Page 2 of The Art of Tempting a Marquess

Kate let out a most unladylike groan of frustration.

The gentleman said, ‘Perhaps if I got in with him, if I might touch the bottom, I could—’

‘Perish the thought, sir!’ Kate countered in alarm. ‘This marsh is as deep as it is wide, I daresay! Merrylegs has found some purchase out of unusual good fortune. We mustn’t risk drowning you for all that.’

‘Very well, shall we try again?’

Kate gave him a nod.

‘One, two, three,’ he said, and they heaved.

The horse put a hoof on the firmer ground in front of Kate, and her heart leapt.

‘Keep going!’ she shrieked.

In the next instant the front half of the animal emerged with much splashing. The lord fell forward, half into the marsh, but ’twas enough, the horse pulled free, clambering to the solid path where Kate was.

She was splattered head to foot in mud, and the lord was covered from head to waist as he got back to his feet, but they grinned at each other in triumph as the horse snuffled and panted, exhausted, but safe.

‘There you are, Merrylegs,’ Kate laughed as she stroked the white blaze, dotted with peat, down the horse’s long face.

The lord caressed the horse’s back haunch and beamed at Kate.

‘I say, well met,’ he chuckled. ‘I thought I’d lose him for certain until you came along.’

‘My pleasure,’ Kate smiled back.

‘Lord Thorburn at your service,’ the reddish-haired nobleman said with a cheerful bow. ‘I am forever in your debt, Miss...?’

‘Norwood,’ Kate supplied. ‘I am Katherine Norwood, of the Norwood farm, not far from here.’

Now that the crisis had passed, Kate became far more self-conscious of the peat staining her clothes. As she touched her face, she reddened to feel wet bits on her skin.

I must be a frightful sight.

Lord Thorburn was the finest looking man she had ever seen, mud-covered though he was, and she wished very much in that instant that she had met him under other circumstances. Yet even if she had, ’twas a folly to dream it might have made any difference. She was a farmer’s niece, after all, no matter what her mother had always told her.

‘Allow me to accompany you home, Miss Norwood,’ Lord Thorburn said, still beaming at her warmly.

Kate felt the flush in her cheeks intensify. ‘Oh, you mustn’t trouble yourself for me, my lord,’ she said.

‘Nonsense. I owe you Merrylegs’s life, and quite likely my own. The least I can do is walk with you for a time.’

And so it was that Katherine Norwood, niece of respectable farmer Mr. John Norwood, was accompanied home, covered in black mud, by the equally soiled by eternally grateful James Rhodes, Marquess of Thorburn.

Chapter 2

Kate

‘We shall never hear the end of it, I daresay,’ Aunt Mary said over dinner later that evening.

Kate picked at her food. The rescue of Merrylegs had given her a considerable appetite, but this she had satisfied with tea and caraway seed cakes, which she and her aunt had offered to Lord Thorburn, who deigned to accept. Her aunt had spent the entire time staring at the nobleman.

‘What did you say his name was? Thorberg?’ Uncle John said.

‘Thorburn,’ Kate murmured, poking the roast chicken in her plate with a fork.

‘It can’t be,’ Uncle John muttered.

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