No True Gentleman

Chapter One

A true gentleman must take care never to seem dark and mysterious.
-- LORD CHESTERFIELD, 1776,
The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette

Terrible accidents can befall anyone who plunges into the unknown. Catherine knew that all too well. And yet the fog which lay before her, slate gray and cloying, did not give her pause as it should have done. Instead, she pressed heedlessly forward, allowing the damp to envelop her like cold, wet wool. Orion's rapid hoof beats were muted by the soft earth as she mindlessly urged him into the thatch of rhododendron ahead.

Much of her behavior had been just so of late, impelled not by logic but by an inexplicable need to flee something which lay behind, with little thought to what risk might lie ahead. She had let grief and confusion drive her from Gloucestershire. Then into London. But perhaps she should not have permitted it to drive her into this fog alone. Perhaps she should have waited until full daylight, instead of rushing into the distant reaches of Hyde Park before dawn had scarce broken. But as usual, the silence inside the house -- inside her heart -- had been suffocating.

With an impatient signal, she urged Orion on, vaguely considering how her brother Cam would scold if he learned of her recklessness. Suddenly, a noise sounded in the fog ahead. Sharp yet muffled, like the snapping of a twig beneath a layer of wet leaves. And then she saw him -- at the precise instant Orion did. Like a pagan warlock summoning up a dragon's breath, the big man loomed up before them, his long black cloak swirling in the mist, his height eclipsing the path beyond.

With a shrill cry, her horse reared and spun right, pawing wildly at the mist. Floating from the fog, the man snared the gelding's bridle, dragging down his head as if the beast were little more than a willful pony. Orion's eyes flashed with white, his hindquarters wheeled nervously, kicking up divots of turf. But with relentless calm, the tall man held his head. At last, the horse gave a final snort of censure and yielded.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, silence held sway in the gloom.

"Your pardon, ma'am," the man finally said, his voice like gravel. "I fear the dampness muffled your approach."

Catherine stared down at him, then let her gaze slide to his impervious grip on her bridle. "I can hold my mount, sir," she snapped. But, inexplicably, blood was pounding in her ears.

At once, his spine stiffened, and she watched, intrigued, as his long, elegant fingers slid away from the leather. "I thought perhaps you could not," he said coolly, his gaze burning through her. "Apparently, I was mistaken."

"Quite," she managed.

Suspicion was etched on his face, and as he glanced up and down the path, Catherine had an uneasy sense that the man could see things which she could not. "Madam, you ride unaccompanied?" he asked, his tone deceptively casual.

Catherine realized her folly at once. She was completely alone in a pea-soup fog with an intense, intimidating stranger. Straightening herself in the saddle, she looked down her nose and feigned her elder brother's haughty glare. "My business is my own, sir," she retorted. "But if we're to remark upon the obvious, one might mention that you were strolling rather carelessly on the bridle path."