Tessa's Touch Read online

  TESSA'S TOUCH

  Brenda Hiatt

  Electronic edition

  Copyright 2004 by Brenda Hiatt Barber

  Originally published as Taming Tessa by Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. Though some actual historical places, persons and events are depicted in this work, the primary characters and their stories are fictional. Any resemblance between those characters and actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  DEDICATION

  For Bethany and Dawn, who used to tame unicorns for me.

  TESSA'S TOUCH

  by Brenda Hiatt

  CHAPTER 1

  Leicestershire, England—October, 1816

  "Easy, fellow, it's only an owl's shadow," Lord Anthony Northrup said as the horse he was leading along the deserted road shied yet again.

  Already he was beginning to regret the favor he'd done young Ballard by purchasing this skittish hunter from him, but he was careful to keep his irritation from his voice so as not to upset the beast further. Justifiably famous for his skill in handling difficult horses, Anthony had been sure he could handle this chestnut better than the inexperienced Mr. Ballard.

  Perhaps leading it back tonight hadn't been the best plan, however. His own mount was a placid, well-trained beast, unlikely to react to the nervousness of the new horse, but he'd underestimated the chestnut's spookiness. He'd be glad when he finally reached his hunting lodge with both animals.

  For several minutes he continued without incident, riding Cinder, his gray gelding, at a slow trot through the gathering dusk with the new chestnut following on the lead. The road from Melton Mowbray was mercifully empty at the moment, but Anthony knew that was unlikely to last with so many men arriving in the Shires for the start of foxhunting season.

  Sure enough, a moment later he heard hooves approaching from behind at a quick trot. He glanced back and saw horse and rider silhouetted against the rolling fields that were fading from green to gray in the twilight. Slowing Cinder to a walk, he maneuvered both horses closer to the verge to give the other rider ample room to pass, in hopes of avoiding an incident with the skittish chestnut.

  His hopes were dashed when a rabbit suddenly erupted from the hedge bordering the road, right under the chestnut's nose. Predictably, the horse spooked and reared, then lunged forward, dragging the lead rein across Cinder's neck. Anthony's gelding shied away from the sudden contact, dancing sideways even as the chestnut reared again, nearly pulling Anthony from the saddle.

  One of the chestnut's descending forelegs caught on the lead rein, wrenching it from Anthony's grasp. Cursing, he vaulted to the ground to make a grab for the lead before the horse could bolt, but he was too late. The chestnut swung away from him, then galloped away up the road, the lead whipping behind.

  With another curse, Anthony turned back to Cinder but before he could remount to give chase, the other rider swept past him at a gallop, already in pursuit of the chestnut. Vaulting into the saddle, Anthony followed. He hadn't seen the fellow's face, but assumed it must be someone he knew, to spring so quickly to his assistance.

  He and Cinder galloped only a furlong or so before reaching their quarry, for the chestnut had somehow managed to tangle his reins in the thick hedge that lined the road. Unfortunately, the horse was in full panic, bucking and kicking at the hedge, tangling the reins even more tightly as he whinnied with rising hysteria.

  The other rider dismounted and took a couple of cautious steps toward the frightened beast. Judging by his stature, Anthony realized he could be no more than a lad.

  "You'd best stay clear," Anthony said, dismounting as well. "He's in the devil's own temper and could do you an injury."

  "Nonsense," came the reply.

  Anthony stared, for the voice was undeniably feminine, despite the fact that the rider had been riding astride and wore breeches. Before he could process this remarkable anomaly, she took another step toward the panicked chestnut, leaving her roan mare standing quietly.

  "Come then," she said soothingly, "what seems to be the trouble?"

  To Anthony's amazement, the horse instantly stopped kicking and stood, trembling, with its ears pitched forward.

  The woman continued to approach the still-jittery chestnut. "There, now. It's not so bad, is it? Look at what you've done to yourself," she said to the horse in a singsong lilt that seemed to hold the beast's complete attention.

  A moment later she had the lead in one hand and with the other deftly untangled the reins from the hedge. When she laid one small hand on the horse's neck, it gave a great shudder, then stopped trembling. Ducking its head, it turned to nuzzle her ear.

  Smiling, she patted the chestnut's nose and Anthony just caught her whisper of, "I miss you, too, Zephyr." Then she turned and said aloud, "I don't think he'll give you any more trouble, sir," and handed him the lead.

  Anthony had been watching in amazement, but now he thought he understood why the horse had responded to her. "Thank you. You seem to have—"

  He paused, for the rising moon gave him his first good look at her face—and a lovely face it was, framed by a few honey-brown curls that had escaped her riding cap. The breeches outlined a fine pair of legs, causing his thoughts to veer down a totally different path.

  "Horses like me," she said simply, clearly not realizing he'd heard her whispered comment to the chestnut.

  Her dark eyes met his and a spark of sympathy, of connection, passed between them. Anthony felt something deep inside him stir in response. Lust, of course. He was long familiar with that feeling. Anything beyond that was doubtless only the result of the moonlit setting and the unusual events just past.

  "So it would appear," he finally replied. Shaking off his bemusement, Anthony managed a grin. "And I can't say that I blame them, Miss—?"

  To his disappointment, she did not supply a name. "I'll be on my way, then," was all she said. With a fluid motion, she was back in her saddle and a moment later was cantering away down the road at a pace he had no hope of matching with two horses to manage.

  He watched her appreciatively until she was too far away to discern clearly, then turned to remount Cinder and continue his brief journey, still bemused by the mystery of the beauty in breeches. Her accent had not been that of some local farmer's daughter. Was she perhaps the pampered mistress of some gent here for the hunting season?

  Anthony received a generous allowance from his father, the Duke of Marland, as well as a quarterly stipend from the Army, where he'd attained the rank of major during the recent wars. Maybe the breech-clad beauty could be lured away from her protector. But no—if she was familiar with the horse, it was more likely she lived somewhere in the area. Besides, her manner hadn't been at all flirtatious —nothing like that of a Cyprian.

  Busy with such thoughts, he didn't realize until he reached his hunting box that she'd been right about the chestnut. He'd given no further trouble. What had she called him? Zephyr? Ballard hadn't mentioned the horse's name, but he had no doubt that was it. He'd ask Ballard about it tomorrow.

  Handing both horses over to a waiting groom, he warned him about the new gelding's skittishness. The man looked skeptical, given the chestnut's current placidity.

  Anthony just shrugged, then turned to the house, one of the larger hunting boxes in the area, boasting six large bedrooms and a generous dining room. The half-timbered house had been left him by his great-
uncle, an avid sportsman who had taught Anthony most of what he knew about hunting. Great-uncle Alden would be pleased, Anthony thought, to know his former hunting box now housed the Odd Sock Hunt Club, second in consequence here in the Shires only to Melton's Old Club.

  "About time you returned," he was greeted by Sir Charles Storm, better known as Stormy, upon entering the parlor. "Rush insisted on holding dinner for you and I'm famished."

  Anthony turned to Ryan Dean, Earl of Rushford, with a grin. "Good of you, Rush, but not really necessary. I'd no idea Ballard's beast would be so much trouble. That's what delayed me." He threw himself into an overstuffed armchair near the fire.

  "Horse was a bad deal, then?" massive Grant Turpin, lounging opposite him, asked sympathetically. "That's what comes of doing favors for striplings. Warned you against that."

  Anthony grinned, knowing his imposing friend would have done the same, for Thor, as he was known to his intimates, was a notoriously soft touch. "Yes, you did, but I knew I could handle the brute better than young Ballard. He's a damnably skittish thing, though. Starts at his own shadow. Or did, until—" He broke off, suddenly reluctant to mention the girl who'd come to his rescue.

  "Doesn't sound like much of a hunter, though you'll set him right if anyone can," Thor said with gratifying confidence. "Is it temperament or training, do you think?"

  "Too soon to know," Anthony replied with a shrug. "Could be a combination—"

  "I say," Stormy broke in, "can't we discuss it over dinner?"

  With a chuckle, the four men adjourned to the dining room, where they were joined by two or three other members of the Odd Sock Club. It was a jovial group, for among the requirements for inclusion were a lack of pretention and general amiability. Just now, everyone was in high spirits in anticipation of the first real hunt of the season four days hence.

  Not until the roast beef was served did the conversation return to Anthony's new purchase.

  "Where did Ballard buy that horse, anyway?" asked William Verge, Viscount Killerby. "There haven't been any auctions yet, have there?"

  "Not that I know of," Anthony responded to the little bouncing ball of a man affectionately known as Killer. "He bought it from a local squire, a fellow by the name of Seaton."

  "Seaton?" echoed Stormy from the opposite end of the table, where he'd been working his way steadily through the courses. "Of Wheatstone? Someone else had a bad mount off him last year— horse refused the jumps. Now, who was it?" He frowned and took a sip of claret in an apparent effort to jog loose the memory.

  "Porrington, wasn't it?" offered Rush. "I remember him landing in a ditch when that new bay of his balked last year. Thought the dunking did him good, personally."

  There were nods of agreement, Anthony's included, for Porrington was notoriously high in the instep. In fact, he suspected it had been Porrington who had blackballed Killer from the Old Club several years earlier, the event that had ultimately resulted in the formation of the rival Odd Sock Club.

  "Perhaps I'll pay this Seaton a visit." If the young woman he'd met knew the horse, she might well be found somewhere at Wheatstone. "See if the fellow is making a practice of selling half-trained horses."

  He remembered how easily the girl had calmed the horse. Perhaps he hadn't made such a bad bargain after all . . .

  "Good idea," Thor agreed. "We can act as though we're interested in buying and look into Seaton's setup. Could be Porrington and Ballard were isolated incidents, or it could be pattern. I'd hate to see any other striplings like Ballard taken in, if so."

  "It's not as though we've anything else to do, with the first hunt still days away," Stormy added.

  Anthony had intended to go alone, but now he nodded. "Very well. In the morning I'll have another word with Ballard, then we can give Seaton's stables a look."

  This suggestion was met with general approval, and the coversation turned back to the hunt and a spirited discussion of the season's prospects for good sport.

  * * *

  On her return to Wheatstone, Tessa Seaton was careful to ride the strawberry roan mare in a wide circle around to the back of the stables, well out of sight of the main house, before dismounting. If she were quick, she could return Cinnamon to her stall and get back before her father noticed she'd been away.

  "How did she go, then?"

  Tessa whirled, startled, to see her cousin Harold leaning against the corner of the main stable block. As usual, his hat was pulled low over his forehead, a piece of straw dangling negligently from his lips.

  "Fine. She went fine," Tessa replied with a shrug. "I told you she would." Regret tugged at her, for she'd already become rather fond of Cinnamon. It was foolish, since the horse had been bought for resale.

  Her cousin nodded. "With those lines, I'm betting we can get a monkey for her once the hunt begins."

  Tessa frowned. "I doubt she's worth five hundred pounds, though she is better-tempered than most of our beasts." She refrained from pointing out that the pervasive temperament problems were a direct result of Harold's inept training.

  "She jumps well," she continued, "but she's not as fast as most huntsmen would prefer. Perhaps with another season's conditioning—"

  "What the devil difference does it make?" Harold interrupted. "She's worth whatever someone will pay. Nimbus is flashier, though, so we should show him in the first hunt. He'll fetch even more, I'd wager."

  "Nimbus? He's not ready. We've only had him since August and he's not shed most of his bad habits yet. He bit two stable lads last week, and kicked Rambler the week before that."

  "The stable lads won't be riding him. You will."

  "Me?" she echoed in amazement. "In the hunt, do you mean? Papa will never allow it." Sir George Seaton had very definite views on what constituted proper behavior for his daughter, and riding to hunt—or too much riding at all, for that matter —was not a part of it.

  "Leave that to my father," Harold said with a smirk. "Your mother used to ride in the hunt, you know, and Sir George with her. He never objected to that."

  Tessa shook her head. "That was different. If Papa could ride with me, perhaps—" But her father hadn't been able to sit a horse for six years, not since the hunting accident that had permanently crippled him.

  "Father will be riding with you," Harold said. "He'll have to be there anyway, to negotiate the sale afterward."

  Harold's father, Mercer Emery, brother to Tessa's late mother, had taken over management of Wheatstone shortly after Sir George's accident. Tessa had been sixteen at the time, and in no position to object, particularly as her father had remained bedridden for several months.

  When Sir George recovered enough to take an interest in the estate again, Uncle Mercer confided to Tessa that Sir George's heart had been affected by his accident, making any sort of upset or exertion dangerous for him. He also informed Tessa that Wheatstone's finances were in far worse shape than her father had known, and that discovering the truth might be enough of a shock to kill him.

  Tessa often regretted the decision she'd made then to help her uncle conceal the true state of Wheatstone from her father. The estate had continued to deteriorate over the years, until now they were living month to month, forced to buy and resell horses to supplement the meager rents from their tenants. It seemed clear that her uncle was no better an estate manager than his son was a horse trainer, but after six years, there was little she could do about it.

  "Even if we can convince Papa to let me ride, Nimbus isn't trained for the hunt," she argued now. "His manners around other horses are atrocious."

  Harold's mouth twisted for a moment with something that might have been bitterness, but then he smiled and put a hand on Tessa's arm. "He's gentle enough under you, just as they all are."

  What he said was true enough, for Tessa had a special way with horses, just as her mother had. A gift, from their Irish forbears, her mother had once told her. It was a gift Harold, unfortunately, did not possess, for all he fancied himself a horse trainer.
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  Nor did his father possess it. That had been painfully clear last year when Uncle Mercer had ridden in the hunt. The horses had performed creditably only because Tessa had calmed them immediately before the runs. She didn't doubt that they would perform far better with her actually riding them. Still, did she dare agree?

  "Uncle Mercer got Nimbus for a song because he was barely broken," she said, stepping away from Harold's touch. "Even if we invest another year in his training, he'll make a tidy profit when sold. There are drawbacks to selling too early. Remember Zephyr, that skittish chestnut we sold to Mr. Ballard a few weeks ago? Apparently he's already sold him to someone else."

  She paused, remembering how handsome that someone else had been— easily the handsomest man she'd ever seen.

  "What's that to us?" her cousin said. "We made a nice bit off that sale, enough to fix that leaning chimney you've been fretting about. Oh, that reminds me— Father mentioned today that the west wing roof is beginning to leak."

  Tessa stifled an unladylike curse. Roof repairs would not only be expensive, they'd be as difficult to hide from her father as the chimney repairs would be. There was no denying the estate needed money, however she might dislike the means of getting it.

  "If we get a reputation for selling half-broken horses, it could harm future sales," she felt obliged to point out.

  "All the more reason to sell as many horses as quickly as we can," Harold retorted. "We've enough beasts to unload this season to lay some money by against the future."

  When she still hesitated, Harold added, "I'm thinking you'd rather I not let anything slip to Sir George about these evening rides —and what you wear for them." He nodded significantly at her breeches. "No knowing what it might do to that bad heart of his."

  "But it was you who— Never mind." Tessa turned away before her temper got the better of her, handing Cinnamon's reins to a too-interested stable lad. "I must get back to the house."