Kasey Michaels - The Dangerous Debutante

Jacob held up one finger as if to lend emphasis to whatever he planned to say in response, but he didn’t say anything, as his brain had begun to cramp halfway through the earl’s statement. He simply stared…not at the earl, but past him, to Morgan. He looked positively petrified, which he was, because Morgan was staring at him as if he should be counting the remainder of his life in minutes. “Um…”

Ethan leaned closer, deliberately placing himself between the nervous groom and his view of his glowering mistress. “Women can be so headstrong, can’t they, Jacob? Leaving us men to either be brutes, or give in, hoping for the best. And, of course, then praying that the lady in question does not toss her reputation to the four winds with a single, unintentional mistake brought on by pure female bullheadedness. And all of it inevitably to end with some poor, well-intentioned fool forced to take the blame. In this case, my friend, that poor, well-intentioned fool taking the blame? Well, I’m very much afraid that would be you.”

Jacob frowned in confusion. “You say you know Mr. Chance Becket. But it sounds like you know Miss Morgan, too.”

Ah, a name. Jacob was proving quite helpful.

“We’re men, Jacob, you and I,” Ethan said, winking conspiratorially, purposely placing himself on the same side with the groom, the side that needed to find a way to make the contrary Miss Morgan Becket behave. “We all know women. We just don’t understand them, which, rather happily, accounts for much of their charm. Now, you help Miss Becket mount, and then order the coachman to follow us to Tanner’s Roost, where I will change into something more suited to town wear, and provide one of my maids to accompany Miss Becket to her brother. He still lives in—damn, I’ve quite forgotten his direction.”

“Upper Brook Street, my lord. Just on the right, three doors off Park Lane and Hyde Park. That’s what they told me. Told me his number, too, but I’m not so good with numbers. Three doors off Park Lane, on the right,” Jacob repeated helpfully, already more relaxed. Or at least he was, until Morgan Becket approached, her fists jammed on her hips.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” she asked, not caring that the lordship was a lordship and the groom was her good friend. Not caring about anything save that she had been summarily dismissed by both of them. Even Alejandro had ambled off to a nearby water trough. “Jacob—I want to mount Berengaria.”

Unspoken were the words, And if you don’t help me I’ll do it myself, damn your eyes, you traitor.

Ethan bowed to her. “I’ll be more than happy to assist you, Miss Becket, while Jacob attends to other matters. Jacob and I, and we do apologize for keeping a lady standing out here in the sun, have just been debating how best to handle the logistics of the thing.”

“What thing? There is no thing, my lord. And I don’t care a fig about standing in the sun. Now go away.”

Jacob made a short, strangled sound, handed Berengaria’s reins to Ethan, then hastily trotted off, to climb up on the traveling carriage.

Morgan, sudden confusion mixing with her anger, watched him go. “What does he think he’s doing?”

“He’s behaving with good common sense,” Ethan told her, taking her by the elbow and leading both her and the mare to the mounting block beside the stable yard fence. “Now come along. We’re a good two miles from Tanner’s Roost.”

“Tanner’s—what’s that?” Morgan asked, digging in her heels. “What did you say to Jacob?”

“Nothing I should have liked to have said,” Ethan told her, leading her forward once more, not terribly delighted in her reluctance, yet happy to know she wasn’t featherwitted enough to easily go off with just anybody.

After all, she had only his word that he was an earl. He could be an out-and-out rotter. In fact, there were many among his wide acquaintance who might consider him so. “If he’s the one who agreed to send your maid packing, I should have torn a strip off his hide, in fact.”

“You, my lord, have no right to say or do anything where I am concerned.”

“Oh, how wrong you are, Miss Becket. It would be my good friend Chance tearing a strip off my hide, if I were to wave you merrily on your way as you go riding off to be murdered—or worse.”

Well, that stopped her. At last.

“You know Chance?”

The lies unrolled like silk from Ethan’s tongue, even as he marveled that she had gone slightly pale at the mention of her brother’s name, and not the broad hint of murder, or worse. “Yes, of course. I didn’t make the connection at first. Becket. Chance Becket. Resides in Upper Brook Street, only a few steps from the Park. Good man.”

“Oh.” Morgan considered this as she accepted his assistance when she put her foot on the mounting block. “All right. You know my brother, so I suppose I should be gracious if I don’t want to have him bring his wrath down on me, which would be stultifyingly boring, to tell you the truth. Now, what about this Tanner’s Roost? It sounds like a thieves’ den.”

Ethan smiled as he watched Morgan mount the mare. “An interesting observation, Miss Becket, and so eminently gracious. I must remember that, next time my mother tells me how much she admires the name.”

THEY HADN’T GONE a half mile before the thrill of being on Berengaria’s back, even on a sidesaddle, had faded enough for Morgan to wonder what on earth was wrong with her.

What had caused her to so easily agree to ride off willy-nilly with this man she did not know, to go to a place she did not know, to do—well, nothing was going to happen. The man was an earl, for pity’s sake.

Or at least he had said so, then had convinced Jacob to trust him. Which wasn’t much of an endorsement, for Jacob trusted her, too.

At least they were still on the main road, or what she believed to be the main road.

When she got straight down to it, she didn’t know much of anything. Except that Chance was probably going to ring a peal over her head that her papa would hear all the way back in Romney Marsh.

No longer able to enjoy her view of the countryside or the fresh, sweet smell of the country air, Morgan slid her gaze toward the earl—if he really was an earl.

He sat Alejandro as if born to the saddle, controlling the stallion simply by being in that saddle, moving effortlessly, as if the two had become one, man and horse looking so stunningly complete together.

Morgan felt heat running into her cheeks as another thought struck her. Alejandro and Berengaria also looked good together, the bright and the dark.

But not as good as she and Ethan Tanner would fit together. Her dark to his light. He, so very English. She, so very Spanish, at least the parts of her she’d taken from her mother. Her true father could have been English, for her skin was lighter than Spencer’s, at least. But her sire could also have been Austrian, or Russian, or any one of the mongrels that had relieved himself of his seed inside her two-penny-a-poke mother.

No. She wouldn’t think of that. She was Morgan Becket, of Becket Hall. Ainsley Becket was her father. She was who she believed herself to be, and now that she was grown she would become what she wanted to become. A person in her own right, free of the past.

And what did any of this matter now? She had to keep her concentration on the moment, and this moment seemed terribly important.

“How do I know you’re really the earl of wherever you said you’re the earl of?” she heard herself ask, her lips moving before her brain could even hope to catch up, let alone shove a gag in her mouth.

Ethan, who had been amusing himself imagining Morgan Becket’s reaction to meeting his mother—he could learn a lot about her when he saw that reaction—found her question highly amusing.