She turned into the next aisle on quiet feet. To her right, a low wall separated a large alcove filled with tack from the aisle, and in the alcove stood a young man, hands on his hips, and he was threatening the rafter above.

Or rather, the large ginger cat hunching on the wooden beam.

Lady Hampshire’s Maine Coon.

A ladder was already in place.

“Yer posh-faced, flea-riddled—”

“Why don’t you go up and retrieve her?” Lucie said coolly. “She’ll hardly descend the ladder on her own.”

Not with him standing there, bellowing to have the poor thing skinned and cooked.

The man’s head jerked toward her.

A young groom-gardener, she assumed. His cap was bunched in his left fist, and his red hair stuck up as if he had pulled it in exasperation.

“Milady.” A fierce blush turned his face the same color as his locks. “My apologies. The . . . cat . . .”

“Yes?”

She entered the alcove, and the groom eyed her approach warily. “I tried, milady.” He held up his right hand. Four ruby-red streaks furrowed across the back. “It doesn’t want to be retrieved.”

High above their heads, the cat gave a drawn-out yowl.

“She does,” Lucie said. “Can’t you hear how she’s crying? She is scared.”

“Bit me, too.” He held out his other hand. Two angry-looking puncture marks marred the fleshy bit between his thumb and index finger.

She gave him a stern look. “Are you telling me a big lad like you can’t retrieve a small kitten?”

His gaze began flitting between her dark face and the vocal cat.

Clearly he found his options equally dreadful, so he stood frozen and mute on the spot.

She sighed. “Why don’t you go and fetch some help.”

He moved immediately. “At once, milady.”

Off he went in his big boots. She imagined them stomping after the cat, giving her a proper scare.

She tilted back her head. “They will save you in a moment,” she told the cat.

It gave her a baleful stare.

“You really should not have climbed to heights you can’t come down from again on your own. Believe me, I know.”

It occurred to her then that saving the cat could, potentially, kill two birds with one stone: returning it wouldn’t make Lady Hampshire like her, but the marchioness would have to restrain her attempts to undermine her, lest she wanted to risk looking ungrateful.

She eyed the ladder. It looked fairly sturdy. She had certainly scaled worse as a girl. Against her better judgment, she began to climb.

She had not worn fashionable skirts as a girl. She had to climb sideways, and her progress was slow and awkward. Halfway up, a step creaked loudly under her right foot.

She paused and glanced back down, and her hands instinctively gripped the ladder more tightly. She was up quite high now. But still not near the cat. In fact, the Maine Coon began edging backward. By the time Lucie’s head was level with the rafter, the animal was at least three feet out of reach.

“Come now,” Lucie coaxed, stretching out her arm, or trying to. The snug silk detained her like a lovely-looking straightjacket. Her next effort produced the suspiciously crunching sound of straining seams. “Blast. It.”

She tried flattery instead. “Goodness, you are huge, aren’t you,” she cooed. “Fifteen pounds, I reckon?”

The animal didn’t budge. Its tail, thick as a fox’s, batted softly, angrily, against the beam as she fixed Lucie with distrustful yellow eyes.

Silly creature didn’t know what was good for her.

“Come now,” she wiggled her fingers. “Come now, what a pretty kitty.”

“I say,” drawled a dreadfully familiar male voice from below. “Montgomery’s stable boasts some lovely, unexpected views.”

She froze, her arm awkwardly extended.

Tristan.

She peered back over her shoulder. He was on the other side of the low wall and made to enter the alcove. Of course he would be at the house party—his snob of a father would have never made a show himself. And now he was standing right beneath her, pretending to look up her skirts. No. Not pretending. His gaze was brushing over her ankles, noticeable on her skin like a physical touch.

She closed her eyes and silently counted to five.

It was the moment the cat decided to accept her person as the bridge to freedom and make a dash for it. Lucie opened her eyes to fifteen pounds of determined-looking cat hurtling toward her face, ears flat, tail crooked. Ginger fur muffled her shriek; claws dug into her neck sharp like needles. Her hands closed over thin air, and, with a hissing cat wrapped around her head, she fell backward into a void.

Chapter 16

It would hurt. Her body curled and prepared for hurt.

The pain never came.

She crashed into something solid, but it gave; she went down yet again, and it was over.

For a moment, she lay prone and motionless, the hammering beat of her heart in her ears.

One by one, she accounted for her limbs. They all felt intact. A negligible ache in her ribs. White stars still flashed behind her closed eyelids. Her eyes snapped open when realization dawned that she was lying atop a man. Her nose was pressed into the V of starched shirt above his waistcoat, breathing in the warm scent of his skin.

Grand. She was draped over Tristan’s supine form, no part of her touching the ground. He had caught her and the cat, and his body had taken the full brunt of the flagstone floor.

He would mock her ruthlessly about it, forever.

It was tempting to close her eyes again and feign unconsciousness.

But he just lay still, suspiciously so. Not a breath moved his broad torso.

She raised herself up on his chest and peered down at him.

His eyes were closed, his lashes sooty crescents against his cheeks. His hair was spread around his head on the stable floor. He had lost his hat. It lay on its side, a good five feet away.

Lord. His head must have taken a hit on the stones.

“Ballentine.”

No reaction.

Her chest turned cold inside out. She gave his cheek a firm pat. “This is not funny.”

No reaction.

Had she killed him? No one would believe that it was an accident.

Nonsense. There was no blood—none she could see.

She peeled off her gloves and tossed them aside. Leaning over him, she sank her fingers into his hair. It slid through her fingers, slippery and cool, as she swiftly searched his temples, then the sides and back of his skull with urgent fingertips. No lumps, no blood.

“Don’t be dead,” she murmured, “or permanently damaged.” He was a rogue, a scoundrel, but . . .

A sound rumbled in his chest.

Her hands stilled. It had sounded . . . like a laugh.

His eyes opened, bright pools of mischief looking up at her.

The blast of mixed emotions stunned her. She glared down at his indolent face, panting, unable to move.

He slowly shook his head. “I cannot believe you fell for that.”

Her fingers tightened reflexively in his hair. “I hate pranks,” she whispered.

His smile widened. “I know,” he whispered back.

She felt his hands on her hips.

Everything slowed. Tristan went still beneath her, the amusement fading from his eyes. Heat bloomed on her skin, aware that she was laying on him, hip against hip, her skirt on his legs like an exotic wing. . . . She tried not to move, not press more closely against him, but she felt him so well: his chest, hard and solid as flagstone beneath her. The sensuous sleekness of his hair between her fingers. The dull beat of a needy pulse between her legs. Tristan’s breathing turned ragged, and his gaze was hot, molten gold, as if he felt what feeling him did to her. Her hands began to tremble, and he felt that, too. His mouth softened, and she gazed at it, entranced. He lightly slid the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, leaving it damp, and a tiny noise escaped her. She wanted to feel his mouth against hers, and in this slow, warm haze, it made sense. Her head dipped.

A subtle movement brought his thigh up between hers, right where it ached. She gasped. Too much. The harsh, earthly smells and sounds of a stable flooded back.

She was, in fact, on a stable floor, in a most compromising position.

She arched up. “Release me.”

“Lucie.” His voice was unsteady.

“Now.”

What a disaster. They were embracing on a stable floor, barely shielded by half a wall.

His grip on her hips eased, and he slowly raised his arms over his head and lay under her in a pose of mock-surrender. It still took her a moment to move, to roll off him and struggle to her feet. The tension in her limbs did not ease; she was fair aching with it.

Tristan unhurriedly drew himself up in a sitting position and braced an arm on his bent knee. Straw stuck from his hair. He looked indecent, and his mouth was edged with a knowing arrogance. She had very nearly kissed this mouth. Her lips were burning, angrily, because she hadn’t.

She turned and strode from the stable, her head held high, not knowing whether she was more put out with him or with herself.

* * *

Tristan watched her go, breathing hard and aware that he was slipping. He could not recall ever losing control to the point of grinding himself against a lady on a stable floor. Appalling, and yet his blood still rushed with ecstasy. Ecstasy from a near kiss.

He had seen Lucie cross the courtyard, because he had arrived late at Claremont, and he had made the spontaneous decision to follow her. When a terrified groom had all but rushed toward him from the stables, yammering about a formidable lady and a cat, he had sent the lad to the other end of the courtyard. A good foresight. His hands had not obeyed him at first when he had willed them to let go of her skirts. He had been fighting the urge to roll with her in his arms, to pull her body beneath his. It would have taken another second or two to drag up her skirts. On a stable floor. He had, until today, fancied himself a somewhat sophisticated hedonist. Apparently, it wasn’t so.