Mary Balogh - Slightly Scandalous

"Bath is divine," Miss Fanny Darwin declared when her group came up with Joshua's and they had all stopped, "and there are so many exciting things to do all the time. Would you not agree, Lord Willett?"

"Certainly, Miss Darwin," the earl said. "Bath offers a pleasing combination of outdoor exercise and indoor entertainment. All to be enjoyed in the congenial company of one's peers."

"We took the carriage to Sydney Gardens yesterday afternoon and strolled there for all of an hour," Miss Hester Darwin said. "It was wonderful exercise in delightfully picturesque surroundings. Have you seen the park, Lady Freyja?"

Her brother cleared his throat, her cousin, Sir Leonard Eston, picked an invisible speck of lint from one of his sleeves, her sister flushed scarlet, and Miss Hester Darwin clapped a hand to her mouth too late as everyone remembered what had resulted from Lady Freyja's solitary foray into Sydney Gardens.

Joshua grinned. "I do believe Lady Freyja has, Miss Darwin," he said. "So have I."

"Exercise!" Lady Freyja exclaimed. "People come to Bath for their health, and for the sake of their health they stroll in the Pump Room and they stroll on the Crescent and they stroll in the park. It is a word that should be struck from the English language-strolling. If I do not walk somewhere soon, or-better yet-ride somewhere where there is space to move, I may well end up in a Bath chair, being wheeled from place to place and sipping on Bath water."

Her audience chose to react to her words as if she had uttered something enormously witty. The gentlemen laughed; the ladies tittered.

"You must certainly be rescued from the Bath water," Joshua said. "Come riding with me tomorrow, Lady Freyja. We will seek out the hills and the open spaces beyond the confines of the city."

"It sounds like heaven," she said, looking at him with approval for perhaps the first time. "I will gladly come."

"But not alone, Lady Freyja," Willett said hastily. "It would be somewhat scandalous, I fear. Perhaps we can make up a riding party. I would certainly join it. Would you, Miss Holt-Barron?"

"Oh, I would too," Miss Fanny Darwin cried. "I enjoy nothing better than a ride, provided the pace is not too fast or the distance too far. Gerald, you must come too, and you, Leonard, and then Mama can have no objection to allowing Hester and me to join the party."

Joshua's glance locked with Lady Freyja's. He could sense the grimace she kept from her face. He grinned at her and winked.

He was pleased to see her nostrils flare with indignation.

Perhaps, he thought hopefully, tomorrow would be more amusing than the past few days had been.

CHAPTER V

Neither Freyja nor Charlotte had her own horse with her in Bath, but they were able to hire some for the day. Freyja sent back the first horse that was brought around to the house with the message that she had been riding since she was in leading strings and had never felt any inclination to bounce along on a tired old hack that looked to be lame in all four legs. The second mount met with her approval even though Lady Holt-Barron thought it high-spirited enough to need a man's firm hand on the reins and begged Freyja to ride very carefully.

"Whatever would I say to the duke, Lady Freyja," she asked rhetorically, "if you were carried home with a broken neck?"

Freyja and Charlotte rode side by side down steep Gay Street in the direction of the Abbey, outside which they had agreed to meet the other six members of the riding party. It was a glorious day, warm enough for summer but with more freshness in the air.

"If we have to amble along once we have left Bath behind at the horse equivalent of a stroll, Charlotte," Freyja said, "I shall have a tantrum. Will the Misses Darwin be so mean-spirited?"

"I fear they will," Charlotte said with a chuckle. "We are not all neck-or-nothing riders like you, Freyja. Will the Earl of Willett find some time alone with you today, do you suppose? He has been very determined during the past few days. He must be very close to making a declaration."

"Oh, dear," Freyja said. She had encouraged him rather, simply because she had wanted to discourage the Marquess of Hallmere, who had been deliberately amusing himself at her expense and who seemed to know exactly how to make her forget herself in public. Doubtless it was all very amusing to a man who had probably never entertained a serious thought in his life. Unfortunately, the Earl of Willett did not need much encouraging. "I do hope he can be saved from that embarrassment."

"You would not accept him, then?" Charlotte asked.

She should, Freyja thought. He was an earl with a grand estate in Norfolkshire and a fortune rumored to be very large indeed-not to mention his prospects of doubling it after the demise of his uncle. He was amiable if a little starchy in manner. He would meet with Wulfric's approval. She should marry him and be done with it. But the memory of the sort of passion she had known with Kit Butler for one brief summer four years ago came to mind unbidden. And then her eyes alighted upon the gorgeously handsome figure of the Marquess of Hallmere as they approached the appointed meeting place. And she knew that she wanted more out of life than merely making do with a marriage that promised respectability and good fortune.

He was riding a splendidly powerful and sleek black mount-the marquess, that was. Freyja was instantly envious. His long legs, encased in buff riding breeches and black top boots, showed to best advantage when he was on horseback. So did the rest of him. He might be a frivolous, licentious man, and she seemed to do nothing but bristle with hostility whenever she was near him, but at least he was alive and made her feel alive. And she was enormously grateful to him for suggesting this ride, though she hoped it was to be more than a mere sedate crawl over the countryside.

"I think not," she said in answer to Charlotte's question. "I shall try diligently to avoid riding at his side. It would quite ruin my day-and his too, I daresay-if he were to blurt out the question today."

But the Earl of Willett was not to be so easily deterred. Once encouraged-and she had encouraged him-he had become bold in his pursuit of her. While the marquess rode with the Misses Darwin on either side of him, their trilling laughter grating on Freyja's ears, and Charlotte rode between Mr. Darwin and Sir Leonard Eston, the earl led off the party with Freyja. They moved sedately through the streets of Bath and up the hill beyond it, taking the London road.

"We will not put our horses through their paces on this steep gradient," the earl informed Freyja, "or indeed when we reach level land. I am ever mindful of the fact that there are four ladies in the party and that you ride sidesaddle. I admire you immensely for your grace and skill in doing so, but I will be diligent in my efforts not to put you in any unnecessary danger."

Freyja leveled an appalled glance at him but said nothing. They were, after all, on a rather steep hill at the moment.

They all stopped when they reached the top to admire the view back down to the elegant, gleaming white buildings of Bath.

"This is what I most look forward to every time we come here," Miss Fanny Darwin said with a contented sigh. "This first sight of the city. All the white buildings are quite dazzling on the eye when the sun shines, as it does today. Are we to ride much farther, Lord Willett?"

Freyja looked sharply at her.

"There is a village not far off along the road," the earl said. "I would suggest that we ride there at a leisurely pace, drink some tea or lemonade at the inn, and ride back again. I will not suggest that we leave the road. There are always rabbit holes and uneven ground in the fields as a trap to the unwary."

It was still morning, Freyja thought. Was he intending, then, to be back in Bath for the regular activities of the afternoon? And since when had this become his outing?