Pleasure For Pleasure (30 page)

“'Tis a sad thing to lose one's virginity,” she said, her eyes dancing with laughter.

“Is it?”

“I shall never call a unicorn to my side now, you realize.”

“Are you acquainted with a good many horned quadrupeds?”

“There was a bull in my father's pasture one year who was monstrously ferocious,” Josie said. “His name was Bumble, but you could hardly say we were acquainted, for all he almost gored me from behind.”

“More the fool you to go into his pasture,” Mayne said.

“How did you know I did that?”

“Because I know you, Josephine. You will always go into the bull's pasture, and I suspect I shall spend the rest of my misspent life keeping you safe.”

“No you won't.”

“I won't?”

“You'll be too busy,” Josie said. “With your stables. You know, I had an idea about that.”

He hated talking to other people about his stables, but he was so comfortable that though he waited for the little chill of disfavor to settle over him, it didn't.

“What do you think would happen if you bred Manderliss with Sharon?”

“Nothing much,” he said. “Sharon has that bent hock, you know.”

She was silent for a moment. “But she also has those gorgeous long withers.”

“And if you put them together with Manderliss's speed and stamina, it would be splendid,” Mayne agreed, tucking her even closer. “The pair I was thinking about is Sharon and Seaswept.”

“Really?” Josie sounded doubtful. “Didn't you tell me that Seaswept has a slight sway back?”

He loved the fact that she had never forgotten even the tiniest details he'd told her about his stables. He told her that a year ago.

“You know who else would be a good match?” Josie said. “Rafe's Hades.”

“His withers are too short.”

“But Sharon's withers are long, so perhaps it will all work out. I think it's tiresome the way people only mate horses within their own stables, unless they pay extraordinary amounts to stud a champion who won a race or two. The best champions come from lively mixtures,” Josie said with conviction.

Mayne thought that over. “Actually, Rafe has a young mare in his stables who might be a brilliant match with Seaswept.”

“In that case, you could trade with him, and mate Manderliss with his Lady Macbeth. Because I can just imagine the colt they would produce.”

Mayne could too: a gorgeous, flowing-maned bronze horse.

“We'll have to live on your estate,” Josie said rather sleepily. “You can't let someone else play about with a colt from Manderliss and Lady Macbeth.”

“Of course,” Mayne said, knowing that he had meant to all along. He was tired of being an absentee horse manager. Tired of reading the breeding magazines, and arranging things, and then leaving for the season, even though it was foaling time.

“Won't you miss London?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Josie said. “I'll have to leave you on your own in the country while I gallivant at balls.”

The surge he felt in his chest stunned him and he was silent.

“I'm just joking,” Josie said, with a gurgle of laughter in her voice. And then she was asleep.

So he lay there and resorted his priorities. There were the stables and the season and London. All those tawdry days and nights lost at Almack's and less savory places fell to the bottom of the list. His stables rose to the top.

But perhaps…not quite to the top.

There was something else too.

But he didn't want to explore that thought; it felt too frightening to explore.

I
t was embarrassing, waking up again to find that afternoon light was streaming in the windows. But her maid didn't seem to think it amiss when she finally climbed out of the bath, dressed, and wandered downstairs. In fact, Josie was rather shocked by how kindly everyone was, until she realized that she was now the mistress of the house.

In truth, she felt like a guest. How could she be married to Mayne? Josie, Countess of Mayne? It did not ring true. Perhaps this was all a dream.

And yet…

She'd
done it
!

She probably looked like a complete idiot, smiling to herself. But wasn't a woman allowed a moment of triumph? Josie walked straight past the dining room and out the glass-paned doors leading to the side garden. She knew where her husband would be on a fine morning—well, afternoon—and he wouldn't be indoors.

“It's all quite straightforward,” she said aloud to herself, the laughter bubbling up inside, “Tess married, and then Annabel married, and then Imogen married—

“And then
I
married!”

It sounded like a fairy tale, it really did. All four of them married. Happy.

She was going to be the best wife that Mayne ever imagined. She would be sweet and loving to him at all times. Not that it would be any great sacrifice. She actually caught herself skipping on her way to the stables around the back of the house.

She knew perfectly well what kind of women men fell in love with. Honey-sweet women. Since she would never be angry or sharp-tempered, he was as good as hers.

She found Mayne leaning against a stall talking to Billy. He looked up at her with a smile.

“Good morning to you, Billy,” Josie said, ignoring her husband for the moment. “And how are you keeping yourself since the Ascot? Have there been any more problems with those devilish nuts?”

“Not a bit of it,” Billy said. “I used the recipe you sent me, your lady. And may I say that all of us here in the stables are that happy about your marriage to his lordship? We don't think he could have found a better match for hisself in all of England.”

Josie could feel herself going a little pink.

“What do you think of Selkie?” Mayne asked. Selkie
was a big, rangy chestnut with plenty of bone in his leg.

“He's lovely,” Josie said, holding out her hand so Selkie could lip her palm.

Mayne reached over and scratched Selkie between the eyes. “He did very well for me. He won a few small races and then was cut out at the Derby. He doesn't quite have the heart for racing; if he feels as if he's losing, he just settles back and accepts his place. I'm retiring him to stud.”

“Is he an Arabian?”

“Exactly. By way of the Byerley Turk.”

“Byerley was all the way back in the 1600s, wasn't he?”

“What a pleasure to have a wife with such extraordinary knowledge of horses.”

It was all so companionable and pleasant that Josie could never have believed what happened next. But however it happened, within a few minutes she and Mayne were bellowing at each other. Bellowing!

It was all Mayne's fault. He had picked up the idea somewhere that the sire, the male horse, introduced to his sons the characteristics of his own father, but passed on to his daughters the characteristics of his mother.

“I don't agree,” Josie said quite reasonably. “In fact, that's absurd. You're saying that characteristics are qualified by the gender of the animal.”

“Precisely,” Mayne said. “You see it all the time. If you put a stallion to stud who has a well-ribbed body, you'll find it in a colt. If the result is a filly…no. Characteristics pass on through the male line to the male. And the reverse.”

“Absurd,”
Josie said again, warming up to her subject. “Let's take a really famous horse as an example. Where do you think that Eclipse's offspring got all that temperament they exhibit? Not from Eclipse. It comes through the mares they put him to stud with. What's more, Eclipse's sire was Marske, and yet Eclipse's broad chest came from his dame, Spilletta. Everyone says that!”

“You can't know that something as ephemeral as temperament came from the maternal side,” Mayne said.

“I certainly do,” Josie said. “And I'm not alone in that opinion.
Racing Journal
noted that Eclipse's offspring follow their mother more readily than their father. Why do you think that none of them were as great a racer as he was?”

“Because some combinations tend to highlight defects in the line,” Mayne pointed out. His eyes were narrowed a bit and he didn't look quite as lazy as he usually did. “And frankly, how can you say that King Fergus wasn't as great a racer?”

“Because he wasn't.”

“His sire line has some of the greatest horses in this country!”

“Eclipse's offspring were temperamental—vicious even—because he was put to stud with twitchy mares. Every single one of them!” Josie stated. “The fact is that you can't dictate what qualities will come from where. We had Nectarine, a lovely bay, brownish red with white feet and a white blaze. He was fifteen hands at the least. Our broodmare Gentian had shown that she could throw a winner, but every single colt he sired on her had a short pelvis. And
that
came from the bay's mother.”

“There are always exceptions,” Mayne persisted. “As I said, some combinations highlight defects. Who knows whether that short pelvis really came from the bay's mother? Your Gentian might have had a whole family of hobbling sires in her line. After all, record keeping was hardly adequate in Scotland twenty years ago.”

With a little cough, Billy scooted sideways and out the door of the stable.

“As a matter of fact, we
were
keeping record books,” Josie said, scowling at Mayne. “My grandfather detailed every horse that passed through his hands. I can tell you without
hesitation that Gentian didn't have a short pelvis anywhere in her line.”

“There will always be exceptions to any case, but a breeding program has to be organized around a principle. I've seen enough evidence for this idea that I've designed next year's program around it.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “No wonder you haven't had a solid win in two years.”

“An unjust observation. After all, I haven't even started this breeding program.”

“May I see it?”

“Are you going to be kind?”

“Do you want kindness or a win? Don't be an—” She caught herself.

“I suspect my new wife was about to call me a name,” Mayne said.

“Never,” Josie said, although she was guiltily aware that husbands didn't like to be called
asses.
She'd almost forgotten about being honey-sweet.

But a moment later, reading his breeding program, she forgot it again. “You're dreaming if you think that you'll get a good match from breeding Selkie with Tisane. You forget that I know Tisane. She raced against one of my father's horses two years ago at the Kelso races. She would have won, except that she didn't care enough.”

“That wasn't the reason,” Mayne protested.

“Yes, it was,” Josie stated. “I had the distinct impression that Tisane was a little afraid of being run over. That is
not
something that you want to redouble by breeding her with a stallion who has no spirit.” She stroked Selkie's nose to apologize for the insult.

“You can't expect the characteristics of the parents to transmute perfectly into the sire line. I'm not worrying about these horses having poor performances because it's
their
parents' qualities that will skip into their progeny.”

“Absolutely absurd,” Josie said again. “I'd think you'd been out in the sun too long if you were standing before me. Do you really think that children take after their grandparents only? What about you? Are you expecting our daughter to look like your mother? I think not!”

“I hope not,” Mayne said. “I adore my mother, but she has a voice like a bullfrog.”

“According to you, our daughter will inherit a bullfrog's temperament, then,” Josie said. “Luckily for her, your theory is utter drivel.”

Mayne burst out laughing. “Now I'm going to start praying that our daughter's temperament doesn't take after her mother's!”

Josie blinked at him and then realized she'd forgotten. Utterly forgotten that she was a honey-sweet wife.

Mayne was still laughing at her when she saw something change in his eyes. He glanced down the long, empty corridor of the stables. No one was there except for a few horses drowsing in their stalls as flecks of straw floated through the shafts of sunlight. “I'll show you the lofts,” he said, taking her hand.

“The lofts?” Josie questioned, and then reminded herself to be nice. Very nice. “Of course, darling,” she said. “Whatever you wish.”

He took her over to the ladder against the wall. Then he paused. “Are you able to climb a ladder?”

Josie rolled her eyes and then nipped up the ladder so that he wouldn't have time to examine her bottom. As a consequence, she went up the rungs so quickly that her slipper caught at the top and she fell sprawling into a pile of hay.

Laughter sounded behind her and she had the prickly sense that he was gazing at her bottom, so she flipped over.

Sure enough, he was standing at the opening, legs spread, looking about as delicious as any man had the right to look. His pantaloons clung to his legs as if they were painted
there. It just wasn't fair, to Josie's mind, that he came by that body of his naturally, and she…

He didn't bend down and pick her up; instead he squatted down next to her, just as if she were a small girl who'd fallen in the grass. “What are you thinking about?”

“Your legs,” she said honestly.

He snorted with laughter. “You're thinking about my legs. Legs? What's there to think about?”

Suddenly she was feeling
it
again, that lovely sweet singing low in her belly, and the racing in her blood that made her feel just right in her body, not plump, not awkward—just right. She turned on her side and put her hand on his knee. “Don't you know?”

“No.”

“You've probably heard symphonies of praise about your body. I don't want to make you any vainer than you already are.”

He laughed again, a dark soft sound deep in his throat. “Believe it or not, among those women to whom you refer so casually not a single one mentioned my legs.”

“They must have been blind,” she said. It was hard to ignore the muscles bunched in his thighs. They made her want to dance a little waltz, right here in the straw. And by the look of his eyes, he knew it.

“Now you,” he said slowly, “you didn't have the hundred lovers that I was lucky enough to experience.”

She pouted, the kind of pout that pushed out her lips. His eyes caught there and she felt more like dancing than ever. “One of the many unfair things about being a woman rather than a man.”

“You missed nothing by it. That's what I wanted to say. Nothing. Not a single woman praised my legs.”

“Well, what did they praise?” she asked, surprised out of her haze of desire for a moment. “This is a most improper conversation,” she added, looking at his grin.

“You, Josie, are quite often improper,” her husband said. “I think it's a congenital trait. In fact, I would guess that our daughter will be at risk of getting herself thrown out of the
ton
for impropriety if we don't watch her closely.”

He had given in, albeit silently, on the breeding program, Josie realized. He had listened to her and he meant to change his program on the basis of her logic. No one ever had done such a thing before, surely not her father, who laughed at her every suggestion until she stopped making them.

“Your legs are beautiful,” she said, with a shaky little catch in her voice. “I—” But she couldn't think how to phrase what she meant. Something about the muscles and the hardness of him and the way he was everything she wasn't: powerful and yet graceful, with no unnecessary bits or blobs about him.

“The odd thing is that I would say the same to you, but never of myself,” Mayne said, and he really did sound puzzled. His hands were stealing up her skirts and she let it happen.

“My legs—” she said, and broke off. There was no point in detailing her feelings about that.

“Soft and curvy,” he said, his fingers discovering just that softness. The dancing feeling was back, so strong that she almost twitched her hips. “Your skin is as white as a petal. I know that's not very original.” His hands were on her thighs now. He was over her, and she closed her eyes because there was something in his face that made her feel…

Odd.

“I think I like you here the best of all,” he whispered. His fingers were under her, shaping her bottom. The very bottom she had scampered up the ladder so that he couldn't see. “It's got the kind of curve that could make a man burst into tears, you know, Josie?”

“No,” she whispered.

He was kissing her neck. “Your thighs make a man want
to sink into you, sip you, taste all the sweetness you're hiding.”

“Oh,” Josie breathed. She had her hands in his rumpled dark hair, but his head slipped away and then he was there, tasting the sweetness, and the muddled pleasured joy of it spread through her body.

It wasn't all that much later when she was shuddering, her dress around her waist, and she didn't even care that the sunlight was there and he could see everything, not when his eyes were wild and dark, and telling her—