Page 40 of Guilty Pleasures

“It is not a question of whether it is good or bad. It is not acceptable.”

“What a convenient way to prevent anyone from getting close to you,” she murmured, and resumed her sketching. “You can always pull rank.”

“I do not think how I treat my servants is your concern.”

“No,” she shot back without looking up. “It is yours.”

“Are we quarreling again, Miss Wade?” He drew a deep breath and raked a hand through his hair. “How is it that you and I seem to be doing that so much of late?”

“Because I no longer allow you to treat me like a nameless servant, perhaps?”

“Have I been doing that?”

She looked over at him, her face as unreadable as those of the marble statues behind them. “Yes.”

She bent her head, returning her attention to the drawing in her lap and he studied her profile, wondering for the hundredth time what went on beneath that placid exterior. He wanted to know, suddenly, what she was thinking, what she was feeling, for she was a mystery he wanted to solve.

That wisp of hair had fallen forward again. He reached up, tucking it back, feeling both the hard, gold line of her spectacles and the velvety softness of her ear against his fingers. She froze to rigid stillness as he ran the tip of his finger down the column of her throat to the thin ochre braid that trimmed her plain white collar. Slowly, he moved closer, then curled his hand around the back of her neck. “I do not think of you as a servant.”

She gave a little start and leaned sideways, away from him. “What do grooms do, exactly?” she asked, her voice almost desperate as she reverted to the safe topic of servants. “I fear I know little about horses. I am an accomplished rider when it comes to camels, but I have never ridden a horse.”

He could have continued his tantalizing explorations, but he allowed her to escape them. He lowered his hand and sat back. “Camels?”

“Yes, indeed.” She nodded several times, tightened her grip around her pencil, and continued to draw the view. “Camels are rather difficult animals. Contrary, hard to ride, and they spit.”

“I cannot imagine any camel getting the better of you, Miss Wade.” He glanced at her bare toes peeping out from beneath the hem of her skirt, and he felt desire flicker dangerously within his body. “I know I can never seem to do so.”

“Good,” she said in a prim voice. “I prefer it that way.”

“Yes, I am certain you do.” Anthony forced his gaze away from her feet. “Would you care to learn to ride?”

She continued to sketch without looking at him. “And in return for riding lessons, how much time would I have to give you?”

At this moment, time was not what he really wanted to bargain for, but something far more intriguing and not at all honorable. “A month?”

She shook her head, laughing. “Thank you, but no.”

“Riding on the Row is quite the thing to do,” he said in an attempt to intrigue her.

It worked. She looked at him. “The Row? What is that?”

“Rotten Row is a track of sand in Hyde Park where the fashionable people gather from twelve o’clock to two o’clock for riding.”

“Rotten Row. What a name!”

“Being seen riding on the Row is an excellent way for young ladies to impress country gentlemen. Riding is yet another of the season’s many opportunities to meet prospective husbands. So you see, you should learn how to ride.”

She pressed her pencil against her lips, her expression wary as she considered the matter. “I do not believe a month is a fair exchange,” she finally said. “I already know how to ride a camel.”

“I am open to negotiation. What would you believe to be fair?”

“As I told you, camels are difficult animals. I shouldn’t think more than a day of practice on a trained horse would be needed.”

An image flashed across his mind of Miss Wade astride a camel, her legs encased in trousers. He shoved that tantalizing image aside and made a calculated guess. “And when you rode camels, did you also master a sidesaddle?”

That got to her. She blinked behind her spectacles. “I had not thought of that.”

“I told you before, I will not lie to you.” As he said the words, he admitted to himself that some fashionable young ladies, through ignorance or preference, did not ride horseback, but he was not going to offer Miss Wade that additional piece of information. After all, he reasoned, an omission was not a lie. “There is no question that a sidesaddle is considered de rigueur for young ladies.”

---