The horse was nimble, though, and embarked on an equine country dance of bucks, dodges, and props that Trevor himself would have been hard put to manage. The lady’s downfall came as the result of a hard buck followed by a side-step and another buck.
The rider went overboard in a heap of skirts and profanity, and the horse cantered off down the lane, head high, tail wringing, bursts of flatulence punctuating his victory.
“Madame, êtes-vous blessée?” Bon dieu. Damn, rather. “Madam, are you injured?” Trevor had been walking his horse, who followed the miscreant’s progress with a wistful expression.
The lady got herself onto all fours, then sat back on her haunches. “It’s mademoiselle, and yes, I am the worse for that demon hell-beast’s bad manners. My pride is sorely bruised, my dignity fractured in two places, and I shall have a prodigy of a shiner on my feminine grace. Other than that…” She shaded her eyes and watched as the horse farted his way around a bend in the road. “Fricassee of fractious four-year-old might appear on this week’s menu. The wretch was trying to bolt with me.”
“He’s big for four.” Trevor offered the lady a hand, which she accepted.
She got to her feet a bit stiffly and shook out her skirts. “My thanks for your assistance, and you will forget my momentary lapse of decorum.”
“I already have, and it was the horse who lapsed. You are truly hale?”
The word was too paltry for this magnificent creature. She stood at least five foot ten inches, though some of that height might have been attributable to riding boots. Her habit was a divided skirt, a style Trevor had seen from time to time on the Continent, but never before in England. She had eschewed—or lost—any sort of hat, and the setting sun turned Titian hair into a tumbling mass of dark glory.
“I should have known better than to get on that colt without working him first in the arena,” the lady said, giving her skirt one last swat. “I didn’t have enough daylight to do both. Roland is my brother’s horse. Gavin backed him at two, and he’s been allowed to languish since then. Roland isn’t a bad sort, just green. As you and I seem to be without mutual acquaintances, I’m Amaryllis DeWitt.”
Her voice was a true alto, smooth and dark like a good Armagnac, with notes of humor, annoyance, and determination. Her physical nose was in proportion to the rest of her, and her curtsey was a brisk nod to protocol.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss DeWitt, despite the circumstances.” Trevor bowed, and offered the name he’d chosen to use for the sake of privacy on this excursion. “Trevor Dorning, at your service. We are within a mile or two of Crosspatch Corners, are we not?”
“That direction,” she said, nodding to the east. “This lane becomes the high street, and the Crosspatch Arms will be happy to put you up. If I’m not to cause a hue and cry at supper, I’d best be on my way.”
“Take my horse.”
She eyed Jacques dubiously, though he was a lovely seventeen-hand bay with excellent manners and a shameless fondness for apples.
“He’s a perfect gentleman,” Trevor said. “We left London yesterday at noon, and I broke the journey rather than exhaust my mount. Jacques can get you anywhere you need to go and jumps five feet without hesitation.”
Jacques sniffed delicately at the lady’s gloved fingers, his ears perked forward.
“He’s up to my weight,” she said, running a hand over Jacques’s neck and down his shoulder. “Stands quietly. Somebody has kept a close eye on his feet.”
“Somebody raised me with a modicum of manners, too, and I cannot abide the thought of a lady hiking home cross county, alone, as darkness falls. Roland will soon be trotting into the stable yard sans cavalier, and that hue and cry you want to avoid will start up in earnest.”
“You are attempting to reason with me.” She gave the girth a tug. “Fair play requires that I warn you to desist. I do my own reasoning.”
“One commends your good sense.” Jeanette would like this woman. Trevor liked her, for that matter. “I intend to be in the area for a few days at least, and can use a livery hack if I need to be out and about tomorrow morning.”
Miss DeWitt untied Trevor’s saddle bags and passed them over. “You are proof that chivalry can yet be found on English soil, Mr. Dorning. My grandmother would have worried about me had I been late for supper, and I dislike troubling her unnecessarily. She was a hoyden in her day, but tells me repeatedly that times are different now.”
Miss DeWitt glanced about at the lengthening shadows.
“Even women of independent reasoning powers can use a leg up from time to time.” Trevor offered that observation casually. Miss DeWitt was tall, but she was also wearing skirts and Jacques was a tall horse. A mounting block would have come in handy.
She led Jacques to the fence on the opposite side of the lane, and managed the delicate business of holding the reins, climbing the fence, and getting a leg over without anything approaching a fuss.
“I’ll send him to the Arms tomorrow morning, and my thanks for the loan. What brings you out from London?”
“I’m looking for a country property within hailing distance of Town.” A half-lie, and even that much deception bothered Trevor. The whole point of the excursion though, was to gather intelligence on his real estate holdings without alerting tenants or stewards. Announcing that the Marquess of Tavistock was making an inspection tour would have put period to that goal.
“Most who have a choice prefer Kent or Surrey,” Miss DeWitt said, smoothing a hand down Jacques’s crest. “We’re not as fashionable out this direction.”
“A point in Berkshire’s favor. Then too, there’s the excellent company to be found here.”
She favored him with an impish smile, circled the horse in a tidy pirouette, and trotted off into the sunset.
“Bring Jacques to the Arms yourself,” Trevor called after her. “I could use some local knowledge before I begin my search.”
She gave no sign that she’d heard him, which reassured Trevor that her pride, her dignity, and her feminine grace had recovered from the slightest of mishaps.
Trevor took his time on the walk into Crosspatch Corners, enjoying the chill in the air that came with evening’s approach. The countryside still slumbered under winter’s lingering, frosty hand, but in a few weeks, the palette of the landscape would shift from browns to greens. The sky would yield up its pewter moods for cheerful blue and white. The beasts would get to shedding in earnest and birdsong would build into a morning and evening symphony.
“While I,” Trevor muttered to no one in particular, “will be stuck in London, prancing about like a dancing bear for the delectation of the matchmakers and heiresses.”
* * *