'Oh, for Christ's sake! Go to sleep.' He pulled his coat back on and headed for the door. 'And don't wear that damned braid to bed anymore.'
Dimly aware that she was not thinking clearly, she pulled herself up with as much dignity as she could manage. 'If you don't like it, husband, then I shall take it out immediately.'
With great difficulty, she put her feet over the side of the bed and stood, her stomach queasy at the sudden movement. 'Whatever you say, I'll do. You're my lord, my master. Wives must please their husbands, mustn't be cowards.' She stumbled across the room toward him, unbraiding the single plait with clumsy fingers as she moved.
Her stomach lurched, and she realized with horror that she was going to be sick. In that instant, Quinn picked her up and carried her outside. By the time the spasms overcame her, he was holding her head over the back of a clump of bracken. When her stomach was finally empty, he carried her back into the house and put her to bed. Then he left her.
Noelle lay wakeful for some time. The embarrassment she would normally have felt at being sick in his presence was somewhat tempered by her realization that he intended to leave her alone. She had made her gesture; he had refused it. Now she could live with herself. Her eyes began to feel heavy, and when she finally fell asleep, it was in the middle of the bed, her arms stretched luxuriously above her head.
Chapter Twenty-three
'Wake up, Highness. That scurvy little mare of yours is ready to be ridden.' Quinn's voice was bright with good humor. 'Put on your breeches and let's get started.'
'No,' Noelle moaned as she brought a limp palm to her forehead, trying to soothe away the throbbing reminder of last night's wine. 'Not today. Maybe tomorrow.'
'Out of that bed before I drag you out!'
Painfully she inched her eyes to narrow golden slits and saw him standing at the foot of the bed. A lazy smile parted his lips, but the determination in his eyes made it clear that he would do as he threatened if she defied him.
With a protracted groan, she rose from the bed and staggered toward her clothes. She pulled her breeches on under her nightgown and then, as Quinn turned his back to go to the fire, hastily took off the enveloping garment and slipped into her shirt. After she had finished a bitter cup of coffee he thrust into her hand, she felt somewhat better. For the first time she noticed a package on the table. 'What's this?'
'Open it and see.'
Inside was a pair of riding boots, the same warm, chestnutbrown as the mare he had given her yesterday. Noelle stroked the soft, pliable leather regretfully. 'I know your gift is kindly intended, but I won't accept any more presents from you.'
If she expected him to be upset by her refusal, she was disappointed. 'My intentions weren't kind at all. Just practical. Or were you planning to ride in those silly slippers? Now, be outside in five minutes. I'll bring your horse around.'
Five minutes later, conspicuously clad in her new boots, a sullen Noelle was waiting in front of the cottage. Her foul mood vanished, however, as soon as her mare came into sight.
She extracted an apple from her pocket. 'Good moming, Chestnut Lady. Pretty Chestnut.'
'Hold it out with your palm flat,' Quinn told her. 'Otherwise, she might take a few fingers with it.'
Noelle did not bother to inform him that an animal with Chestnut's obvious intelligence was perfectly capable of distinguishing between fruit and fingers.
'When you're back in London, showing yourself off in Rotten Row, you'll undoubtedly insist on riding sidesaddle like the rest of the foolish women there, but here you'll ride astride,' Quinn declared as he checked the girth and lowered the stirrups. 'Riding sidesaddle is the easiest way there is for a woman to break her neck. It's a stupid custom.'
Privately Noelle was delighted, but her capitulation in the matter of the riding boots made her perverse. 'No gentleman would actually expect a lady to straddle a horse.'
'You're probably right. But since I'm not a gentleman, I expect you to do more than sit on her back like a pretty ornament. Unless you ride astride, you'll never really feel the power of the animal or know the excitement of control.'
He looked down at her wryly. 'Or are you afraid you won't be able to manage her?'
Noelle's small nostrils flared defiantly. 'Teach me to ride your way. Then ask me if I'm afraid.'
By early afternoon, when Quinn finally called a halt to her lesson, she was making confident circles around the cottage with her spine straight, stomach tucked in, and arms close to her sides. Noelle was quick to point out that the formal riding style he insisted she adopt was markedly different from his own easy slouch in the saddle.
'Americans ride differently,' was the only explanation he offered, but she suspected that he was as capable of riding in the English manner as the best horseman in London.
Their time together was markedly free of strain. Quinn patiently explained each new step and willingly answered all the questions her fertile mind produced. He was unfailingly charming as well as generous in his praise of her accomplishments, and Noelle, lulled by his amiability and basking in the approval of so demanding a teacher, wondered if she had misjudged him.
Before Quinn fell asleep that night he thought back over their day together. For some time now he had been aware of her intelligence, but it was not until today as they had eaten lunch at the edge of the tarn that he had taken the time to probe its dimensions. What he had discovered amazed him.
In a short period of time, she had acquired an education that was vastly superior to that which most women acquired over the course of a lifetime. He knew of only one other female with such intellectual scope, and, in Noelle's remarkable education, he detected the fine hand of Constance Peale.
He frowned and shifted in the straw. It had been somehow easier to think of his wife as an unscrupulous pickpocket than as a beautiful woman whose intelligence would do credit to a man.
After four days of lessons, Quinn declared that Noelle was ready for a longer excursion and they set off after breakfast. Noelle tucked her hair under the boy's cap she had found and unaware of Quinn's assessing gaze, swung a slender leg expertly across the saddle.
They set out across the moor, through stretches of bracken and gorse, across shallow becks strewn with water-smoothed rocks. Noelle, the child of London's crowded slums, reveled in the untenanted vastness of it. Throughout the morning, she found herself laughing, partly from the sheer joy of being outside on Chestnut's back but, just as often, from a story Quinn told or a joke he made. Once again she found herself letting down her guard and responding to his charm.
Toward noon, they came upon the ruins of an abandoned abbey. Their voices were hollow echoes as they dismounted and companionably explored the crumbling stones that, three hundred years before, had housed the pious enemies of Henry VIII.
Noelle stared at the one remaining upright wall with its six perfect Gothic arches empty against the sky. Captive to the mood of the place, she took off her cap and absentmindedly shook out her hair. As Quinn watched the honey strands catch the sunlight his resolve to have her on his own terms became indurate. He came up behind her. 'You can almost hear the priests petitioning God for Anne Boleyn's damnation, can't you?'
'They were doomed anyway, I think. She was just the catalyst. Henry's pride wouldn't allow him to be subject to anyone, not even a pope.' The breeze picked up the ends of her hair as she turned to him and added quietly, 'But then, you understand all that better than I, don't you?'
He laughed, softening the hard line of his mouth. Since he had left London, he had not bothered to shave, and the beard which now covered his jaw made him look more the pirate than ever. She was once again struck by how ruggedly handsome he was.
'Poor Highness,' he said softly. 'Are you afraid I'll have you beheaded?' Eyes shimmering with desire that he
