Anne O'Brien - The Outrageous Debutante

Since the galloping animal kept up its headlong flight, Nicholas was forced to extend to head it off. His mare responded readily. The grey became aware of his approach, her ears twitching, even if her rider did not appear to react. She veered as he drew abreast but did not check her stride. If anything, she increased her momentum.

For what seemed like minutes—but was more likely seconds only—the two horses galloped side by side, the enforced rivalry adding an edge to the grey’s speed, until Nicholas moved close enough that he could lean across the gap between them and grasp the bridle just above the bit, trusting his own animal to remain on course. She did, allowing him to tighten his muscles in arm, shoulder and thigh, grimacing at the strain as he drew both horses to a more seemly speed and finally to a trembling halt, their sides heaving with effort, nostrils wide, eyes rolling. At the same time he grasped the wrist of the rider in a firm hold, in case the grey jinked in sudden panic.

‘You are quite safe. You are in no danger now.’

Nicholas’s breathing was a little unsteady as he continued to control the reins of both horses. He looked down at the rider—a young boy, he thought, at closer inspection—to see if his reassurances were necessary, only to be struck by a pair of furious blue eyes turned on him, blazing with … what? Anger? Shock? But also more than a hint of fear.

‘You are quite safe,’ he repeated. Of course, the rider would be unnerved after such an uncontrolled bolt across the Park.

Before he could say or do more, the boy raised a riding crop and brought it down in a deliberate and painful blow across Nicholas’s hand where he still had hold of the rider’s wrist. Nicholas flinched, hissed, took a sharp intake of breath, perhaps more in amazement than pain, as a red welt appeared across the width of his fingers.

‘What the devil …!’

‘How dare you! Take your hands off me!’ The rider pushed back the scarf—and Nicholas looked down into the face of a woman.

‘How dare you interfere!’ Her blue eyes were dark, almost black with emotion.

‘I thought, madam, that your horse was out of control.’ It was difficult to know what other to say. The last thing Nicholas had expected was to be under attack for his gallant, and supremely successful, attempt to rescue a damsel in distress. The absurdity of the situation might have amused him. It might if the blow on his hand was not so searingly painful!

‘No, I was not out of control.’ There was now the hint of a tremble in the angry voice. ‘You had no right.’ He watched as a range of emotions flitted across her face. Uppermost it seemed to him was a determination to regain control of a fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

He discovered that he was still grasping her wrist.

‘I said, let go!’

Their eyes met and held for a long moment which seemed to stretch on and on. They remained frozen in the little tableau as the air positively sizzled between them, around them, as when lightning strikes in a summer storm—rapid, without warning, and possibly devastating. Nicholas was the first to break the contact.

‘Forgive me.’ He released her, cold now, all humour banished under the lash of her words and the shock of his reaction to her. ‘I thought you were in distress.’

‘No, I was not.’

‘My mistake.’ Reserve infiltrated his voice, but he still watched her carefully. There was some problem here of which he was unaware. ‘Next time I will allow you to fall and break your neck.’

‘Do so. There will not be a next time. I do not need your help. How dare you put your hands on a lady in this manner!’

Any latent sympathy Nicholas might have felt promptly vanished. ‘You must excuse my concern, madam.’ He looked her over from head to foot, taking in the whole of her appearance. ‘I did not realise. I would not expect to see a lady galloping in Hyde Park. Please accept my apologies.’ The emphasis in his words was unmistakable and made Thea flush, angrier than ever.

‘Let go of my reins.’

He did with alacrity and reined his own animal away from her. In that one moment he thought, although perhaps he was mistaken, that there was a hint of tears in those eyes, which still snapped with temper.

The lady, if such she was, gathered up her own reins, kicked the still lively grey into action and set off in a canter towards the distant gate without a backward look.

Leaving Nicholas to sit and stare after her.

Thea arrived home, delivered The Zephyr into the hands of a sleepy groom who gazed at her in wordless astonishment, fled to her room and locked the door. There she stripped off her incriminating garments, folded them back into the chest and tied a ruffled, feminine muslin wrapper around her. Then, as the furious energy drained away, she sank on to the bed and covered her face with her hands.

What had she done? Not the gallop in the park. She could never regret that. How the grey had flown, fast as a desert hawk towards its prey. But she had struck him. The man who had come to her rescue. However unnecessary it might have been, he had thought she had been in danger and had ridden to her rescue. And what had she done? She had marked him with her riding whip. And then she had been so rude. Unforgivably so. She could not remember her exact words, uttered in the heat and confusion of the moment, but knew that they had been ungracious. Vicious, even. What would he think of her? How could she have allowed herself to do that?

But she knew why. And whatever the extenuating circumstances, she blamed herself totally.

She relived the events in her mind as she curled on to the bed in that sunny room. She had been unaware of his approach, so lost in the unity of horse and rider, in the glorious speed. But then, in that moment when his horse had stretched beside hers, when he had leaned and grasped her reins, his strong hands forcing her to come to a halt, the past had rushed back with all its pain and fear. She had thought it was forgotten, or mostly so, pushed away, buried deep within her subconscious, only to emerge with infrequent intensity when nightmares troubled her sleep.

She had been very young, hardly more than a child. On one of their journeys they had been beset by robbers in spite of the size and strength of their entourage. Forced to halt, to dismount, to stand and watch as her mother’s jewellery was stripped from her, as her father was threatened at the point of a knife. The fear had been intense. They had been allowed to go free at the end, but the terror of that moment when they were held captive and in fear for their lives had not quite gone away.

Thea shook her head, scrubbed her hands over her face as if to dislodge the thoughts. She should not be so fearful now—but she had been only a little girl, after all. And her arm had been broken when she had been pulled from her horse. She rubbed her forearm as if the pain, inflicted so long ago, still lingered, as the image still lingered in her mind.

So when he had forced her to halt, had grasped her wrist in such a strong hold, the memory of the robbers, of being constrained and hurt and frightened, had rushed back and she had struck out blindly. At an innocent victim.

And he had reacted with disgust at her bad manners, her lack of gratitude. Her face flushed again with humiliation as she remembered the look of astonishment on his face. And what a face. Strikingly handsome. Heart-stoppingly so. But how he had looked down that high-bred nose at her, with such chilling hauteur. Eyes as glacial as chips of ice. Lips thinned in distaste—and probably pain, she was forced to admit. And she remembered his voice. Warm, reassuring at first when he had thought to comfort her, then cold and flat when she had actually accused him of trying to harm her.