Nicola Cornick - One Night Of Scandal

Smiling grimly, Richard gave chase. Deb was crouched low in the saddle and cut a flying figure in her red riding dress as she lay almost flat against the horse’s neck. She had the advantage of knowing the ground better than he; she did not hesitate as the mare thundered over the grassy turf towards the water. The wind snatched her riding hat from her head so that her hair tumbled about her shoulders and streamed behind her like a Valkyrie’s.

Richard was gaining on her now and, no matter how she wheeled and turned, closed the gap between them, forcing her towards a small copse of trees at the edge of the river. Finally, when she could see that there was no way to escape him, she drew rein and led the horse at a docile walk under the canopy of leaves.

Richard watched her closely. He would not put it past her to try and trick him now and slip past him out of the woods. She looked frustrated and defiant, her breast heaving with exertion under the constraint of the tight red jacket.

‘What a streak of wildness you have in you, Mrs Stratton,’ Richard said slowly. ‘I have always surmised that you possess the desire to kick aside the rules of society and be free.’ He turned his horse so that they were facing one another, bringing the hunter alongside until his knee brushed hers. She did not move away, but rather sat frozen in the saddle, her blue eyes wide and fixed on him.

‘You did not ask what the penalty would be if you lost the wager,’ Richard added gently.

He took one gloved hand from the reins and slid it behind her head, into the tangle of her windswept hair, drawing her closer to him. The horses pressed together, crushing his leg between their heated bodies. It was a damnably uncomfortable way to kiss a lady, but it was worth every moment to him, for he had been wanting to kiss Deb Stratton for a very long time indeed. Her lips were soft and cool, and she tasted of fresh air and faintly of honey, and there was some other less definable taste that was Deborah herself, and it went straight to his head-and to other parts of him that responded instantaneously. He first closed his teeth about her voluptuous bottom lip, then released it and slid his tongue into her mouth, courting a response until she kissed him back, hesitantly at first and then with growing passion. The touch and the taste of her fused in his mind with the bright sunlight and the chill of the breeze, and desire flooded through him until he was within an inch of pulling her from the horse and making love to her there on the bed of leaves beneath the trees.

He gathered her more closely against him, sliding his hands gently down her back, alive to every curve and line of her body beneath the enticingly trim riding habit. He had never ached so much for a woman before, nor lost touch with all reality other than that which he held in his arms. But Deb was soft and vibrant, and when she leaned closer to him and with a little sigh matched the stroke of his tongue with her own, he was powerless to resist.

The horses shifted and pulled them apart, and Richard reluctantly let Deborah go. He moved back, his eyes on her face. She looked completely bemused for a second, dazed and dazzled, and he felt a violent satisfaction to have so thoroughly undermined her defences. Then her expression warmed into anger.

‘I knew you were a rake!’ she said furiously.

‘I am so pleased to have been able to prove you correct,’ Richard replied.

Deborah made a noise of disgust. ‘I could have outrun you had I been riding astride.’

‘Now that,’ Richard said with appreciation, ‘I should have liked to see.’

Deborah made another squawk like an infuriated hen and set the horse to walk along the path out of the wood. It was a narrow track and Richard let her go first. Last autumn’s bracken mingled with the pine needles underfoot and the horses’ hooves made a crunching sound on the undergrowth. Deborah was holding herself upright, ramrod straight. There was indignation in every line of her figure. It made Richard want to laugh. He was willing to bet that half her annoyance stemmed from the fact that she had not been able to help responding to him. And what a response. It scorched him to remember it.

‘You did kiss me back,’ he pointed out mildly.

That gained him a stormy look from those deep blue eyes. ‘I have no recollection of it.’

‘You have a short memory, then. Come here and allow me to remind you.’

Deb quickened her horse’s pace to a trot and burst out of the shade and into the open field again. ‘Is my penalty for losing the wager also to find that I cannot lose your company, Lord Richard?’ she demanded.

Richard smiled. ‘I feel that I should escort you home, Mrs Stratton. One may come across all kinds of rogues if one has the folly to ride out without a groom in attendance.’

Deborah raised her whip and tapped it thoughtfully against the palm of her hand. ‘Perhaps I could deal with them.’

‘I thought that I had already demonstrated that you could not?’

Richard watched in amusement as Deborah’s fist clenched more tightly about the handle of the whip. The leather of her gloves strained across her knuckles. Her intentions were all too clear.

‘I find my need for solitude to be quite overwhelming now, Lord Richard,’ she said coldly. ‘Sufficient to defend it with violence, even.’

Richard laughed. ‘You have no need to go so far, Mrs Stratton. I can take a hint as well as the next man.’

He thought that she almost smiled then, despite herself. ‘All evidence to the contrary, Lord Richard,’ she said. ‘I have always thought you remarkably slow to understand.’

Richard quietened Merlin, who had picked up the tension in the air and was sidestepping nervously.

‘Perhaps you are underestimating me?’ he said softly.

‘I doubt it,’ Deb snapped. ‘My estimation of you has always been that you are a thorough-going rake, and I have seen nothing to contradict that.’

‘I cannot fault your assessment of me,’ Richard said. ‘All that I question is your own response. You are not as indifferent to me as you pretend.’

He saw the colour come into Deborah’s cheeks then and thought it a mixture of indignation and guilt. She did not wish to admit her attraction to him, but because she was of so honest a disposition she was having difficulty with lies and half-truths.

‘You are mistaken,’ she said.

‘I do not think so.’

‘You are conceited.’

‘Possibly. That still does not prove that you dislike me.’

‘I dislike you intensely.’

‘And that does not prove that you are not attracted to me.’ Richard threw up a hand. ‘Come, Mrs Stratton-Deborah-admit the truth.’

‘I did not give you the right to address me by name, my lord,’ Deborah snapped.

‘No, you just gave me a passionate kiss in the woods. I concede that one does not need to be on first-name terms to do such a thing. Indeed, you could make love to me and never need to call me by my name-’

He saw the flash of fury in her eyes, but he did not flinch as the whip came down. It hit the mare’s flank rather than his face, and the creature took off across the fields as though it had the fires of hell snapping at its heels.

This time Richard let Deborah go, watching with admiration as she leaned from the saddle to retrieve her hat from the grass without even slowing the horse’s stride. With a whimsical smile on his face, he turned Merlin in the opposite direction and cantered back towards Kestrel Court along the track that ran beside the edge of the river, the Winter Race. The path was soft and sandy beneath Merlin’s hooves and the horse settled to a tidy pace leaving Richard at liberty to think about Deborah Stratton. He had forced himself to self-control when dealing with her, but she had brought out every primitive and masculine instinct within him. It was damnably difficult to behave like a gentleman when all he wanted to do was carry her off.