Read To Win the Lady for Free Online Page B

had an easy, ground-covering stride. Half an hour later, they
drew up at the boundary fence at the limit of the estate.
    ‘Well?’ Georgie
asked, pushing back a tendril of hair from her cheek. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘Not Victor, of
course, but a sweet goer and well up on the wind.’ They turned and walked the
horses side by side towards the distant buildings of Rowan Park. ‘Are you sure
you will not sell Grecian Warrior instead?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then Pegasus
will do me very well. Let us go back and you can take me to your man of
business.’
    She laughed. ‘There
is no such creature. I strike the bargains at Rowan Stud, Major Baverstock.’
    He turned to
look at her. Her cheeks were pink, her hair wind-blown and the hands that held
the reins so easily were brown and work-worn. What in God’s name had her father
been thinking of to allow her to become such a hoyden? If he had any sense he
would not encourage her by doing business with her, but he doubted he would
find a better mount and no doubt she was in need of the money. But if she were
not very careful she would soon lose the whole farm. He wondered idly if it
would go piecemeal or as one lot and then found himself wishing she might
succeed in spite of everything.
    ‘Very well,’ he
said. ‘Name your price.’
    Before another
hour had passed, Richard was forced to admit that Georgiana Paget knew more
than most men about horses and she was also a hard-headed business woman. When
he left he had paid top price for his hunter, had agreed to give her exclusive
stud rights for the next five years and, besides that, had acquired, at an
astronomical price, a superb two-year-old filly called Bright Star, with which
he had an idea that he might be able to revenge himself on Lord Barbour.
Leading his hired hack, he rode away on the grey, leaving the filly with Miss
Paget. He did not want to take delivery of it and advertise its presence in the
Baverstock stables until he was ready, and against his better judgement he had
allowed her to persuade him to let her train it.
    He didn’t know
how that had happened; he was not usually swayed by female guile. But in truth
there had been no guile; she had simply stated that she knew what she was about
and he had believed her! What a flat he had been! He all but turned round and
went back, but knew that would make him feel even more foolish. He might as
well give her a chance; her man, Dawson, whom he knew to be very knowledgeable,
would keep her on the right track and he would go back in a couple of weeks and
take the filly to a reputable trainer. He would race it against Barbour’s best
and this time he would not lose.
    But he reckoned
without Miss Georgiana Paget.
     
    She was elated.
Dawson, who had been witness to the transaction, was grinning from ear to ear.
    ‘Well done,
Miss Paget,’ he said as soon as the man and horses had disappeared. ‘You are
your father’s daughter and no error. But do you know what you have taken on
with that filly?’
    Did she? It was
one thing to watch her father at work and listen to his theorising, quite
another to put it into practice, but the opportunity had been too good to miss.
Not that she hadn’t nearly sunk it at the start. Fancy assuming that just
because a man rode a hired hack he knew nothing! She should have taken note of
his buckskin breeches and well-tailored riding coat, not to mention the
top-boots! Only an experienced servant could have put the shine on those. And
the hack had sported a beautiful military saddle.
    But she had
seen none of that at the time because she had been overwhelmed by the man
himself, like a silly miss at her first coming-out ball. Anyone would think she
had never beheld a man before. And that was patently untrue because there were
always men visiting the stables - or had been when her father was alive. All
manner of men, too - old and young, fat and thin, greedy men, easygoing men who
thought nothing of losing a thousand guineas on a wager,