Kasey Michaels - How to Tame a Lady

“What sort of fun were you looking for when you came to London?” he asked her at last, after sorting through and discarding other openings, all of which, he felt sure, would leave him hanging over a yawning pit.

Again, she shrugged, but her silence didn’t last long. “All sorts of adventures, I suppose. Everything new and different and…and exciting. I’ve been stuck in the country for all of my life. For instance, I’ve never driven a curricle, let alone been driven in one.”

“Indeed. And you think I should teach you how to drive a curricle?”

She turned to him in obvious excitement. “I’ve driven Rafe’s coach, at Ashurst Hall.”

“Lady Nicole,” Lucas said in all seriousness, “if I’m to assist you in regaining the fun you believe I’ve somehow taken from you, you are to kindly leave off trying to confound me with obvious crammers like that one. Are we clear?”

Her smile nearly knocked him off his seat. “John Coachman let me sit up on the box, and taught me how to hold the ribbons. And I tied some old reins to a chair in my bedchamber, and practiced for months, until I was certain I’d got it right. It’s almost the same.”

“As chalk is to cheese, yes. Here, let me see what your coachman taught you.”

So saying, and with only a quick silent prayer that she had at least told a partial truth, he handed over the reins, and then watched as she expertly took them between her fingers.

His prized pair of matched bays sensed the difference at once, and Jupiter, the left lead, immediately tested the new driver by picking up his pace.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Nicole said, drawing Jupiter back in effortlessly. “You don’t employ the whip, do you?” she asked, glancing over at the long whip that stood in a holder to Lucas’s right.

“Rarely.” He then asked her if she wished to try the whip, but she shook her head, concentrating on the roadway. “We’re coming to a sharp bend to the left. Are you still game?”

“If you are,” Nicole said, her delight obvious. “Behind us, Lydia is probably having a small comeapart, you know.”

“Which will leave her in real peril if Fletcher topples off the seat in a dead faint,” Lucas remarked, his good humor running full force. “Ah, very nicely done, Lady Nicole. Although I must say that your off wheel came dangerously close to the verge.”

“It did? I’ll have to work on that. Do many ladies of the ton drive their own curricles?”

“A few, yes. None of them, sadly, debutantes.”

“Good. Then I’ll be the first,” she said as he pointed to a wide grassy area and indicated that she should pull the horses off and stop.

Lucas applied the brake as Fletcher’s curricle pulled up beside them. “Let me guess. You want me to tell your brother that you should have your own curricle.”

She frowned for a moment—delightful!—and then the dimple appeared in her cheek. “I hadn’t considered that. Would you do that for me?”

“Not if you held a cocked pistol to my head and had already counted to two,” he answered cheerfully. “But, if you consent to drive out with me again, I will allow you to drive my curricle. In the parks, that is. London streets are an entirely different matter.”

“Lucas?” Fletcher called out to him. “Did I mistake my eyes, or was Lady Nicole holding the reins a moment ago? Her brother would have your neck if, well, if she broke hers.”

“Yes, thank you, Fletcher,” Lucas told him, and then asked if anyone would like to stop for some refreshment at a small inn they’d passed, one just off the crossroads a mile closer to London.

Everyone agreed this would be a fine thing, and Lucas turned the team on the soft grass, aware that Nicole was watching his every move, probably committing each maneuver to memory. Clearly she was very serious about her fun.

“Thank you,” she said as they rode back the way they’d come. “Now if you could see your way clear to locate a place where I might put my Juliet to a good gallop I would most appreciate it. I imagine she is sulking most prodigiously, as I haven’t been able to exercise her thanks to this dreadful weather. And I have the most extraordinary riding habit meant to turn heads wherever I go.”

“Really? Is that to warn me or to be sure I am suitably complimentary when I see it?”

“My lord?” she asked, instead of answering him. “Do you mind that I’m being so honest with you? Honesty is rare for me, so I may not be doing it right.”

“Lady Nicole, I would be willing to wager that there is very little that you don’t do right. You’re most especially proficient in throwing a man who considers himself rather unshakable entirely out of balance.”

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip between her teeth for an instant, and then nodded her head. “Good. That seems only fair.”

Lucas laughed out loud as they pulled into the small inn yard. “Then we’re even?” he asked her. “Leaving us only to ask ourselves what happens next between us.”

Nicole shot a quick look past him, to where her sister was being helped down from the curricle by the viscount.

“I think we should be friends, don’t you? I think it would be…it would be safer if we were to think of each other as a friend.”

“For how long?” Lucas asked before he could stop to think, because he certainly wouldn’t have said the words if he could think of anything save how much he wanted to kiss Nicole’s full, enticing mouth.

“Why, um, I suppose until we don’t wish to be friends anymore? Really, this has been the strangest conversation. I may be raw from the country, my lord, but I think you really should know better. And I’m starved. Do you think there will be ham? I adore ham.”

Somehow, Lucas restrained himself from saying, “And I fear I am beginning to adore you.”

THE INN BOASTED ONLY the single private dining room the marquess promptly engaged while Nicole and Lydia were shown to a small bedchamber beneath the eaves, where they could wash and refresh themselves.

Lydia was still stripping off her gloves as Nicole, her bonnet tossed onto the bed, was standing bent over the washbasin, splashing cold water onto her burning cheeks.

“How did you manage to convince his lordship to allow you to take the reins?” Lydia asked her as she untied the ribbons on her own bonnet. “And, more to the point, do I want to know?”

Nicole rubbed at her face with the rough towel and then smiled at her sister. “Probably not. It was wonderful, Lydia, except that I knew he’d take them away again if I gave the horses their heads, which I truly longed to do. They’re a fine pair, not all highbacked and showy like the viscount’s team.”

“I hadn’t noticed any deficiencies in the viscount’s horseflesh. We had another lovely talk, by the way. He has a gaggle of younger sisters and a widowed mother, which is why he could not risk himself in the late war, although he feels terrible that he stayed home when so many others risked life and limb for the Crown. So I told him a little about our late uncle and cousins, and how none of them went to war, but ended by perishing anyway. We agreed that safety is a matter of opinion, and that rash actions can lead to unfortunate consequences as easily as facing an acknowledged enemy.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m so sorry I missed that,” she said, turning away as she refolded the towel, to hide her amusement. “On the way back to Grosvenor Square you might wish to pass the time conjugating French verbs, which I’m sure would be equally delighting. But, please, while we’re at luncheon, do try to find a lighter topic.”

“But…but the viscount seemed entertained. What did you and the marquess discuss, then, if you’re so much the expert?”