Page 5 of Miss Prim and the Duke of Wylde
Surprised, she stopped and took in the sight of two woodsmen leaping about in the middle of the roadway as they attempted to catch the halters of a pair of magnificent grays harnessed to what was unquestionably the most elegant curricle Meg had ever seen.
She was a Cynster; she’d seen elegant curricles aplenty. Excellent horses, too, and the pair of grays also ranked highly.
Yet there was no one sitting in the curricle. No driver, no groom. No one at all.
And at any moment, one of those lovely horses was going to rear and injure itself or lash out at the woodsmen.
She recognized the men. Carter and Miller worked for Sir Humphrey Martingale on the Bigfield House estate, which lay on the other side of the road from Walkhurst Manor. Sir Humphrey was Ellen’s uncle, and her brother, Robbie, managed the estate.
Without further thought, Meg ran for the road. After leaping across the ditch some yards behind the woodsmen so as not to startle the already frightened horses, she set her basket down on the verge, then walked toward the curricle.
Carter and Miller—every bit as panicked as the horses—glanced over their shoulders and saw her.
“Miss Cynster! You want to stay away, miss. These horses—”
“I’m used to handling horses.” She spoke calmly, evenly, and continued walking forward.
As she neared the grays, both of whom were rolling their eyes, she started crooning. She might refer to horses as “smelly beasts,” but she knew more than she’d ever wanted to know about how to handle them. How to soothe and calm them.
She kept her gaze locked on the animals, catching their eyes, capturing and holding their attentions, impressing on them that she was calm and untroubled, so they could be, too.
Gradually, the horses quieted, and first one, then the other, allowed her to catch their halter and draw their head down enough to grasp the reins.
With both sets of long reins in her grasp, she stroked and patted the long noses. “There, now. How did such a pair of beauties as you get loose?” Her gaze traveled along the reins—to the figure slumped lifeless across the curricle’s seat. “Oh.” She managed—just—to keep the shock from her voice. The last thing she wanted was to set the horses panicking again, but she felt her eyes grow huge as she stared at the dark-haired gentleman. Not a muscle, not a finger, not an eyelash twitched.
“Is he dead, do you think?” one of the woodsmen whispered.
“I don’t know,” Meg heard herself whisper back.
The man—judging by the quality of his clothes, let alone his horses, he was beyond doubt a gentleman and a wealthy one at that—lay motionless, his chin sunk on his chest, his arms lax at his sides. Only his long, black-trouser-clad legs, bent with his knees wedged against the front board, were holding him in place on the leather seat.
The shoulders slumped against the seat’s back were broad, encased in a dun-colored greatcoat worn over a coat that just a glance told her hailed from Savile Row. The waistcoat, too, was top of the trees, richly embroidered without being glaring. And in the folds of silk below the man’s chin, a diamond blazed in a stray beam of sunlight.
Drinking in the vision, Meg felt strangely shocked. His face was lean with the long planes, patrician nose, and chiseled cheekbones of an aristocrat. His jaw was squarish without being aggressive, his lips, in repose, finely drawn. His brow was wide, with locks of black hair falling rakishly over the expanse, shadowing eyes well set beneath the angled slashes of black eyebrows.
His lashes were impossibly long and thick, forming black crescents on his cheeks.
Even inanimate, his was a face so outrageously handsome the sight of it literally stole her breath.
A novel reaction for her, along with the errant yet compelling thought that surely a man as beautiful as this shouldn’t simply die.
She frowned, then to herself as much as to the stunned woodsmen, murmured, “He looks too young and healthy to have died of an apoplexy.” Or indeed, any other natural cause, and there was no sign of violence anywhere.
Despite his utter stillness and a pallor she suspected was natural, there was enough color in his complexion to suggest he wasn’t dead.
Still frowning, she blew out a breath. “Let’s see.”
Reorganizing the reins as she went, she walked along the side of the curricle, then boldly mounted the steps.
The well-sprung carriage dipped with her weight, yet the man didn’t stir.
Grimly determined, she rearranged the reins, grasping them in one hand, then telling herself he couldn’t be—wouldn’t be—dead, she steeled herself, reached out, and searched for a pulse in the man’s throat, just beneath his chin.
His skin was warm to her touch, and his throat felt strong. It was also long; seeking a pulse point, she was forced to dip her fingers beneath the silk of his stock.
She slid her fingertips down the long tendon and, at last, felt the solid throb of a heartbeat.
Yes! There.
