Page 112 of A Woman of Passion

THIRTY-ONE

With renewed vigor Bess rode over her lands daily. Sometimes her children rode with her, but her sons, now twelve, eleven, and ten, were more interested in their own pursuits, and Bess was often free to roam far afield with the summer wind whipping her red tresses into a tangle. She loved to ride in Sherwood Forest, which was alive with birds and other game.

She ordered a thousand billets of wood to be cut and stacked ready at all times to fill Chatsworth's great fire-places whenever the day was cool and damp. Chatsworth's mill was repaired, and Bess made improvements at Ashford Manor, Lark Meadow, and Doveridge. The Chatsworth acreage alone covered over ten miles, Ashford had eight thousand acres, and Doveridge another five hundred, so Lady St. Loe was the greatest landowner in Derbyshire, after Shrewsbury.

The livestock on her landholdings was considerable. She had forty oxen for drawing heavy carts, and five hundred ewes, most of which had just lambed. She had an equal number of rams and ordered that most of them be castrated so they could be fattened for market and sold as wethers, since she needed fewer than a score of rams for breeding purposes. Her tenant farmers also bred milky herds of Charolais cattle and, of course, some huge Yorkshire pigs and boars. All were fed by crops grown on her own acres, and there were still enough fields left to grow wheat for Chatsworth's bread and barley for its ale.

The late mornings and afternoons were given over to finishing the building of Chatsworth. Bess wanted a porch across the entire front face of Chatsworth and battlements built on the roof in the same matching stone. Whenever she heard of a religious order falling on hard times or the estate sale of a nobleman, Bess was there to buy up their treasures for Chatsworth. She acquired more tapestries than her magnificent house could display but squirreled them away for future use, for once Bess acquired an objet d'art, she vowed never to part with it.

Bess arose at dawn, and when she saw that the sunrise turned the sky red, she knew there would be a summer thunderstorm before the day was over. Deciding to take her ride early today, she headed into Sherwood Forest, where deer could be spotted at dawn or sunset. She was delighted to see a hare dash across her path, and shortly after she watched a gray fox pursue it. She paused beside a stream and watched a couple of otters swimming together. She realized by their antics that they were a mated pair.

In the distance Bess heard a hunting horn and was surprised as the high notes traveled closer, now accompanied by the baying of hounds. She rode through the green canopy of trees toward the racket and suddenly found herself face to face with a dozen huntsmen. All wore the white-hound badge of the Talbots, and then she saw Shrewsbury himself with a dead stag thrown across the broad rump of his great black hunter.

He flung himself from the saddle the moment he saw her and issued an order for his men to fall back. They obeyed immediately, taking the dogs with them.

Bess's pulse quickened the moment she saw him. Why does he have the power to make me feel alive? The corners of her mouth lifted only slightly as she looked down at him from her saddle. “You are poaching on my territory— but, then, it wouldn't be the first time, would it?”

“If you are speaking of the Tower, I was openly invited, Vixen.”

Bess hid her amusement. “I didn't write to thank you for my release, because I paid you in advance.”

“You have a cruel tongue.”

“Not always. It can be teasing, playful even.”

“I am well aware and can think of other uses.”

“All wickedly intimate, no doubt.”

As they dueled with words, the sexual tension between them coiled ever tighter. Shrewsbury shortened the distance that separated them and placed a possessive hand on her velvet-covered knee.

“You are a bold devil, when I have the whip hand,” she teased, rolling the handle of her quirt between her palms suggestively.

“If you don't cease making that provocative gesture with your whip, I'll show you just how wickedly intimate I can be.”

“I believe you already did that—twice. Surely at your age you have learned control?”

“Bess, you haven't the faintest idea just how much control I'm exercising at this moment. I want to pull you down in my arms and tear that black riding habit to ribbons . What outrageous color are your undergarments today, Vixen?”

“Crimson. You shouldn't be touching me at all with the blood of the stag on your hands.”

“If you're really wearing crimson, it won't show.”

“You'll never know, will you?” She tossed back her hair in a challenging gesture.

His eyes flashed a warning she should have recognized. His bold hand went up inside her riding skirt and she heard material tear as he ripped a handful of petticoat and flourished the brilliant silk victoriously, then shoved it inside his leather jack.

“You black devil,” she hissed, raising her riding crop.

“Lash me with it, and see what happens,” he goaded.

Bess licked her lips and laughed at him. “You'd like that, wouldn't you, Lucifer, but I shall be the picture of decorum.”

Talbot searched her face, then his banter dropped away and he became earnest. “Bess, will you ride with me sometime?”

She looked directly into his piercing blue eyes. “Of course, since you covet this part of Sherwood Forest that I own. I will ride with you, hunt with you, converse with you, even dine with you, but I won't fuck with you, Shrew, so don't ask.”

You shall, my beauty, you shall!

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