Recklessly Yours

Masterfield Park lay dark and silent when Douglas turned the carriage up the drive sometime between midnight and dawn. Colin didn’t have him stop at the house, but ordered him to circle to the stables. With sleepy eyes, Holly nodded her agreement. They would see to the horses before seeking their own comfort.

A haggard-looking Mr. Peterson met them in the cobbled forecourt as Colin handed Holly down from the carriage. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before, my lord. One or two horses at a time, yes, but not an entire stable full.”

“First we noticed a slightly unsteady gait on some of the horses, and a tightening of their flanks, as though they were holding their bellies. The intestinal symptoms began soon after, and I’ve noticed dilated pupils on some.”

“All moved elsewhere, at the first sign of illness. But your family’s personal mounts are fit as fiddles—so far. It’s the racehorses and hunters that are affected.”

Peterson’s gaze traveled up and down her cloaked form, and Colin experienced a moment’s remorse in having exposed her to speculation. The expression of concern never slipped from the veterinarian’s features, however. If he found anything unusual about the two of them having traveled through the night together, he didn’t show it.

“That we have, miss.” The man gestured to the archway that separated the two wings of the stables. “The grooms have been alternating the sick animals, walking them all night long. I’ve ordered extra water and they’ve had nothing to eat but the purest hay.”

Peterson trailed off. He and Colin both knew that a blight might not be apparent to the naked eye. “I want samples brought to my office.”

“Good.” Colin pinched the bridge of his nose and attempted to blink the fatigue from his eyes. “Still, I’d like to run my own analysis. Bring me clearly labeled samples of the hay and the water. I need to know exactly where each sample comes from.”

Colin thought a moment, and then a notion struck him. “Are you sure all the horses are consuming the same feed? Didn’t some of our guests bring their own feed formulas for the horses they boarded here for the races? Could some of it have been left behind and gotten mixed in with our own?”

“Retired, I believe, sir, though she was here helping direct the grooms until long after midnight. I caught her yawning and insisted she get some rest. Your brothers helped as well. We needed as many hands as possible to keep the horses moving.”

Colin nodded, glad to hear the family was getting much-needed rest. Exhaustion dragged at his bones, but not merely due to the present crisis. He’d spent his lifetime holding his family together, mediating, consoling, encouraging, protecting . . . only to be faced now with circumstances that stretched beyond his control. What would happen should events continue careening down their present course? What future would there be for the Ashworth family? Financially, they would remain unscathed, for the bulk of their fortune came from other sources. But these horses provided so much more than money, rewards such as pride and a sense of accomplishment.

He extended his arm to Holly. He found himself needing the support of her stubborn spirit, her frankness; heaven help him, even her rebukes bolstered him, forced him to admit the truth and take action, rather than brood and accept defeat.

He needed that now. Needed to believe, as she did, that they could fight their way to happiness. As if sensing his need, she slid her hand into the crook of his arm and walked with him across the forecourt to the heavy door that led directly into the office he kept here in the stables. Before they went inside, he turned back to Peterson. “Would you send one of the grooms up to the house to ask that tea be brought down, please?”

Inside, a groom appeared and lit the brazier. Some minutes later Peterson himself brought in a tray of refreshments. Holly had removed the cloak she’d borrowed from the dowager duchess and stood warming her hands in front of the hissing coal heater. Colin dragged the only other chair besides his own closer to the desk.

“We’ve been sitting for hours and hours.” She sent a rueful glance over her shoulder, but then turned and approached the desk. “But something hot and filling sounds heavenly.” She unstacked two cups and placed them on their saucers. She poured tea into both, spooned in some sugar, and added trickles of milk. Then she selected a treacle bun from the platter Peterson had brought.

Colin perched on the corner of the desk and drained half his tea, not caring that the hot liquid burned his tongue. The brew was black and strong, precisely what he needed to start his mind working. All he required now were the samples.

She popped a remaining morsel of bun into her mouth and set her teacup down. When she came to stand in the V of his knees, he drained the last of his tea, set it aside, and encircled her waist with his arms. “I’m sorry for the way I behaved on the way here.”

“For which behavior?” Her eyebrow rose in a show of censure, while the twitch of her lips hinted at humor. “The dismissal or the ravishment?”

Her forthrightness drew a laugh from him in spite of everything. “Both, I suppose. Holly . . .” He ran his gaze over her—her lovely figure with its athletic curves, her straight, brave posture, her beautiful face with its endearing blend of fortitude and innocence. He reached up to caress her cheek. “The time isn’t right for us.”

As if on cue, a knock at the door separated them. She returned to the heat of the brazier; he opened the door and admitted three young grooms, their arms filled with sacks, scripted notes pinned to each. A fourth groom carrying a bucket half filled with water followed them into the room.

Colin helped the lads arrange the parcels on the long table against the far wall of the office. They exited single file and shut the door behind them. Colin opened a cabinet and reached inside.

He drew out the wood and brass contraption, which appeared much like a short telescope mounted on a wooden stand, and set it on the table. “It’s a microscope.”

She heaved an appreciative sigh and joined him at the table. “It’s beautiful. Even Simon doesn’t have one as grand as this.”

She bestowed upon him perhaps the proudest smile anyone had ever afforded him . . . the sort of approval a young boy longs to see on his father’s face, but which, of course, he never had.

“May I?” she said with a note of awe. With a forefinger she reached out, nearly but not quite touching one of the brass brackets. He gestured his permission, and she leaned over to place an eye over the viewing lens. She wiggled the small round mirror set in the base. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because you need more light, and something to examine.” He’d already moved across the room to the shelves where he stored the small lanterns he had designed specifically for this purpose. With polished steel reflectors that directed the light exactly where he needed it, he could illuminate the tiniest particle brightly enough to be explored through the telescope’s lens. Returning to the table, he lit the lanterns and reached for the first of the samples. “I’ll need your help,” he said.

He nodded toward his desk. “You’ll find a notation tablet and pencils. Bring them here. You’re going to record my findings.”

“Yes, sir,” came her enthusiastic reply, followed by a delighted little laugh. “This is how Ivy must have felt the first time she assisted Simon in his laboratory.” Her gaze met his and her face immediately fell. “Colin, I’m sorry. This is no time for merriment.”

He smiled sadly. “No. But I do understand. I was once a young science student.” After selecting a scoop from an assortment hung on the wall just above the table, he opened the first of the sample bags, poured a small amount of grain into a mortar, and ground it into a powder. From a drawer he took two glass specimen plates, sandwiched a pinch of powder between them, and set them into the base of the microscope. “Now then, let’s see if we can’t determine what the devil is going on here.”

Nearly two hours later Colin removed the last specimen from the microscope and set it onto the tabletop with a force that made Holly flinch. She peered around his shoulder to see if the plates had shattered beneath his hand, but seeing neither bits of glass nor blood, she gave a little sigh of relief.

And of frustration. They’d gone through every sample of grain and hay as well as numerous droplets of the water and discovered nothing unusual. Holly had taken copious notes, copying down nearly every word Colin had spoken, even what he had absently murmured under his breath.

He propped his elbows on the table and let his head fall into his hands. “It’s useless. I see no sign of any sort of blight.”

The flatness of his tone worried her. He was once more losing hope, and with it his confidence in his abilities as both a scientist and a horse breeder. Her hand hovered over his sagging shoulder; uncertain how best to offer comfort, she settled her palm against the curve of his neck. “Perhaps we missed something.”

His eyes were glazed and red-rimmed from anxiety, lack of sleep, and the intensive concentration of the past two hours. “Maybe the answer is under my nose. I’ve been looking for a foreign element. Perhaps it’s the feed itself. Pass me another sampling.”

When she did, he brought the lantern closer, poured the feed onto the table in front of him and leaned down to examine it closely. He sat like that for some minutes, running his fingertips through the grains, separating them, piling them together, rolling them apart. Then he picked up a leafy granule between his thumb and forefinger and peered at it with one eye.

“There is something about the color of some of this grain . . . it’s too green. . . .” His head snapped up. “I need the library. Let’s go up to the house.”

He gathered up the strewn piles of her notes and grabbed the feed bag. Without looking back to see if she followed, he was out the door.

She half ran to keep up across the cobbled forecourt and through the gardens. Glimmers of dawn reflected on the house’s black windows, except at the lowest level where the kitchen staff were awake and preparing the day’s meals. Whiffs of baking bread and savory meats floated on the breeze, making Holly’s stomach rumble despite the breakfast they’d shared. Colin appeared oblivious as he took the terrace steps two at a time. At the main door that led into the rear corridor, a bleary-eyed footman admitted them. Colin murmured a preoccupied thank-you and kept going, practically bounding down the hallway to the library.

Holly couldn’t step across that threshold without remembering what had occurred the last time she’d entered that room. Their first embraces, their first kiss. The first time she’d heard her Christian name fall gently from his lips.

Colin strode to the desk, found a box of lucifers and began lighting the lamps. A mellow glow settled over the settee where he’d first held her, where her passion had first awakened. She compressed her lips and angled her gaze away. “What can I do to help?”

They each began snatching books off the shelves. When a small pile had grown on the desk, he sat and began flipping through the first volume. Holly lifted one. “What are we looking for?”

“Something I couldn’t identify through my microscope, nor with my naked eye, but which I’m almost positive doesn’t belong in horse feed.”

Painstakingly they read through countless plant descriptions and compared the tiny, mysteriously green particles he’d isolated with the sketches and engravings contained in the books.

“I hadn’t realized how many species of plant life are poisonous.” She pointed to a sketch of a trumpet-shaped blossom. “A flower as lovely as the lily, for example.”

“I don’t think it’s a flower we’re looking for,” he mumbled, “but something heartier, with tougher leaves and stems.” He snapped a book shut, making her jump. Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, he leaned his elbows on the desktop.

The statement chilled her. If a man educated at one of Europe’s most prestigious universities, who associated regularly with some of the finest minds in the scientific world, could not find the answer, then. . . .

“Because you see, this is about more than saving horses. They are magnificent beings, yes, and surely worth our most prodigious efforts. But it’s also about the well-being of my family. These horses, the stud—it is who we are. What we are about. It may sound melodramatic, but can you understand?”

He reached for another book, pulled it to him and, like a man reconciled to a dismal fate, began thumbing through the pages. Her gaze settled on the bag of grain he had set on a corner of the desk. She slid a lamp closer, thrust her hand into the bag, and then examined the contents of her palm. She did this several times, each time digging deeper. Colin went on reading. Finally, she noticed an inch-long particle of plant matter in her palm, a frond that, if ground up smaller, would not have caught their attention among the granules. “Colin, this looks like a bit of fern mixed in with the grains. Is that correct in horse feed?”

He held out his hand, and she tipped the feed from her palm into his. Then she slid the lamp close to his elbow. He studied the specimen, his frown deepening. Without looking up, he said, “Open that book.” He gestured with his chin. “The one on indigenous ground cover.”

The slight tremor in his voice filled her with urgency. She fumbled the book and it thwacked to the floor. Once she had retrieved it, he said, “Find the entry for bracken.”

“Everywhere. And it’s poisonous to horses. A nibble or two won’t hurt them, but if they ingest large amounts over time . . .” He sat up straighter.

She opened the book, flipped through and found the entry. She began reading out loud, describing the traits and habitat, but Colin stopped her. “Do they list the symptoms of livestock poisoning?”

She used her finger to skim down the page. “Unsteadiness, skittishness, stomach pain, blockage of the intestines . . . dilated pupils.” She stopped short, compressed her lips, and met his gaze. “This is it, isn’t it?”

He sprinted from the room, returning within minutes, his step buoyant, his relief palpable. She had begun replacing the books on the shelves. He crossed the room, took the stack from her arms, dropped them onto the nearest tabletop, and took her in his arms. He danced her in circles to a silent waltz.

“Now that we know what it is, they’ll live.” He sounded youthful, filled with a childlike wonderment. He brought them to a halt. “Thank you. Thank you!”

“Because you hadn’t given up hope, as I had,” he finished for her. When she nodded, he kissed her brow, then straightened, looking sheepish. “You’ll laugh at me, but I had actually begun to believe Briannon was at work here. Some scientist, eh?”