The Dangerous Debutante. Kasey Michaels

your protector?”

      “Indeed, yes,” Morgan said, barely able to keep from bouncing in the saddle, because she was about to take that smug, satisfied smile off his lordship’s handsome face. My, how she loved to win! She really ought to consider scraping up some maidenly modesty from somewhere, now that she was to be a debutante. But how boring that would be….

      She turned on the saddle, calling back to the coach, which was no more than twenty yards behind them, as Jacob knew to keep close. “Saul! His lordship would very much like to see Bessie.”

      “Bessie?” Ethan also turned in his saddle, looking back over his shoulder, toward the coachman. “What’s a—my God.”

      Saul, still with the reins wrapped around his beefy hands, had reached down into the depths of the box, to come up with Bessie—a short, lethal-looking crossbow, loaded and ready to loose an equally short, lethal-looking arrow straight into Ethan’s back.

      “Thank—thank you, Saul!” he called out, waving to the man. “Bessie’s…quite beautiful. Truly impressive.”

      Saul, his expression still fierce, lowered the weapon. Ethan couldn’t hold back the relieved sigh that escaped his lips as he looked at Morgan, although he was fairly certain he’d have an itch directly between his shoulder blades until they’d arrived at Tanner’s Roost.

      “Do you have any idea how far one of those arrows can travel?” she asked him, her glee so clear Ethan wondered briefly if Adam hadn’t possibly had second and third thoughts before he took that apple. “I’ve seen Saul put one neatly through a—”

      “Yes, I’m sure you have,” Ethan said quickly, then attempted to turn the conversation to something she’d said earlier, something that interested him very much. “Where did you say Becket Hall is located, Miss Becket?”

      “Romney Marsh, directly on the Channel. Only a few dozen miles from Maidstone as the gull flies, as they say. Or an entire world away from here or anywhere else, as others say.”

      “I’ve been to Camber, if we can really consider that a part of the marsh,” Ethan said, struggling with himself to not take another peek over his shoulder, to see if Saul seemed happy, pleased with his place in the world, and not liable to want to shoot anything at the moment. “That was a few years ago, for an uncle’s interment. I don’t know which was more depressing, the young widow trying to corner me in the morning room, or the cold, gray weather. And it was July, I believe.”

      “I’ve never been to Camber,” Morgan said, ignoring the rest of what the earl had said, considering it wiser to ignore most anything he uttered, as a matter of fact. She’d much rather look at him than listen to him, because what he said was often nonsense or provocative, or both, but looking at him could become a lifelong obsession.

      “Ah, but now you’ll be able to say you’ve been to Tanner’s Roost, just as one day, perhaps, I will be able to say I’ve visited Romney Marsh and even Becket Hall,” Ethan said, indicating that she should turn her mount to the right, head between two huge stone pillars and onto a smaller roadway that was, all in all, in much better condition than the main highway.

      He didn’t realize he had been worried that she’d balk at the last minute until he felt his shoulders relax when she turned her mount onto the drive.

      Saul followed, but even Saul and his crossbow didn’t serve to contain all of the butterflies now fluttering inside Morgan’s belly as they proceeded along the twisting lane cut through the trees, the branches overhead so dense they nearly blocked out the sunlight.

      Romney Marsh was open. A person could see for miles and miles; a person could breathe there. Most importantly, strangers approaching Becket Hall from either land or sea would be noticed—and prepared for—a good quarter hour before they arrived.

      “Are you certain your house is in here somewhere?” she asked, trying to sound faintly amused, when all she could think was that a person could ride into these woods, never to be seen again. Not only that, but Tanner’s Roost would be almost impossible to defend. Didn’t that bother the earl? Or perhaps only those who knew they needed protection ever considered such subjects.

      “As this is my property we’re riding through now, I’m fairly certain the Roost is still here, as it was here at breakfast time, which seems so long ago now, Miss Becket, thanks to you,” Ethan answered lazily, knowing he could barely wait to see her reaction to his family home.

      Morgan blinked. “What sort of a man blames a female for his empty belly? Oh, never mind, you all do, don’t you, just as if feeding you is our purpose in life. And you’re saying that this is all yours?”

      “Again, with gratitude to my mother, for marrying so well. You’ll be meeting her, you know, when we get to the Roost, which you should be able to see just as we get past this final curve in the drive.”

      “Uninvited guests aren’t welcome at Becket Hall,” Morgan said, beginning to worry about his lordship’s mother, and the reception she’d get when she was introduced to the lady she’d call…what did one call the mother of an earl? She knew the answer, had been well drilled by Eleanor in all the titles, but her mind had gone suddenly, frighteningly blank.

      If her sister were here now, she’d probably not even say, “I did warn you.” Because Elly was a good person, with a good heart. Morgan knew she should strive to be more like her. She also knew she’d have the same luck with that as she would in an attempt to fly up to the moon.

      “My mother feels quite the opposite when it comes to visitors.” Ethan ran his gaze over Morgan’s gracefully erect upper body. Would he be doomed to hell for wishing his mother away from Tanner’s Roost, so he could be alone with this intriguing woman? Probably. “She’s always happy to welcome guests, and there are usually several of them wandering about the hallways.”

      Morgan shook off her worrisome thoughts and concentrated on the earl once more, feeling that paying him any less than her full attention could end with her deep in trouble. “And now there’s one more, although I won’t be staying above an hour, unless you are an inordinately slow dresser, as I’ve heard that society gentlemen can spend several hours just in tying their neck cloths.”

      “Gentlemen don’t arrange their own neck cloths, Miss Becket, any more than they would take the pressing iron to them. We pride ourselves in being exceedingly and unremittingly useless. I know I do.”

      And then, as Morgan struggled for an answer to such a damning admission delivered so joyfully, they were out from under the nearly quarter-mile canopy of trees and into the sunlight once more. An enormous expanse of lawn appeared, with a castle sitting on a gentle rise of earth smack-dab in the center of it.

      Morgan was instantly diverted by the sight. “A castle. It’s an actual castle! All those turrets, and all with flags flying from them. How…how extraordinary!”

      Ethan grinned, even as he had planned to remain expressionless, no matter what her reaction. “I ordered the moat filled in with dirt soon after I came into the title, which has cut down some on the damp but, yes, Miss Becket, a real castle. I take it you’re impressed? I’d been wondering about your reaction. Now, if you’ll please walk your mount in while I rush off to alert my mother? She enjoys guests, but hates being caught unawares. I’ll alert one of the staff, and he’ll arrange care of the horses and escort you to the drawing room.”

      Before Morgan could answer, Ethan was gone, and she was dealing with Berengaria, who wanted to follow. Morgan pulled on the reins as her black mare danced in a full circle, then watched as Ethan and the magnificent Alejandro abandoned the drive, to ride across the freshly scythed acres of lawn toward the castle.

      The sight had her breath catching in her throat. The snowy horse, its mane and tail caught by the breeze, its hooves throwing up green-and-black clumps of earth. The rider, the full sleeves of his white shirt billowing in that same breeze. Both outlined so clearly, first against the lush green of the grass, then against the dark, cold gray stone of the castle.

      And she’d been wondering why