Autumn Glory and Other Stories Read Free Page B

commanded. Then Inessa murmured, “Do you really think there is a chance Mama will change her mind?”
    Irma grinned, showing dimples alongside her mouth. “Never, but not even Mama can make us marry gentlemen who don’t ask. And I mean to make sure they never do.”
    Nessie worried her lip between perfect white teeth. “I don’t believe I could act vulgarly enough to give Mr. Frye a disgust of me, Irma.”
    And Iselle fretted: “If you’re thinking I can get myself up to look like a hag in order to discourage Lord Wingate, I don’t think I can do it. Remember when I was supposed to be Medusa for that masquerade? Everyone laughed.”
    Irma drew her sisters closer. “I know neither of you is good at deception, so you’ll just have to trust me. Nessie, you can be as good as ever, and Ellie, twice as beautiful, if that’s possible. Just listen…”

3
    His boots were dusty, by Jupiter. Dusty and scuffed and caked with mud. Damn if they didn’t look good to Brigham Winn, Viscount Wingate. Here he was, alone in the English countryside, with no one to impress but the occasional sheep or cow and his own horse. And the stallion trailing behind him at the end of the reins was missing a shoe altogether, so the blasted horse couldn’t complain. Winn laughed out loud with the sheer joy of freedom. He looked back along the tree-lined lane the way he had come, then forward on the leafy path, then reached up with his free hand and loosened his neck cloth. Walking one’s horse for a few hours was warm work, even if the bright autumn sunshine did not carry much heat with it. The viscount told himself that it would not do to arrive at Bannister Grange looking like some kind of undergroom, but he was gambling on getting ’Ledo to the stables, then finding a servant to direct him to a side door before he had to greet his hosts. That is, if he ever found Bannister Grange at all.
    Lord Wingate had been wandering these country byways for hours, it seemed, after leaving his carriage, baggage, groom, and valet at the last posting stop. The ostler had sworn he knew the best way to get to the Grange across the fields and streams, the best ride to challenge both nobleman and stallion. Master and horse had been confined too long, held to the carriage’s slow pace halfway across Europe, making their way to London after three days’ delay for the Channel crossing. Then they had to idle about for a fortnight in town waiting on the Cabinet ministers and doing the pretty with Wingate’s mother and her friends. It was exhilarating to have the strength of the stallion beneath him as hedgerow and stone wall flew by. It was not quite as exhilarating to walk miles out of the way to find an opening in those same fences and brambles after the steel gray Toledo cast a shoe. The ostler’s directions, of course, meant nothing if horse and rider couldn’t take the third fence after jumping the brook, catercorner from the fallen elm, et cetera. By the time he found a low spot to lead the stallion across a fast-running stream that was strewn with dangerous rocks, he couldn’t locate a fence post, fallen tree, or his hat.
    So he was lost and late, damp and dirty—and he didn’t care. The viscount was no longer a public figure. He was not representing England, the throne, or the entire British upper class. Negotiations did not hinge on the punctilio of his address, nations were not going to rise or fall on the height of his shirt points or the depth of his bow. Brigham Winn was a free man.
    If he was about to assume another type of yoke, well, he still knew his duty to God, the king, and the family name, but, deuce take it, he was going to enjoy these last hours of liberty. Like a small boy, he kicked up piles of fallen leaves with every boot step until the stallion snorted and sidled at the end of the reins.
    “Very well, lad,” the viscount told the horse, “I’ll stop playing and get on with finding you your supper and a cozy crib for the