Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,77

talking, but she had stopped listening. She was disappointed. She’d hoped there was more to him than this, but he was merely another canting hypocrite.

Self-control was second nature, but today the crowd, the heat, and frustration had her temper slipping. Her hands tightened on the reins. Dora dipped her head and shifted restlessly.

“Mind your horse, sir,” Ashmont said sharply. “Have a care for the lady.”

The sharp tone recalled Cassandra to the moment, to where she was, and the animal she rode. Patient Dora was clearly unhappy and wanted to be elsewhere.

This was because Owsley’s mare was warning the other two horses off, her ears pinned back, teeth snapping.

Keeffe’s voice echoed in her head.

. . . the horses . . . need you to be calm and to know what to do.

Cassandra corrected her hold of the reins, easing Dora out of range of the tetchy chestnut.

“Come away, Miss Pomfret,” Ashmont said. “Nothing to be gained here. But no, why should you retreat? He was the one who approached you. Owsley, you had your chance and you bungled it. Again. If I were you, I’d go away. And stay away.”

But it was the same as last night. Owsley wouldn’t give ground. He glared from one to the other. “I at least have tried to serve my monarch and my country, while your seat in the House of Lords has done nothing but collect cobwebs.”

“Not arguing that,” Ashmont said. “Doesn’t change facts. Nothing to say to you.” He made the casual gesture of dismissal. “I recommend you take yourself off.”

Owsley’s face reddened. “Were I the sort of man who is easily cowed, I should never have stood for Parliament, sir, and—”

“Don’t care if you’re cowed or not. You’re boring me.”

Instead of going away, Owsley legged his chestnut mare toward the duke, challenging him. The already-vexed creature bumped Ashmont’s stallion, who wisely danced out of the way. Cassandra, too, moved farther away, an instant before Owsley’s mount began to throw a fit, squealing, stomping, rearing.

The chestnut bucked and spun, kicking out furiously again and again. The saddle girths gave way, and the saddle began to turn. Cassandra saw Owsley’s hands flailing in the instant before the mare’s shoulder dropped, and he went over and down, hard, to the ground.

And lay there, unmoving, while the angry mare went on bucking down Rotten Row.

That stretch of the Row promptly lost its collective mind. Too many inept riders in an overcrowded section of road. Women shrieking. Men shouting. Horses snorting and squealing.

Two hacks lunged through the crowd, following the runaway while others danced anxiously in place, seeing no safe way out, and still others tried to retreat where there was no place to go.

Ashmont dismounted, handed off his reins to somebody nearby, and went to the fallen man.

An instant later, Miss Pomfret was beside him. “Back, move back!” she called out, her voice calm and sure in the hubbub. Then she was giving orders, the way she’d done in Putney Heath. A litter. A surgeon. Somebody to catch Owsley’s mare.

She was the general in a battle where everybody had run mad. The voice of command had an effect, and the crowd began to give way and settle down.

Meanwhile, Ashmont heard her aunt dispersing the crowd. After a time, the world about them quieted somewhat. When the aunt and sister joined them, Owsley was coming to his senses.

He was perfectly well, he said. He wanted to get back on his horse. He wouldn’t believe she’d run away. Some of his friends arrived on the scene then, and persuaded him to see a surgeon. He hadn’t broken his neck or any other obvious parts, but a concussion was possible. So were minor fractures.

Before long he was loaded onto a litter and carried to a carriage. The onlookers began to disperse.

Miss Pomfret beside him, Ashmont watched the man’s departure. He was remembering Putney Heath. Accidents. How many had he caused?

“That wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“Couldn’t say.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I know we came within a hairsbreadth of all hell breaking loose,” he said. “Your sister was nearby. Your aunt. Innocent parties. It was a miracle the mare did no other harm. I was too slow.”

“Too slow! You had no room to maneuver. We had a crowd pressing in to watch the show. Two men arguing over a woman, it must have looked like. We had nowhere to go.”

Ashmont shook his head. “I saw he wasn’t managing his hack well. We should have left him sooner. But that know-it-all smirk. So provoking. Puritanical