Mandy Hubbard - Prada and Prejudice

The next day, Emily is doing her best to show me one of her finer skills: needlepoint.

I suck at it. It took me ten minutes just to get the needle threaded, and then it promptly fell off.

I'm pretty sure this means I'd make a terrible wife in the 1800s. Needlepoint is like the ABCs of wifery or something. Emily, on the other hand, is taking it quite seriously, sitting regally on a brocade chair, her needle darting in and out of the fabric at a lightning pace.

We're in some kind of sitting room or drawing room or whatever it's called (they have too many rooms, if you ask me) on the first floor, in the west wing. This one is a vibrant sea of blue, from the curtains to the carpet, and the painting over the elaborate hearth is of a ship being tossed around in a storm. It was sort of jarring, to walk into this room and be assaulted by blue.

I'm sucking on the end of the thread, trying to get it to straighten out, when Alex strides in.

He bows to the two of us, and when he speaks, his voice fills the room, far louder and more booming than a voice should be before noon. "I intend to ride the estate today, if you two would like to join me."

I open my mouth to give him a quick, No thanks, I'd rather pull out my own hair, but Emily beats me to it.

"How kind of you to offer! We would love to."

Huh? I can't figure out why Emily doesn't hate Alex. He's a jerk and he's done nothing to help her out of her engagement. And now she's volunteering to hang out with him?

An excuse... I need some kind of excuse to get out of this.

Alex walks to the window and looks out, offering a rather flattering view of the back of his riding pants. "Did you enjoy the dance last evening?"

Is he making small talk? That's a first. "Yes, very much so," Emily says. "It was delightful."

I nod. "Yeah. I guess so." I won't say I had fun because I don't want him to get the wrong idea. I don't want him to know dancing with him was the most exciting part of my evening and the most agonizingly long half hour of my life.

Alex looks at me for a long silent moment. You'd think he'd bring up the big "lady" versus "miss" debacle. Or just that we'd danced. But he doesn't.

"Yes, I rather enjoyed myself as well," he says.

Seriously, what does that mean? I was the only girl he danced with. The entire night. Is he trying to tell me something? Ha.

Right. He probably means that it was all sorts of fun to insult me.

And that's when Emily starts rubbing her temple. She sets her needlepoint down and frowns, massaging in circular motions on the side of her face.

Oh, no, she's not—

"Dear cousin, I am coming down with a headache. Perhaps you and Rebecca ought to ride without me."

I get a twinge when I hear Rebecca. Every day it feels more like we're friends — and more like I'm betraying her.

And then she turns to me, knowing Alex can't see her, and winks.

"Oh, no, I—" I start to say, because I suddenly realize what she's trying to do. This cannot happen. A horseback ride alone with Alex? No thank you!

But Alex cuts in before I can stop her. "Yes, I would not have you overexerting yourself. We shall check on you when we return."

Okay, this is not how I want to spend my afternoon. Alone with Alex? I'd rather get a root canal.

But... maybe it's my chance to talk to him about Emily. Maybe he doesn't know about Trent. Emily said Trent was wealthy, right? He's not titled, but he has money. If Alex knew about him... maybe he would get Emily off the hook with Denworth.

Maybe that's why Emily is trying to arrange for me to spend time with Alex. She so owes me after this.

I can do this. I can hang out with him for a couple hours — long enough to talk him into helping us.

Emily jumps up from her chair far too quickly for someone with a headach and leaves the room before I can do anything.

I rub my eyes. It's going to be a long afternoon.

"Okay, so I take my foot," I say, pointing to the toe of my Prada heel, "and stick it in that... thing?"

This whole trip is turning into a nightmare. First I had to change into a riding habit, as if I have any idea what that is. And now I'm supposed to ride sidesaddle. Seriously. Isn't riding with one foot on each side of the horse hard enough already? I can't even drive a car yet!

Alex nods. "The stirrup." He has one hand on the horse's reins and the other holding the stirrup out for me. Two grooms are hovering in the background, looking a little put out. I think they had planned to help me up. Alex is standing so close I can smell him, this masculine musky scent that makes me want to rest my head on his chest and breathe in.

Which is absurd, and I need to stop thinking about it.

Wretched human being. Remember that.

I jam my foot in the stirrup and have to sort of hip-hop around a few times to keep from falling down, and then my foot slips out and I'm just standing there again. The horse swings its head around and looks at me as if to say you're still standing there?

Alex doesn't say anything, just stands stock-still, holding the horse and waiting for me to get my act together. He's probably groaning inwardly at my incompetence.

I try again. This time manage to get my foot into the stirrup and my hands toward the seat of the saddle, and, after taking a few hops, stand up and put my weight into the stirrup.

Alex has to grab my waist and boost me up in order to get me all the way to the seat, and then I almost fall off the other side as I figure out how to hook my knee onto the saddle. It takes almost five minutes for me to get situated as he continues to stand there, holding the reins so the horse won't move until I'm ready. "Thanks," I say.

I can feel the spot where his fingers touched my hips like they're still there, holding me. Not cool.

"Certainly," he says as he releases the reins. "Are you ready?"

I nod and the reins are suddenly out of his grasp and I tighten them so hard the horse starts to back up. "Oh, uh... What do I do?!" I panic because the horse is, well, moving. In the wrong direction.

Alex comes back over to me. "Release your hold. I promise you this horse will not run away with you. Keep some slack in the reins. Too tight and she'll think you want her to back up. She's only trying to please you." His voice is calm and cool.

I nod and relax my hand just a bit, until the reins have a bit of a droop in them. I resist the urge to immediately snatch them back up. "Trust me," he says, looking straight at me.

And as I stare back at him, I just nod dumbly, suddenly believing I trust him. Which is the wrong thing to feel. I'm willing to bet Mystery Mistress trusted him too, and look how well that turned out!

I mean, come on. This is a guy who is screwing over his own cousin, who insulted me at the dance and abandoned his own kid. I can not trust him.

He walks back over to his gray stallion and swings up easily, even though it's probably a foot taller than the one I'm on. He looks perfect in his boots and jacket, like something out of a catalog. Even though I've never seen clothes like that in a catalog. God, what am I thinking?

We pick up a walk. I'm gripping onto the little copper horse's reins like my life depends on it. Alex looks very much at ease, even as the horse dances excitedly underneath him, its legs flexing and skipping around at twice the speed they need to. Just watching it makes me nervous.

Is he going to apologize, or what? He knows I was bothered by what he said at the dance. He has to say something, right? If he thinks he can just forget about it, he's wrong.

"I do hope Emily is well," he says, as we pass the barns and head up a grassy knoll.

"Oh, I'm sure she's fine," I say dryly. "In fact, I'm certain she'll feel totally healthy by the time we return."

Healthy enough to bombard me and ask how this whole ride went.

The weather is beautiful today: blue skies and a warm breeze. In fact, given the three layers I must be wearing, it's a tad on the warm side. There seem to be birds everywhere, from the tree limbs and fence rails around us to the sky above us, chirping and squawking.

Everything smells so fresh. And clean, and just. .. new.

"Do you own all this?" We've crested the small hill and fields and fields stretch out before me, trees dotting the landscape, with a forest up ahead. The place is bigger than my entire neighborhood back home. Bigger than the school and the stadium and the baseball fields.

"Yes. Twelve thousand acres."

"You mean twelve hundred."

He laughs. It's short and quiet, but it's a laugh, and I can't believe I actually heard it. "No. Twelve thousand."

I swallow. Twelve thousand acres. A square mile is six hundred forty. Yes, just knowing that makes me a nerd. So his property is — I do the math in my head — over eighteen and three-quarters square miles. No wonder we're twelve miles from town. No wonder there were no other rooftops for so long. No wonder we had to go so far to get to the Pommeroy estate.

Because Alex owns half the land between here and there.

"I see." I try to suppress my awe. "And what do you... do with all that? Farm?"