Read Online Lady Eve's Indiscretion by Grace Burrowes - Free Book Online

balance, Deene?”
    He snorted. “Off balance? A fair term for it, and yes, there are many reasons, the most recent being that the climbing Irish bastard who sired my niece had to go and give the damned dog my father’s Christian name. Dolan’s disrespect is about as subtle as a runaway ale wagon.”
    ***
    As Eve sat beside him and drove the horses along at a relaxed trot, Deene became aware that he was grinding his teeth, which was hardly proper conduct in the presence of a lady.
    â€œI beg your pardon for my language, Lady Eve.”
    She didn’t take her gaze from the horses, just sat serenely on the bench. “I didn’t know you had a niece.”
    He should have realized the child might be in the park at an odd hour. He’d set his spies loose in the mornings, when most nursemaids took children for an outing. Now he’d know to keep watch at all hours.
    â€œI am barely allowed the appearance of being her uncle.”
    â€œHer father is protective?”
    Deene counted to ten; he counted to ten in Latin and then in French. “He is barely deserving of the name Father. The child is kept virtually prisoner in her own home, and she has no friends. I am not permitted to call on her, though I am permitted to send her presents, and she sends the occasional carefully worded note of thanks. Dolan would never look askance at material goods, but he treats that girl…”
    He was nigh to ranting, but Eve did not appear at all discommoded by his words.
    â€œHe raises protectiveness to a vulgar art,” Deene concluded. Georgie was a possession to Dolan, just as Marie had been a possession, a prize.
    Eve turned the horses onto Park Lane while Deene counted to twenty in Italian.
    â€œWhat was that comment Mr. Trottenham made about your colt beating Islington’s?” Eve asked.
    Ah, she was Changing the Subject, bless her. Deene seized on the new topic gratefully.
    â€œI got tired of hearing the old man brag on his colt and decided to turn King William loose for once.”
    She clucked to the horses, who picked up the pace a touch. “King William is a horse?”
    Deene propped his foot on the fender. “King William is a force of nature in the form of a colt rising four. He’s going to be the making of my racing stud, if only I can find the right balance of conditioning and competing for him.”
    Eve smiled at the horses before them. “He has the heart of a champion, then. He wants to run even when he needs to laze about for a day or two, am I right?”
    â€œYou are exactly right. He doesn’t want to run, he needs to run, needs to show the other boys who’s fastest. Put him against a filly, and he’s greased lightning.”
    She feathered the horses through a turn made tight by an empty dray near the curb. “I’d forgotten Devlin’s stud farm was originally one of your parcels. Do you spend much time there?”
    Without Deene realizing exactly when or how, his ire at Georgie’s father, his towering frustration, and even—a man did not admit this outside his own thoughts—his sense of helplessness faded into any horseman’s enthusiasm for his sport. And Eve did not merely humor him with a pained smile on her features; she participated in the conversation with equal enthusiasm as Deene waxed eloquent about his stud colt.
    â€œI’ve never met a stallion with quite as much personality as Wee Willy. The lads dote on him and cosset him as if he were their firstborn son.”
    â€œIs he permitted apples?”
    â€œIn moderation. He’s a fiend for sugar or anything sweet, though.”
    â€œTypical male.” She gave him such a smile then, it was as if somebody had put a lump of sugar on Deene’s own tongue. That smile said she was pleased with him, with herself, with life and all it beheld—and all he had done was talk horses with her.
    When they turned onto the square before the