Playing To Win. Laurel Ames

Tony, by now completely mollified.

      “He backed one of his plays—quite successfully, I might add.” Sera toyed with the idea of telling Tony she had done the same, time and again, and had now more than a monetary interest in Travesian’s latest production. But having once calmed Tony, she could not bear to throw him into another fit of annoyance. She liked him too well when he was in a good mood.

      She almost put aside completely her plan to make him very angry indeed. All would have come to naught, anyway, if Jeffers had got at Tony before she took Satin out again. As it turned out, Tony went out after dinner, as usual, not saying where. She imagined him meeting Lady Vonne somewhere, dancing with her, even going to bed with her. Such irrational dreams haunted her through the night, long after she had heard Tony come in and go to bed. Where did he go at night, if not to be with Lady Vonne? If it were an innocent pastime, why did he not tell her what it was?

      By morning, she was so angry with herself for letting such mistrustful thoughts plague her, she needed to fight something other than shadows. She determined to take Satin out and not worry whether Tony saw her or not. She put on her riding habit and, undeterred by finding Chadwick still absent, commanded Jeffers to saddle Satin for her.

      “Perhaps Lord Cairnbrooke will ride with you today,” Jeffers said hopefully.

      “No chance. He came in late. I don’t think he will even be up before noon.” Sera looked wistfully at Tony’s bedroom window as she said this and waited for them to bring out the horses. If she wanted noise enough to wake the soundest sleeper, she got it without even asking. Satin whinnied at sight of her and, when Jeffers handed her up, danced around the small courtyard, his metal shoes ringing as they struck the cobbles, to the endangerment of the undergroom, Dillon.

      A window was thrown up, and Tony, his head delightfully tousled, squinted down at the scene. “What the devil?” he asked, trying to clear his vision of his docile wife mounted on the most dangerous-looking horse he had ever seen.

      “Good morning, Tony,” Sera called.

      “Where the devil did that horse come from?” Tony sputtered.

      “I just bought him,” Sera said, letting the pawing Satin rear a little. It was enough of a display to make Tony bump his head on the window frame.

      Then she gave Satin his head, and they burst into the street, with Jeffers looking hopelessly back at his employer. Tony yelled for Stewart and began to throw on his riding clothes. “Don’t help me! Go tell that groom to saddle my horse. I think my wife has gone mad. I know Jeffers has. Move!”

      By the time Tony clattered down the stairs, his horse was saddled and the undergroom was biting his lip at how Lady Cairnbrooke had bested her husband. For his money, she was as game a rider as any woman he had ever seen, and should have been trusted with Tansy in the first place. He passed up breakfast to wait in the stables for the outcome of the morning’s ride.

      * * *

      Sera kept Satin to a canter through the streets, for safety’s sake, but let him have a good long gallop through Saint James’s Park. Two gentlemen out exercising their mounts thought they were witnessing a runaway, and actually started in pursuit of her, since she had such a lead on her groom. But as she came to the line of trees, Sera pulled Satin down to a canter and kept him circling while she waited for Jeffers. The men did not know what to do with themselves then, but could not resist the temptation of meeting such a dashing beauty.

      “I don’t believe we have met—William Falcrest,” the older man said to Sera, tipping his hat.

      “And I’m Clive Falcrest. Isn’t that Kurtland’s horse?”

      “Not anymore. I’m Lady Cairnbrooke. Sorry, but I can’t leave him standing, and I’m pretty sure you can’t keep up with me.”

      Sera was off again, down the same stretch of trail, with Jeffers after her, but Satin did not so much as think of losing his rider, so glad was he to have a playmate who enjoyed a good gallop. Jeffers breathed a sigh of relief.

      Thus challenged, the Falcrests rode after her and kept up with her around the lake and on into Green Park. They pulled up when they saw she meant to canter on toward Hyde Park without so much as breaking her stride. “So that is Tony’s wife. I shall have to contrive to meet Lady Cairnbrooke someplace where I can keep up with her,” Clive vowed, rubbing his stiff leg and easing it in the stirrup.

      “Thank God Marissa was not with us. Don’t you tell my wife we were outrun by a woman. We will never hear the end of it,” William warned.

      They were walking their mounts back when Tony came up with them, open-shirted and looking as though he had leapt from a bedroom window.

      “Hyde Park,” they said in unison, and laughed at Tony’s familiar scowl.

      Sera trotted Satin, or cantered him on some of the more open walks, in deference to Jeffers’s hack, which was beginning to blow. When she could make out Tony’s approaching form, she made for the woods. Jeffers, now used to the game of tag between the trees and shrubs, managed to keep her in sight, but it was the last they saw of Tony. Sera brought them out again on Park Lane and trotted quite sedately the whole way home to Marsham Street.

      Their mounts were quite cool by the time they returned, and the undergroom received them into his charge with satisfaction. He had thought Lady Cairnbrooke would be a match for the red brute. Of his master he saw nothing for half an hour. When Lord Cairnbrooke did dash into the yard, his gray was flecked with foam, and Dillon looked on his master with disfavor when he realized how long it would take him to properly cool the animal.

      “My wife and Jeffers?”

      “Back this half hour, m’lord.”

      “And safe?”

      “Of course,” Dillon said matter-of-factly.