Taffeta & Hotspur (3 page)

Taffy was off the sofa and standing
with them, wagging her finger at her brother with good humor,
laughing, pointing out references from the Chronicle, quoting
members of Parliament, and fascinating him.

He was taken aback by her, sure he
should not be conversing with such a young chit in such a fashion
and yet…

Her style had caught his interest, and
the next thing he knew, he was watching the way she moved. Her walk
was a series of bounces—so full of life, and her body looked so
damned provocative. There was something in her every step
displaying she was happy to be alive, and yet, she was graceful and
feminine. She was new, shiny and bright … but he knew better than
to fall victim to such charms. She seemed to glide in a whirlwind
of unconscious high spirits and displayed sweet affection when his
aunt had remarked something amusing. She hugged his aunt
affectionately and placed a kiss upon her white cheek.

“
Don’t squeeze me so,
child,” cried Lady Watson with a laugh. “I’m too old and will, in
all likelihood, crack.” She took Taffy’s hand. “Now … in with you …
time to eat.”

“
Is it true they call you
the Hotspur…?” Seth asked as they walked toward the dining
room.

His uncle exclaimed in a shocked
accent, “Seth!”

“
What?” He took to
blushing.

Tarrant laughed out loud and bowed his
head. “The same, sir,” he said as he noted from the corner of his
eye Lady Taffeta was studying him rather openly. It was not a
surprising circumstance. He had achieved over the years an
education in the arts of the female. He had been subjected to maids
of many admirable qualities and had suffered more than he cared to
remember from their missish airs and coy flirtations. He knew he
was a marriage prize. He knew, but it had not always been so. It
had not been true when his oldest brother had still been alive with
both the title and most of the fortune. He had only been the second
son and had been in love with a beautiful woman, but she had wanted
more … more than the second son.

He understood the game, and he loathed
its intricacies and its inherent dishonesty.

They reached the dining room, took
their seats, and Taffeta asked him across the table, “That black of
yours, the stud we saw when we came up the drive, is magnificent. I
don’t think he was here when we were last,” she said and then
turned to his aunt, “Was he, Lizzie dear?”

“
Absurd child, what would I
do with such a beast? His name is Demon, and he belongs to Tarrant
here,” answered Lady Watson. “His lordship is considered quite a
horseman, and we believe Demon will let no other on his
back.”

“
A Corinthian is what his
lordship is.” Taffy’s brother stuck in and then receded into a
deprecatory cough. “Or so I have heard…”

Taffy turned her bright gray,
interested gaze back to Lord Tarrant. “So then, are you saying
Demon is the very devil to handle, my lord?” Her eyes twinkled at
him, and once again he was mesmerized by her.

“
That he is, in fact it’s
how he got his name.” He discovered that against his will, she had
drawn a smile from him. He had meant to ignore her to the point of
rudeness.

Lady Watson’s pug, at this point,
managed to push open the dining room door, which had not been
totally closed. He stopped at the threshold, surveying the
assembled group, and with a screeching series of barks, ran over,
and dove into Lady Taffeta’s lap.

She petted the dog with a laugh,
saying, “Do stop it, you vicious, adorable little thing. There now,
go sit by Lizzie … there is a good boy.”

~*~

With this, Taffy returned her
attention to her companions and discovered Nigel and her brother
had engaged Tarrant in conversation, and she used the time to
better peruse him.

He was the man from her dream. She had
seen this at once, and how she had controlled the fit of coughing
she nearly succumbed to, was more than she presently
knew.

At first she thought she must be
wrong, but when she looked at him fully, she knew, he was the man …
only he had been naked in her vision … and … this was wrong—all
wrong.

He was devastatingly handsome … more
handsome than any man she had ever seen, however here, unlike in
her dream, he appeared cold-hearted and arrogant. Yes, insufferably
arrogant.

His manners, though polite, had been
decidedly aloof. She decided he was probably no better than any
London Corinthian puffed up in his own consequence. He could not be
the man in her vision. She knew she could never be romantic with
such a man … and it was clear he certainly was not interested in
her.

She shrugged him off in her mind and
returned her attention to Lady Watson who had smiled and asked,
“And so, my child, you will be leaving for London and dear Sissy’s
soon? Are you very excited?

“
No, dreading it, in fact,”
Taffy said on a heavy sigh. “It is bound to be dull
work.”

Lord Tarrant regarded her, and she
was, for a moment, caught up in his gaze.

“
London … dull work?” he
quizzed.

She wasn’t sure if she liked his tone
or the manner in which he lifted his dark brow, as though he didn’t
believe her. “Yes, dull work, when one considers what it is all
about—at least to a female.”

“
How do you
mean?”

“
Sissy will insist I put up
my hair all the time, and no doubt outfit me in the most
fashionable gowns and make me hold my tongue and ride sedately and
all manner of horrible things, and why? Because I must be paraded
and then sold to the highest bidder! Outrageous. The entire thing a
bore.”

“
Perhaps.” He grinned. “But
I rather think all those things will bring you some measure of
entertainment.”

“
No it won’t. The haute ton
my aunt so desperately intends for me to enter sounds a dim-witted
lot only interested in the cut of their clothes and the latest
on-dit.”

He laughed, and she heard the genuine
amusement in his laugh before he said, “You may be pleasantly
surprised.”

She considered this with a wrinkle of
her nose. “Do you think so? This is what Nigel and Seth keep
saying, so perhaps you are right.”

“
Moppet,” said Lady Watson
with a shake of her head. “As though you have anything exciting
happening here in Nottingham.”

“
But we do. What of the
Luddites?” Taffy bit her tongue. She couldn’t possibly tell Lady
Watson what was so exciting about the Luddite movement.

“
Luddites, eh?” said
Tarrant. “We had something of a riot last week in the Riding
Country. It is a terrible business, and at present, I don’t see a
solution.”

“
The solution is to pay
these people a fair wage. It is the only solution,” said Taffy with
feeling. “Shouldn’t England’s peers work in Parliament to do just
that?”

“
Indeed, Taffy is quite
right, you know. It is Parliament’s duty,” said Nigel.

“
The only talk I have heard
in Parliament about the Luddites is a heated desire to put them to
trial,” said Tarrant with a shake of his head.

“
Monstrous!” cried
Taffy.

She found Tarrant looking into her
eyes and was caught off guard a moment, but only for a fraction of
a moment when he said, “You must feel strongly. Your eyes are alive
with gold lit flames…”

Was he actually flirting with her? She
blasted such a thought away. No, he was not; he looked at her like
she was nothing more than an ignorant school girl. She was sitting
and still managed to put her hands on her hips, “Of course I feel
strongly. We should all of us feel strongly. Such things should not
be allowed to go on.”

“
However, they are too often
a part of life,” he answered quietly. “You are young and a bit
naïve still, and as I have no wish to shoot down your ideals, I
shall leave it at that.”

“
Well, I am not naïve,” her
brother interjected with some vigor. “And my sister is quite
correct. We can not allow such things to stand.”

“
Indeed,” added Taffy with
strenuously. “If men in your position worked to prevent
injustices…” She shook her head and saw he was staring at her
again. Was she getting through to him? Did he agree with their
point of view? Would he help them in Parliament? “Are you aware, my
lord, these people’s working conditions at the mill are not
bearable? Are you aware of the pitiful wages, of the dangers from
the machinery … the hours they are forced to work?”

Her brother was clearly drawn in by
her passion. “Indeed, Tarrant, they are worked on better than slave
labor. They are starving, so they accept anything they can get, and
their employers take advantage of that.”

“
Yes, I quite agree with you
… their situation is dire, but what they need to do is make active
verbal protest. I can’t condone their riots—the smashing of
machinery, their attacks of violence on innocent people. Good lord,
lad, I have even heard of a group of Luddites here in Nottingham
who meets in Sherwood Forest. It is said they have taken to robbing
the rich on the highway in the name of Robin Hood with the excuse
they are giving to the poor.”

“
And why was Robin Hood
admired as a hero for his efforts, and these people scorned?” she
asked heatedly.

“
Robin Hood is a legend.”
His voice was grim as he continued, “The Luddites are a fact of
life, and another fact is they will be crushed if they continue in
their present course.”

Taffy was frustrated, and she allowed
it to show. Men just did not think women should involve themselves
in politics, and she was heartily sick of this attitude.

“
Well, as a peer of the
realm, I for one, plan to do something about it when I get to
London,” declared Seth with feeling.

“
Aye,” agreed Nigel. “We’ll
take them on, won’t we, Seth?

Soup plates were placed in front of
them, and Lady Watson, with a pleasant smile, said, “Now, enough
talk of politics. Cook has prepared a wonderful potato and leek
soup, and we must not allow it to get cold…”

Chapter Two

It was late afternoon, and Lady Taffy
was sparring for wind. Thurston Tarrant, the rakehell Hotspur, was
the man in her visions—no doubt about it whatsoever.

This is, of course, impossible, she
told herself. Her dream vision had to be off somehow—could be off?
Now and then, she managed to change a vision, not often, but it did
change. Oh, this was all wrong.

She had come home in a great
irritation of nerves, changed into her green riding habit, plopped
a matching top hat on her head, grimaced at her reflection, and
thrown it off. How could she have been dreaming about such a cad of
a man? He was a rogue of rogues. He was a heartbreaker … why had
she seen him naked and … why had she been naked? What a stupid
question. She set this aside. It had to have been some strange
quirk of the mind. She wasn’t getting the entire story from the
small snippet of a premonition—that was it, it had to
be.

What she needed was a good run to
dissipate her confusion and put her back in order. But the thing
was, she was in a state of agitation because never before had she
met such a man as Thurston Tarrant.

Her brother had said he was the very
devil with the ladies. Oh yes, the rakehell Hotspur could certainly
have no place in her life. What she wanted when she fell in loved
was not a rakehell, but a man who would love only her—faithfully.
This one, this Hotspur, would be faithful to no one
woman.

Her brother had said there wasn’t a
woman who didn’t want him, eh? Well, she could see Tarrant
thoroughly believed in his own myth. Hotspur, indeed! And then her
mind’s eye recalled his perfect naked body reaching for her in her
dream. She recalled how she felt in her vision, hot and ready and
willing. It brought on a wave of heat in the present, and her blood
surged through her body. This had to stop. The vision was a mistake
… an error … a false dream that meant nothing.

He was an arrogant, rude, and puffed
up in his own consequence sort, and he had been impudent enough to
think she was interested in him. Well, at least she had managed
quite neatly put any such notions he might have had on that score
deeply into the earth.

She had exchanged dagger for dagger,
hit for hit, during lunch and then again just as she quit his
company. But the truth was it had not been pleasant, and she had
not enjoyed a moment of the cold war he had engaged her in during
their afternoon.

Lady Taffeta had been cosseted and
adored all her life. What little she could remember of her mother
had been dear and loving. Her father had openly adored her. Seth
and Nigel were wont to tease her, but never had they, or any of
their friends, treated her with such disdain. More than that, their
friends had recently been quite gallant and flirtatious, a
circumstance she had been learning to appreciate.

This Hotspur had the audacity to think
she had set her cap for him, so she had spent the entire luncheon
trying to convince him of the reverse—vision be damned! The effort
had left her breathless with chagrin. These agitating thoughts had
taken her stomping toward the stables where she had tacked up her
chestnut gelding without benefit of her groom’s help.