Unbefitting a Lady Read Online Free

said tersely, determined to
move on with her tour. But Bram was intrigued. He strolled over to the
contraption, compelling Phaedra to follow him. He circled the perimeter, bending
low to take in the undercarriage.
    ‘It’s for horses,’ Phaedra said finally, giving him the
distinct impression she didn’t want to talk about it.
    Bram stood back from the vehicle and gave her an encouraging
look. ‘Transporting horses when they could just as easily walk?’ That loosened
her tongue a bit. It appeared Phaedra Montague couldn’t stand stupidity in any
form.
    ‘It’s for racehorses, so they don’t have to walk,’ she replied sharply. The offering was enough. The
pieces fell into place rapidly after that.
    Bram nodded with approval, studying Phaedra with a new
excitement that had a little less to do with the sway of her skirt. ‘To take a
northern horse south, perhaps?’
    He could see the ingenuity of this. Most racing was regional,
confined to a district because of issues with distance.
    In the north, racing was done in Yorkshire and at Doncaster,
while in the south of England, the great tracks were at Newmarket and Epsom.
Racehorses couldn’t walk to far locales and be in top shape for racing after a
lengthy journey. It was one of the reasons racing magnates congregated in
Newmarket with their strings—to avoid the travel and risk of injury to the
horse.
    ‘Precisely.’ Phaedra smiled a bit in reply, starting to warm to
the subject.
    ‘It’s ingenious.’ Bram took another tour around the wagon. He
didn’t have to ask for whom the wagon was intended. It was for Warbourne and
wherever she meant to take him. ‘You were pretty certain you’d win the bid
today.’ Lady Phaedra had invested quite a lot in that horse before he’d even
been bought. The wagon couldn’t have been cheap. In itself, the purchase had
been a risk. ‘What if you had lost?’ Bram held her eyes, watching her expression
carefully.
    ‘I am not accustomed to losing, Mr Basingstoke. Shall we
continue the tour?’
    After that, she showed him the last bay where the carriage
horses were kept—matched greys for the ducal coach and a set of Cleveland bays
for the landau. Then they were off outdoors to see the facilities—the oval
training track put in by her great-grandfather at the height of the racing craze
in the previous century, and the riding house, also a legacy of her
great-grandfather.
    ‘It’s an amazing facility,’ Bram said at last when they
finished walking through the indoor riding house with its viewing gallery of the
arena below.
    She fixed him with a stern stare. ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘That’s what you wanted me to say, isn’t it?’ He grinned.
‘You’ve been trying to overwhelm me since we started.’ Bram held out his hands,
palms up in surrender. ‘You have succeeded admirably.’ He was impressed with the facility and with her. Warbourne had not been
a spontaneous purchase driven by the whims of a pretty, impetuous young
lady.
    ‘Yes,’ Phaedra admitted. ‘You’ve landed yourself a plum. You
should be thankful for a job when so many people are out of work. This is more
than simply a job. It’s a very good job at a very
fine stable. It’s not quite on par with Chatsworth just yet, but any horseman
would be grateful for it.’
    Bram chuckled outright at the mention of the great northern
stable. To compare one’s self to Chatsworth was brave indeed for fear of coming
off wanting. But Castonbury was in no risk of that. ‘We’re not too proud are we,
princess?’
    ‘Not proud. Honest,’ Phaedra countered with a confident tilt of
her head. ‘Let me show you your quarters and introduce you to Anderson.’
    ‘I’ll want to talk about an exercise schedule for Warbourne
too, so I can get started with the horses right away,’ Bram asserted as they
began the walk back to the stable block. The assignment he’d taken on was
becoming more intriguing by the moment, largely due to the woman beside him. She
had wanted