Mayne thought that over. “Actually, Rafe has a young mare in his stables who might be a brilliant match with Seaswept.”

“In that case, you could trade with him, and mate Manderliss with his Lady Macbeth. Because I can just imagine the colt they would produce.”

Mayne could too: a gorgeous, flowing-maned bronze horse.

“We’ll have to live on your estate,” Josie said rather sleepily. “You can’t let someone else play about with a colt from Manderliss and Lady Macbeth.”

“Of course,” Mayne said, knowing that he had meant to all along. He was tired of being an absentee horse manager. Tired of reading the breeding magazines, and arranging things, and then leaving for the season, even though it was foaling time.

“Won’t you miss London?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Josie said. “I’ll have to leave you on your own in the country while I gallivant at balls.”

The surge he felt in his chest stunned him and he was silent.

“I’m just joking,” Josie said, with a gurgle of laughter in her voice. And then she was asleep.

So he lay there and resorted his priorities. There were the stables and the season and London. All those tawdry days and nights lost at Almack’s and less savory places fell to the bottom of the list. His stables rose to the top.

But perhaps…not quite to the top.

There was something else too.

But he didn’t want to explore that thought; it felt too frightening to explore.

38

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Twenty-fifth

From the moment I saw her, I knew that she was the One…the One to complete my soul, fill in all the rough, unpolished edges that had formed during my years of depravity, preying on the impure desires of married women. I saw her on the other side of the street…delicate, pure and clear as a shaft of sunlight. I saw her…and I loved her.

I t was embarrassing, waking up again to find that afternoon light was streaming in the windows. But her maid didn’t seem to think it amiss when she finally climbed out of the bath, dressed, and wandered downstairs. In fact, Josie was rather shocked by how kindly everyone was, until she realized that she was now the mistress of the house.

In truth, she felt like a guest. How could she be married to Mayne? Josie, Countess of Mayne? It did not ring true. Perhaps this was all a dream.And yet…

She’d done it!

She probably looked like a complete idiot, smiling to herself. But wasn’t a woman allowed a moment of triumph? Josie walked straight past the dining room and out the glass-paned doors leading to the side garden. She knew where her husband would be on a fine morning—well, afternoon—and he wouldn’t be indoors.

“It’s all quite straightforward,” she said aloud to herself, the laughter bubbling up inside, “Tess married, and then Annabel married, and then Imogen married—

“And then I married!”

It sounded like a fairy tale, it really did. All four of them married. Happy.

She was going to be the best wife that Mayne ever imagined. She would be sweet and loving to him at all times. Not that it would be any great sacrifice. She actually caught herself skipping on her way to the stables around the back of the house.

She knew perfectly well what kind of women men fell in love with. Honey-sweet women. Since she would never be angry or sharp-tempered, he was as good as hers.

She found Mayne leaning against a stall talking to Billy. He looked up at her with a smile.

“Good morning to you, Billy,” Josie said, ignoring her husband for the moment. “And how are you keeping yourself since the Ascot? Have there been any more problems with those devilish nuts?”

“Not a bit of it,” Billy said. “I used the recipe you sent me, your lady. And may I say that all of us here in the stables are that happy about your marriage to his lordship? We don’t think he could have found a better match for hisself in all of England.”

Josie could feel herself going a little pink.

“What do you think of Selkie?” Mayne asked. Selkie was a big, rangy chestnut with plenty of bone in his leg.

“He’s lovely,” Josie said, holding out her hand so Selkie could lip her palm.

Mayne reached over and scratched Selkie between the eyes. “He did very well for me. He won a few small races and then was cut out at the Derby. He doesn’t quite have the heart for racing; if he feels as if he’s losing, he just settles back and accepts his place. I’m retiring him to stud.”

“Is he an Arabian?”

“Exactly. By way of the Byerley Turk.”

“Byerley was all the way back in the 1600s, wasn’t he?”

“What a pleasure to have a wife with such extraordinary knowledge of horses.”

It was all so companionable and pleasant that Josie could never have believed what happened next. But however it happened, within a few minutes she and Mayne were bellowing at each other. Bellowing!

It was all Mayne’s fault. He had picked up the idea somewhere that the sire, the male horse, introduced to his sons the characteristics of his own father, but passed on to his daughters the characteristics of his mother.

“I don’t agree,” Josie said quite reasonably. “In fact, that’s absurd. You’re saying that characteristics are qualified by the gender of the animal.”

“Precisely,” Mayne said. “You see it all the time. If you put a stallion to stud who has a well-ribbed body, you’ll find it in a colt. If the result is a filly…no. Characteristics pass on through the male line to the male. And the reverse.”

“Absurd,” Josie said again, warming up to her subject. “Let’s take a really famous horse as an example. Where do you think that Eclipse’s offspring got all that temperament they exhibit? Not from Eclipse. It comes through the mares they put him to stud with. What’s more, Eclipse’s sire was Marske, and yet Eclipse’s broad chest came from his dame, Spilletta. Everyone says that!”

“You can’t know that something as ephemeral as temperament came from the maternal side,” Mayne said.

“I certainly do,” Josie said. “And I’m not alone in that opinion. Racing Journal noted that Eclipse’s offspring follow their mother more readily than their father. Why do you think that none of them were as great a racer as he was?”

“Because some combinations tend to highlight defects in the line,” Mayne pointed out. His eyes were narrowed a bit and he didn’t look quite as lazy as he usually did. “And frankly, how can you say that King Fergus wasn’t as great a racer?”

“Because he wasn’t.”

“His sire line has some of the greatest horses in this country!”

“Eclipse’s offspring were temperamental—vicious even—because he was put to stud with twitchy mares. Every single one of them!” Josie stated. “The fact is that you can’t dictate what qualities will come from where. We had Nectarine, a lovely bay, brownish red with white feet and a white blaze. He was fifteen hands at the least. Our broodmare Gentian had shown that she could throw a winner, but every single colt he sired on her had a short pelvis. And that came from the bay’s mother.”

“There are always exceptions,” Mayne persisted. “As I said, some combinations highlight defects. Who knows whether that short pelvis really came from the bay’s mother? Your Gentian might have had a whole family of hobbling sires in her line. After all, record keeping was hardly adequate in Scotland twenty years ago.”