Duke Looks Like a Groomsman - Valerie Bowman Page 0,46

to move up the date. You didn’t know?”

Julianna pressed her palm to her chest as if she couldn’t breathe. “Mary,” she called, in a frantic-sounding voice. “I think that’s enough for the day. We must get back to the house. I have a letter to write.”

Chapter Twenty

Early that afternoon, Rhys was still working in the stables. He wiped away the sweat dripping from his brow with the back of his sleeve. He stabbed more hay with his pitchfork and tossed it onto the heap at the back end of the empty stall in which he stood.

He’d been spending his days cleaning tack, bailing hay, mucking stalls, and grooming horses. Things he’d helped the stablemaster at Worthington Manor do when he was younger, but things he hadn’t done in years until now.

As a duke, he spent his days waking at noon, meeting briefly with his solicitor, drinking, gambling, and enjoying the finer things in life until well into the early morning hours. Then he fell into an exhausted slumber before doing it all over again the next day.

His time spent here working in Clayton’s stables was the first in years that he’d actually felt…useful. Teaching Mary Montgomery to ride yesterday had been one of the most satisfying things he’d done since he could remember.

The poor young woman had obviously been frightened to death of horses, and while he couldn’t imagine being frightened of the animals he so loved, he could imagine how difficult it must be for her to live around the large animals and be uncomfortable. It must have been torturous for her all these years.

Horses were some of the gentlest mammals in the world, and he’d known just the right horse in Clayton’s stables to use with a frightened rider. Whisper had been kind and still and relaxed, the perfect mount for Lady Mary.

When Julianna had first arrived at the stables yesterday with her sister in tow, Rhys had been convinced she was back to cause him more trouble. And indeed, she’d done her best to rile him by sniping at him at nearly every turn. But he could tell that she was truly worried about her sister’s fear of horses and her ability to ride.

Mary seemed like the type of young woman who wouldn’t step upon an ant. She was friendly and caring and had a true smile for everyone. The opposite of her sister, he thought with some chagrin. He briefly wondered if Kendall had met Mary Montgomery.

Rhys had done something good yesterday. He’d helped Lady Mary take the first steps toward conquering her fear of horses and riding. She was a brave young woman. He hoped he’d be able to help her again before the house party ended.

If Julianna was still attempting to get him to quit his position, she wasn’t doing a particularly adept job of it. All she’d managed to do was come out here every day and cause him a bit of work. Little did she know he was relishing work these days.

She didn’t expect him to enjoy work. Neither did his friends. After all, they’d bet him that he wouldn’t be able to make it two weeks performing the duties of a true servant. Perhaps they’d have been right had he been confined to the stuffiness of the house with its proper etiquette and formal attire, but here in the stables, where he could sweat and work with horses, Rhys was in his element.

Horses, after all, didn’t expect anything of you other than food and water and hay and kindness. Horses didn’t care if you were a duke. Horses didn’t care what the Times said about you and whether you were supposedly a drunken, moneyless lout.

The members of the ton had no idea he’d purposely chosen his reputation. They’d no idea that he’d picked his public image right down to the fact that Hollister’s was the most infamous of the gaming clubs and he’d be certain to get the most attention for his drunken, gambling loutishness if he spent his leisure hours there, rather than one of the famously discreet gentlemen’s clubs like White’s or Boodle’s. They’d no idea that he lost great sums at Hollister’s in order to cultivate the image that he was in debt.

Then he’d go to an even more discreet club. The type of gambling hell few gentlemen of the ton even knew about, and there, there, he won large fortunes. Enough to have more than quadrupled the amount his father had left.

But even with that carefully fostered