A Prince Among Men Read Online Free Page B

face. Her pulse drummed in her ears. She hardly understood herself this morning. It was true that patience was not her strongest suit, but she'd lost control of a perfectly simple situation. Alexander had made her incautious and had muddled her mind so that she'd hardly been able to come up with a single strategy for getting free. She gazed across the water through the trees. In the distance, riders cantered along the Row; and further south, carriages moved along the Kensington Road, where she'd be if William were still her groom.
    Just a few miles beyond the park, her friend Hetty would be sitting down to good coffee and hot biscuits. In Hetty's morning room, Ophelia had a remarkable degree of freedom. Society expected one to choose friends for their titles or wealth or fashionableness. Society expected one to keep a mask in place everywhere, a brittle, polished shell of indifference, but at Hetty's, Ophelia could laugh or frown or say what she pleased.
    Eventually, her senses calmed and she could hear the bird calls from the reeds. She could prolong her ride perhaps an hour more, but when it was over, she'd be stuck at home for the day, where she could predict the remarks of every one of her mother's callers. Where all the talk would be of slights and miseries, hem lengths and trim, scandals and suitors. Where ideas were like boxes instead of like doors.
    Ophelia looked up to find her new groom watching her. He stood by the horses, keeping them company, his shoulder against the stallion's. She wondered if all his sympathies were reserved for horses or whether she could just tell him how she depended on Hetty. Would he listen and say, "Of course, miss, no harm in that, let's go"? She dismissed the fantasy. Servants were often as snobby as their employers. Most would not want a duke's daughter to have friends among tradesmen.
    She trudged up the slope to the horses. Somehow she had to get the man on her side. "Shall we ride?"
    He linked his hands to toss her up. She willed herself to think of him as a ladder, a mounting block, a convenience, but the peculiar melting sensations took hold as soon as her foot touched his hands. She smelled a spicy scent, felt the strength of his arms, and landed slightly breathless in the saddle. She hauled Shadow around and concentrated on working the horse through her paces.
    Neither spoke again until they turned toward home.
    "Feeling better, miss?" he asked.
    "A gallop in the park is not freedom for horse or rider."
    "But there is freedom somewhere beyond the park?"
    She wouldn't meet that perceptive gaze. She expected Raj to balk or shy at the increase in traffic as London woke up and went about its business, but Alexander kept the stallion moving steadily toward the stable.
    Ophelia studied him surreptiously to see if she could detect the secret of his success with the horse. All that she could see was that he was very sure of himself. And he thought he'd won in their encounter.
    With his flashing eyes and proud assurance, Alexander had upset one of the fundamental certainties of life. Servants served—instantly, impassively, unobtrusively. They bowed and scraped and kept their opinions to themselves. They could be managed.
    In the yard she dismounted without his assistance, tossed him Shadow's reins, and went in search of Clagg, cornering him as he prepared to mount the box of the ducal chaise and drawing him across the yard.
    Alexander was rubbing the horses down with brisk efficiency.
    "I want Shadow exercised thoroughly," she said. "And groomed. No half measures. Her coat needs the dandy brush. I'd like her mane thinned, her hooves cleaned, and her fetlocks trimmed. And here …" She went on giving orders about tack, grooming, and feeding. She took Clagg to inspect the mare's stall and kicked aside the obviously sweet, fresh bedding. "I want this stall cleaned down to the dirt. It's too damp."
    Clagg gave Alexander a swift questioning look, but said only, "Best get to it,