Page 17 of My Rogue, My Ruin
He couldn’t help himself. Teasing her gave him a strange sense of pleasure. He had never been much of a tease, not with the women he’d known in the past. Those sorts of women did not demand conversation. They demanded money and jewels, and Archer had happily given them from time to time, believing it a much wiser decision than mixing with married, or worse, marriageable, women of his own sphere.
However, Briannon did not react to his goading remark the way he wanted her to. She kept her chin down and her eyes trained on the well-beaten path through a field, just out of the woods.
“She will surely thank you for your assistance,” she replied.
“I’ve done nothing at all. You shot that boar, not I.”
She turned her ear toward him, just enough so that he could see the thick fringe of her russet lashes and the gently sloped curve of her cheek. “Please do not say as much. She would murder Gray for teaching me to shoot.”
“On the contrary. She would have to admit that your brother had done you a service.”
She laughed. “Perhaps. Though not until after Gray’s funeral.”
Archer smiled. She had a wry sense of humor. This he could appreciate.
The slate rooftops of Ferndale’s majestic manor house rose into view. It was far more modern than his own stately home, which had been constructed well over a century before. He meant to make some improvements to Worthington Abbey, once a few of his ships returned to port and the most recent investments he’d made paid out. Investments, he thought as the manor became more visible, that he required to maintain their lifestyles—especially that of his father.
“It is still early,” Archer said, aware of the need to protect her reputation despite his earlier teasing. The reason for her agitation was understandable—his mere presence would be compromising. “We may be able to reach the stables without anyone learning of it. I’ll borrow a mount to see me home and have it returned before anyone notices it is missing.”
“Vickers, our stable master, will notice,” Briannon replied.
“Stable masters are not usually prone to gossip.”
“Perhaps not at Worthington Abbey,” she said under her breath.
No. Not at Worthington Abbey, thanks to Brandt, and for that Archer was beholden. He was now stable master, having taken the position after Montgomery’s death two years before. The thought of his passing still made Archer’s chest and throat feel tight. It had taken much longer than that for the sharp blade of his own mother’s death to dull to something bearable. It was a sort of hollow sensation, like a hand grasping into thin air, reaching for something it couldn’t quite touch.
The fire had broken out in one of the many rambling tree houses he and Brandt had built in the Worthington woods when they’d been boys. The duchess had been out on a solitary ride through the fields that morning. It had been pieced together later that she must have spotted the smoke and rushed her mount toward the woods. She’d found the burning tree house, and likely believing her son inside, had climbed the rope ladder to search for him.
Archer had not been inside, though. He didn’t know how the fire had started, but by the time servants from the main house arrived, the duchess was dead and a young Eloise, who had arrived minutes before the servants, had been burned severely, attempting to pull her adoptive mother’s unconscious body from the tree house.
Archer missed his mother, but the ache had faded with time. It was Montgomery he still mourned. He only hoped it wouldn’t take years for the pain to lessen.
“I wish to apologize, Lady Briannon,” he said as he started to direct Apollo toward the grand stables, set kitty-corner to the manor’s wide approach. But she stalled his hands, and took the reins, directing the horse in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“If you are seen with me dressed in this manner, I won’t live down the scandal of it. The gossipmongers’ tongues will wag, you will be forced to marry me, and we would make each other miserable for the rest of our lives. I am saving us both from a ghastly union.”
He stifled yet another laugh. Briannon turned her head again, this time affording Archer a better view of her profile. The small lobe of her ear was especially tempting, but it was her fine brow, arched in preparation for another dose of his sarcasm, that he paid attention to. “Ghastly?”
Briannon nodded firmly. “Oh, most definitely. I wish for a husband who can smile without looking as if it pains him, and I’m sure you wish for a wife whose wardrobe is more…conventional.” She paused. “You were saying something about an apology?”
Archer was torn between incredulity and amusement at her veiled snub, but he conceded to respond. “I made a careless remark at the duke’s ball,” he said, as she led the way down a small hill that took them once more out of sight of the manor. His fingers skimmed the soft material at her waist, but did not quite grip her body. She pulled the horse to a smart stop in front of a small abandoned cottage covered in tangled vines, green ivy, and new roses, their petals still closed.
“Hmm, a deserted cottage,” he said, wanting to turn the tables. “But what ofmyreputation?”
A blush of color spotted her cheeks, but she did not respond to his teasing comment. “You may wait outside while I change.”
He grinned and swung down, and though he regretted the loss of Briannon’s body—the spooning press of her legs against his, her straight spine against his stomach and chest—Archer was glad to dismount. He hadn’t ridden a horse without a saddle in…well…ever. It hadn’t been as comfortable, nor as effortless, as she’d made it seem.
He held his hand up to Briannon to help her dismount as well. She ignored it and, holding on to Apollo’s lithe neck, swung herself down with swift competence. The soft, butter-colored buckskin breeches clung to the lines of her thighs and the flare of her backside. They must have belonged to her brother years ago to fit her with such form-fitting accuracy. He could see every curve, leaving very little to the imagination. And yet he did imagine. Her bare skin would be more velvety than that buckskin, he wagered. Warm and yielding.
Briannon disappeared into the house, and he stood outside as she had instructed, waiting the minutes while she changed. Flashes of movement through the windows grabbed his attention. Picturing Lady Briannon nude just behind that single flimsy door made his breath catch. He forced himself to admire her horse instead and then found himself thinking about the way she had ridden him, which led to other, far headier, fantasies.
By the time Briannon emerged, clad in a yellow muslin dress, her hair flowing loosely around her shoulders, Archer was in a cramped state at the heated turn of his thoughts. She appeared nothing like the ragtag hellion from before, and she had, ostensibly, left her pistol in the cottage. But all the same, she managed to look just as appealing, if not more. Her color was heightened, no doubt from having to undress with him standing outside, waiting. It pleased him to think that she had been as bothered by the awareness of his presence as he had hers.
“Yes,” she said, resuming their earlier conversation. “You were quite rude at the ball.” She rubbed the horse’s coat in brisk strokes before tugging on the reins to lead him into a walk beside her. “But I fear you were also correct. As you could see by my attire this morning, I am the furthest thing from a lady’s fashion plate.”
