Playing To Win

Sera kept the chestnut at a controlled canter to show Jeffers she could. “Now for a bit of a gallop to see what he’ll do,” she said over her shoulder.

“No, I beg of you!”

Sera let the horse gallop for a few minutes, until they were approaching a line of trees, then pulled him in with a series of determined tugs. The beast tried to grab the bit and wrestle control from her, but she persisted and, despite some head-thrashing and a few choppy bucks, she brought him to a halt that reassured Jeffers to some extent. He had not seen Sera ride before, and now wondered how his master could ever have thought a mare would be too much for her.

“Safe enough in the open,” Sera commented. “I wonder what he’ll do among the trees. We used to play hunt-the-squirrel in the woods around the farm.”

Sera let the chestnut trot, then canter, as they twisted and turned among the trees. The beast changed leads naturally, and had a certain military grace to him. That was when it hit Jeffers where he had seen the animal before. He was one of Major Kurtland’s war-horses. At least he shouldn’t spook over nothing, but who could guess what bad habits he had picked up in the cavalry?

Still, the horse seemed to be following Sera’s commands until they came to a straight stretch of trail and the beast appeared to miscalculate. He would surely carry the girl right into a tree! Just as Jeffers was about to yell a warning, Sera gave the left rein a yank and caught the beast a rap across the left ear with her whip. The chestnut went down on his right shoulder, and Sera hopped off before he could recover himself. When the horse stood, he looked around suspiciously.

“Yes, it was me, you fool. That’s the oldest trick a horse has ever invented. Don’t try it again.”

That strange voice, low and penetrating, was now surely coming from Sera. The horse regarded her with new respect, as did Jeffers. “Are you hurt, m’lady?” he asked, dismounting.

“No, of course not. I do not think I have hurt his mouth too badly. I would never do that to a young horse, and a cut across the ears could ruin a novice, but he had it coming. I think we shall give him one more go at this stretch and then call it quits for today.”

“You don’t mean to get back on? I just remembered who he is. They call him Satan at Kurtland’s stable.”

“No, I think Satin would be better, Red Satin. And of course I will ride him home.”

“You will scare Lord Cairnbrooke to death if he sees you on this horse.”

“Do you think so? Then we have bought the right one. Now give me a leg up.”

Jeffers complied and trotted after his mistress, beginning to be a little afraid of what she had in mind. She turned the horse and rode him straight at the same tree, as Jeffers looked on.

A shout of “Don’t even think about it!” made Satin’s ears prick back, but his eyes did not again stray to the tempting limb. Sera praised him fulsomely for not trying to kill her again and let him walk to cool down a little.

“This does not make him safe, you know,” Jeffers warned.

“I expect he will try it at least once more.”

“Where did you learn that trick?”

“From Chadwick. You are sure he is coming back?”

“I know he has not been dismissed, but he did not say where he was going. You could ask Lord Cairnbrooke.”

“Without knowing the answer, it’s not a safe question. So few of them are,” Sera confided. “Tony is a man of deeds, not words. Makes it very hard to communicate with him sometimes. I never really know what’s eating at him.”

Jeffers looked bleak at this news, and he followed Sera, leading the bay and hoping his employer would not see them until he could prepare him for the news.

* * *

When Sera came in, glowing from her ride and full of plans for worrying Tony, she found Armand Travesian sitting with Lady Amanda, and Lady Amanda laughing. Sera had never before seen her mother-in-law blush, but Armand could charm anyone.

“You have been so busy getting married and moving about, you have been neglecting me,” he complained as he hugged her and kissed her cheek.

“How is your wretched play coming?” she asked as she sat in a chair, leaving him with Lady Amanda on the sofa.

“Tolerably. It could use a woman’s touch. We are having a bit of trouble with the costumes.”

“I will bring Marie to you. She will soon put things right.”

“Armand tells me you have an interest in the theater.”

Sera did not know quite how to interpret this. She did indeed own half of the Agora—it was an arrangement not even her father knew about—but she did not think Armand would be so indiscreet as to say so.

“We should all take an interest in good theater, ma’am, if we expect there to be any,” Sera countered.

“The world of the theater must be so exciting,” Lady Amanda gushed. “What is your favorite role? You are an actor yourself, are you not, Armand?”

“It’s so difficult to say. I must in my lifetime have played fifty leads.”

“Which one does he do the best?” Lady Amanda appealed to Sera, who had poured herself a cup of tea.

“Without question, the role he plays best of all is that of Armand Travesian,” she said with a twinkle. “The others are pale shadows compared to the force of that character.”

“A compliment?” Travesian asked.

“I’m sure you will twist it into one if it is not,” Sera said blithely.

“You are in rare form today, dear Sera, and, if I may say so, nearly as lovely with that bloom in your cheeks as Lady Amanda.”

Lady Amanda blushed becomingly, and Sera smiled at Travesian. No other man could bring out the best in a woman as he could.

Lady Amanda sobered herself. “I am not so flustered as to forget that you are an actor, sir, and such compliments trip easily from your tongue,” said Lady Amanda with mock dignity.

“Not so, dear ma’am. I am a very constant fellow. Ask this lady, who knows me well.”

“True,” Sera said with a wink. “He has been forever telling me how much he loves me.”

Lady Amanda giggled.

“That is a fatherly-brotherly love, not the mature affection that I feel for—”

Tony entered just then, and Sera hastened to make introductions. Armand did not stay long under Tony’s withering gaze, but Tony’s mother scarcely noticed this. Lady Amanda saw Travesian to the door, then tripped up the stairs, humming to herself.

“Who is that fellow, anyway?”

“A friend of my father’s. I have known him since I was fifteen.”

“That is no excuse for inviting him here.”

“He only paid a morning call. If you have decided to dislike him on two minutes’ acquaintance, I certainly will not invite him to dinner.”

“I didn’t say I disliked him.”

“No, but you showed it. A man with a less generous nature would have been offended.”

“I don’t think a man like Travesian can be offended.”

“I wonder if you may be right,” Sera said, quite unexpectedly. She could feel a fight brewing, and she saw no point in it, for she could see Armand any time she wanted to at the Agora. “Now that I think of it, I have seen him turn the most blatant of insults into a joke. I believe I learned the trick of it from him.”

This called to Tony’s mind Sera’s besting of Madeleine in Brighton, and his own more recent encounter with the woman. His simple greeting had gone beyond what he had intended, and he could now see how someone might have interpreted it as dalliance, just as he might have misinterpreted Sera’s laughter at Travesian’s wit.

“You don’t particularly like him, then?” Tony asked uncertainly.

“I respect him for what he is good at, producing plays. I will not invite him here, if you have no taste for such joviality. Many people see it as forced. But you have to remember, he was an actor once himself. He tends to overplay every scene.”

“If he calls, I suppose there is nothing you can do about that,” Tony conceded.

“It would be rude to deny I am home, and it probably would not work. Besides, your mother likes him, and he makes her laugh. I see little enough of that from her. If Armand wants to entertain her by playing the clown, I think we should let him.”

“How did your father ever come to know him?” asked Tony, by now completely mollified.

“He backed one of his plays—quite successfully, I might add.” Sera toyed with the idea of telling Tony she had done the same, time and again, and had now more than a monetary interest in Travesian’s latest production. But having once calmed Tony, she could not bear to throw him into another fit of annoyance. She liked him too well when he was in a good mood.

She almost put aside completely her plan to make him very angry indeed. All would have come to naught, anyway, if Jeffers had got at Tony before she took Satin out again. As it turned out, Tony went out after dinner, as usual, not saying where. She imagined him meeting Lady Vonne somewhere, dancing with her, even going to bed with her. Such irrational dreams haunted her through the night, long after she had heard Tony come in and go to bed. Where did he go at night, if not to be with Lady Vonne? If it were an innocent pastime, why did he not tell her what it was?

By morning, she was so angry with herself for letting such mistrustful thoughts plague her, she needed to fight something other than shadows. She determined to take Satin out and not worry whether Tony saw her or not. She put on her riding habit and, undeterred by finding Chadwick still absent, commanded Jeffers to saddle Satin for her.

“Perhaps Lord Cairnbrooke will ride with you today,” Jeffers said hopefully.

“No chance. He came in late. I don’t think he will even be up before noon.” Sera looked wistfully at Tony’s bedroom window as she said this and waited for them to bring out the horses. If she wanted noise enough to wake the soundest sleeper, she got it without even asking. Satin whinnied at sight of her and, when Jeffers handed her up, danced around the small courtyard, his metal shoes ringing as they struck the cobbles, to the endangerment of the undergroom, Dillon.

A window was thrown up, and Tony, his head delightfully tousled, squinted down at the scene. “What the devil?” he asked, trying to clear his vision of his docile wife mounted on the most dangerous-looking horse he had ever seen.

“Good morning, Tony,” Sera called.

“Where the devil did that horse come from?” Tony sputtered.

“I just bought him,” Sera said, letting the pawing Satin rear a little. It was enough of a display to make Tony bump his head on the window frame.

Then she gave Satin his head, and they burst into the street, with Jeffers looking hopelessly back at his employer. Tony yelled for Stewart and began to throw on his riding clothes. “Don’t help me! Go tell that groom to saddle my horse. I think my wife has gone mad. I know Jeffers has. Move!”

By the time Tony clattered down the stairs, his horse was saddled and the undergroom was biting his lip at how Lady Cairnbrooke had bested her husband. For his money, she was as game a rider as any woman he had ever seen, and should have been trusted with Tansy in the first place. He passed up breakfast to wait in the stables for the outcome of the morning’s ride.

* * *

Sera kept Satin to a canter through the streets, for safety’s sake, but let him have a good long gallop through Saint James’s Park. Two gentlemen out exercising their mounts thought they were witnessing a runaway, and actually started in pursuit of her, since she had such a lead on her groom. But as she came to the line of trees, Sera pulled Satin down to a canter and kept him circling while she waited for Jeffers. The men did not know what to do with themselves then, but could not resist the temptation of meeting such a dashing beauty.

“I don’t believe we have met—William Falcrest,” the older man said to Sera, tipping his hat.

“And I’m Clive Falcrest. Isn’t that Kurtland’s horse?”

“Not anymore. I’m Lady Cairnbrooke. Sorry, but I can’t leave him standing, and I’m pretty sure you can’t keep up with me.”

Sera was off again, down the same stretch of trail, with Jeffers after her, but Satin did not so much as think of losing his rider, so glad was he to have a playmate who enjoyed a good gallop. Jeffers breathed a sigh of relief.

Thus challenged, the Falcrests rode after her and kept up with her around the lake and on into Green Park. They pulled up when they saw she meant to canter on toward Hyde Park without so much as breaking her stride. “So that is Tony’s wife. I shall have to contrive to meet Lady Cairnbrooke someplace where I can keep up with her,” Clive vowed, rubbing his stiff leg and easing it in the stirrup.

“Thank God Marissa was not with us. Don’t you tell my wife we were outrun by a woman. We will never hear the end of it,” William warned.

They were walking their mounts back when Tony came up with them, open-shirted and looking as though he had leapt from a bedroom window.

“Hyde Park,” they said in unison, and laughed at Tony’s familiar scowl.

Sera trotted Satin, or cantered him on some of the more open walks, in deference to Jeffers’s hack, which was beginning to blow. When she could make out Tony’s approaching form, she made for the woods. Jeffers, now used to the game of tag between the trees and shrubs, managed to keep her in sight, but it was the last they saw of Tony. Sera brought them out again on Park Lane and trotted quite sedately the whole way home to Marsham Street.

Their mounts were quite cool by the time they returned, and the undergroom received them into his charge with satisfaction. He had thought Lady Cairnbrooke would be a match for the red brute. Of his master he saw nothing for half an hour. When Lord Cairnbrooke did dash into the yard, his gray was flecked with foam, and Dillon looked on his master with disfavor when he realized how long it would take him to properly cool the animal.

“My wife and Jeffers?”

“Back this half hour, m’lord.”

“And safe?”

“Of course,” Dillon said matter-of-factly.

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