A Prince Among Men by Kate Moore

Author:Kate Moore [Moore, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Regency, Masquerade, Prince
Published: 1997-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Shadow's soft whicker always heralded Ophelia's approach. Alexander looked up from his book, thinking that in the last couple of hours he might have rewritten the laws of Trevigna or proved Fermat's last theorem, if he hadn't spent them thinking of Ophelia and reading the same sentence a few thousand times.

She appeared at the stable door and halted, stiff and distant, her gaze meeting his and sliding away.

He went to her, intending to draw her to the bench, but stopped short of touching her. "Sit."

She obeyed without a word. The care she'd taken to avoid even the most fleeting and impersonal touches had put him on edge.

He busied himself with the horses. Her name had frozen on his tongue, and he feared she would not come back tomorrow, feared this aloof Ophelia.

She was embarrassed, and that was unlike her. He knew instinctively that it was the reason she wouldn't look at him or talk to him. All his imagined conversations, kisses, and touches seemed absurd. With foolish, contrary intentions, he wanted her haughty and he wanted her to kiss him. He finished saddling the horses.

Without a word she came to Shadow's side and stroked the mare's neck gently. They were alone for now, but another groom could walk in at any moment.

He came up behind her. He had to say her name. "Ophelia, look at me."

She shook her head.

He edged around her and rubbed Shadow's nose, more for his comfort than the mare's. "Let me speak, then."

No reply. She leaned her forehead against the horse.

"If one of us must be embarrassed for our last meeting, let it be me."

She turned her head slightly and checked. He felt his pulse trip in answer to that small concession.

"Ladies who dally in amorous encounters with their servants have the worst of all bad names." Her voice was toneless, as if she were reciting a rule conned by rote.

She was right, of course; it was one of society's most unforgiving rules. Married women were permitted discreet amores with men of the same rank, but by society's rules she had sinned on two counts when she had let him kiss her. He'd not thought she could be hurt in this way. She was a rule-breaker, but for some reason she was ashamed of their minor transgression. The game of subverting her authority over him and testing her egalitarian principles had taken an unexpected turn. Because she believed him a groom, she would play by rules of the old world of money and title, not the dream world of the new Trevigna he hoped to build.

But she was wrong to blame herself for what happened. That, he could do something about.

"I started things. You stopped them."

"Not soon enough." Her voice was shaky.

"Painfully soon," he said quietly.

She looked over her shoulder at that, the brown eyes, usually so shrewd, now wrenchingly vulnerable. He gripped the strap of Shadow's bridle, tangling his hands in the leather. The steel bit jingled. "Do you think it was your weakness in the garden? It was mine.

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