A Prince Among Men Read Online Free Page A

do what his mistress commands?"
    "Foolish commands do no credit to either, Miss."
    Ophelia studied him. There it was again, the too precise speech of his other voice. "You don't speak like a servant."
    The blue gaze slid away from hers. "My father was an educated man."
    "Then you needn't put on an accent for me." She didn't mean to sound irked.
    "Yes, miss." The blue eyes were amused.
    "You think me quite spoiled, don't you?"
    "I heard you were good to your horse," he said, dropping the accent so completely, she blinked.
    "I am."
    His stare challenged her.
    "Only …" She smiled. "When my groom is a proper servant." She didn't wait for his assistance but slid from the saddle and strode down to the water's edge.
    Once the girl strode off, Alexander could think. He had misinterpreted what little talk there'd been in the stable about the duke's daughter. Clagg had told him his duty was to accompany the young lady and keep their ride to the park. He remembered Clagg's words. "She has a good seat and never abuses her animal." He had added, with a shrug, "She's spoiled some." It was Alexander, who'd interpreted these remarks to mean he would be escorting a rebellious hoyden of twelve or thirteen. Her habit of riding at sunrise had also suggested a young person, not a lady of fashion who could go from the opera to a ball to a midnight supper in an evening.
    The truth was something else. The girl was probably twenty, and though she wasn't a beauty in the common way, the size and brilliance of her dark eyes had already interfered with the measured beat of his pulse.
    He hadn't fooled her, exactly. Her eyes were shrewd and clever rather than sweet, and she'd seen through his accent quick enough. He figured she didn't have enough information to unmask him. And she'd been preoccupied with trying to shake his company. Her grip on the riding crop was firm, and he suspected she had little experience in having her will crossed. He didn't know where his own boldness had come from, but challenging her had seemed instinctive.
    She stood at the water's edge, looking down, idly stirring the reeds with her riding crop. Her riding habit was the blue of deep ocean when you were nowhere near home. The jacket nipped in at the waist and buttoned up to the lace at her chin, and the slimness of that waist made her vulnerable somehow, in spite of her haughty manner. But he shouldn't be thinking that. He was the lady's groom and he wasn't going to get himself sacked, as his predecessor had been.
    The job had given him the perfect hiding place. A week before, he'd been running like a fox from his particular hounds and found this stable a handy covert. He wouldn't be flushed out of it because the duke's daughter was confined to the park.
    Of all the pleasures of his former life, he'd missed horses most in the weeks he'd spent at his desk in the room above the tailor's shop. Then, when his plans seemed to come to nothing and his choices disappeared, he'd wandered the long rows of stables behind the great houses of the West End. There he'd come across Raj, blindfolded and held down by four grooms, idiots with neither sense nor kindness. Enraged at the indignity of the stallion's treatment, Alexander had interfered. His success with Raj earned him a job offer on the spot, and in a moment of madness he'd taken it.
    Since then, he'd been talking to the stallion, stroking him, teaching the skittish horse the sound of his voice and feel of his hand. Raj didn't like the city, and he didn't like the clatter of wheels, the surprise of traffic coming from every direction at once. It was plain that the tendermouthed, high-strung stallion had been abused.
    Raj he understood; the girl was a puzzle. Spoiled, yes, but something more. When she'd not been looking, he'd caught a glimpse of a face bleak with disappointment. It was not the look of a spoiled child denied her way. He stole another glance at her.
    Ophelia welcomed the coolness of the morning mist against her heated