers and held up his hands.
He hadn't done such a thing in years, and so he bungled it; somehow his hands caught on her bottom rather than her hips. And where she should have been covered by layers and layers of cloth, of course there was only fragile French cotton, tied with little bows, he noticed now. His hands were sliding down a curve that had him harder than—
Harder than he'd been in years.
Perhaps there was something to giving up the tipple. He could take a mistress… a lush, welcoming woman who would greet him with a smile and a hot look of desire. Who would never scold.
He saw something in Imogen's eyes when he put her on the ground. She had felt his hands too. And it had quieted her, at least. So that was good. She didn't rail at him on the way home. That would teach her not to rip off her skirt and throw it in a ditch when there was no one around but a man. She was lucky he was a gentleman. And, for that matter, her guardian, for he still considered himself such, whether she was widowed or no.
They walked their horses back down the moonlit road. Imogen's hair spilled around her shoulders, making her look witchlike.
He felt completely alive, his hair blowing from his brow, his legs warm from the exercise, his horse snuffling cheerfully in his ear. They walked farther, and it occurred to Rafe that he couldn't remember having such a vivid experience in years.
Oh, he remembered the headaches in the morning. And the golden, burning pleasure of his first drink in the evening. And the lullaby sweetness of finishing a glass and feeling calm steal over him.
But now he felt alive, raging with desire, if unfortunately directed to absolutely the wrong place. But still, it was back. His head didn't hurt. He felt alive, every inch of him, alive.
He knew without thinking that he wouldn't drink again.
Ever.
16
In Which Imogen Issues an Invitation
Gabe woke up at one in the morning with a peculiar feeling. He pulled on a dressing gown and walked out of his room. Sure enough, by the time he reached the end of the corridor he could hear her furious little squall. A second later he pushed open the door of the nursery and snatched Mary from her bed.
She gulped when she saw him and kept wailing, so Gabe dropped into the rocking chair and tried to soothe her against his shoulder. Her eyes were all small from crying, and she was obviously exhausted. Not to mention wet. Gabe's nose twitched.
Where the devil was the maid? Or her wet nurse? There was no one in the room at all. But he could hardly carry her about the dark house in this state. So he took her over to the low table where her supplies were set up and carefully peeled off all the wet layers.
She had fat little legs. The moment all that cold wool was removed she stopped crying and gave a few snuffling gasps.
"That's my Mary," he heard himself saying to her, rather idiotically. Which made her smile at him, and he had the heart-wrenching realization that he would jump out the window for her. Which might be easier than fixing her clothing.
He found a clean cloth without a problem. All the material around her waist was supposed to tie, he could see that. But whenever he tried to pull the ties, the cloth just fell off her legs. Finally, he just pulled all of it around her waist and put on one of her little shirts. Then he wrapped her in a blanket and picked her up.
He had started down the hallway when Mary decided that now she was awake, she might as well test her voice.
"Mamamamama!" she shouted cheerfully.
"Shhhh," he said. He had made up his mind to go down to the kitchens and see if Mary's wet nurse was to be found there.
She apparently took that as encouragement. "Mama-mamam!" she shouted. And then, just for a change: "Ammmmmmm. Ammmmmm."
Sure enough a door opened in front of Gabe. He had one second to wonder whether it would be Imogen, when out stepped not a flagrant seductress in a nightrail but a neatly wrapped Miss Pythian-Adams.
"Are you and Mary going for a stroll?" she asked, smiling up at him.
She was very small, no higher than his breastbone.
"Mamama!" Mary said, by way of greeting.
"I can't find her nurse," Gabe said, feeling ridiculously embarrassed. "And I couldn't manage to fix her undergarments together."
"Oh dear," Miss Pythian-Adams said. She paused. "That would likely explain the puddle on the floor."
Gabe looked down. "Mary!" Now he felt an unpleasantly warm liquid dripping from his forearm.
Miss Pythian-Adams stepped neatly around the puddle, put a hand on his arm, and turned him about. "I'm sure I can figure out how to fix her underclothing," she said. "Why not ring for help? I have found that someone generally comes if one rings long enough."
Gabe could feel his face growing hot. He hadn't thought of ringing for help—because in his own house, and the house he grew up in, there hadn't been as many servants as Rafe maintained. Of course, in this house someone would be up at all times. It seemed Brinkley never slept.
A second later they were back in the warm nursery and put Mary on the table again. She kicked joyously when the newly wet fabric was taken off her.
"She's so active!" Miss Pythian-Adams said, laughing a little. "Here's a cloth. I'm sure it just goes on…"