Sport of Baronets by Theresa Romain Read Free Book Online

Chandler lands again with another note. Not when Hannah would be here in the morning.
    For tonight, he would join his other stable boy on the night watch. He and Jack could spell one another to stay alert.
    Bart smiled. He almost hoped Northrup would return tonight, for he felt capable of anything.
    All things considered, he had smiled much more today than he’d expected to.
    * * *
    â€œIt is too late, Bart.”
    At the sudden entry of a visitor into the study the next morning, Bart’s quill took a jog across the margin of his letter. He hurried to wipe the pen and set it aside, then stood. “Hannah. Good morning. Ah—what is too late?”
    Neat as a fashion plate in a dark blue habit, she kicked shut the door. “Golden Barb’s disappearance is known, for the odds on his performance in the Two Thousand Guineas are already changed. Yesterday he was two to one, and today you can get ten to one if you bet he’ll race at all.”
    Bart muttered a curse. Gamblers . “I wish I could do away with all betting on the race. Such energy would be much better put toward finding Northrup and the horse.”
    â€œIt will be, I think. Not even a constable can touch a bookmaker for curiosity, and the bookmakers have far more resources. Any news that affects their livelihood, they’ll sniff it out.” She eyed him with some doubt, then added, “You might consider hedging your bets for the time being. I shall, if I can gather twenty more guineas.”
    â€œI assume you know of our parents’ financial…issues.” When she nodded, Bart added, “Even if gambling had not all but ruined my family, I would not want to bet against Golden Barb. If I don’t have a champion to put out to stud, such a bet only turns a quick profit that cannot be repeated or sustained—which is more akin to a permanent loss.”
    She frowned. “That makes sense.”
    â€œYou sound surprised.”
    â€œNo, no—it is only that I had not thought of it in that way.”
    The study, which was also the home’s library, faced east, and the high angle of the late-morning light turned her hair to honey. Picked out every one of her freckles. Highlighted the line of her cheek and the curve of her lip.
    â€œThis was a good time of day to meet,” Bart said. “Thank you for being so punctual.”
    In the past, he had often become tongue-tied around a woman he found attractive. If not that, he would be soppy, fumbling for lofty words or fashionable cant that felt unnatural on his lips, or choosing flowers from among an infinity of nosegays that all looked the same to him. What seemed to suit other men felt too brash, too false. But since everyone else did it, he knew it could not be wrong in the eyes of society.
    Was he doing right? Had he ever done what he wanted to do?
    Not the last. Never the last. In the end, he would rather do none of these. He would rather gallop away.
    Hannah had tricked him into being comfortable with her, though. At first, because he had not cared what she thought of him. And now they had together encountered a crime and a theft and his mother’s determined silence, and it would be ridiculous to babble and fidget over the shade of her eyes or hair.
    â€œShall we begin?” Hannah’s eyes—which he knew to be hazel, which was a perfectly normal observation to make—roved the spare corners of the room. She could not know the exact spots where expensive ornaments had once stood, where rare volumes had once been stashed. Now the fine wood was a clean, bare glide, and cheap stacks of newspapers that no one had ever read filled the bookshelves. The only ornamented aspect left was the ceiling, which had been painted decades ago with a fanciful image of Pegasus, the winged white stallion.
    â€œOught we to have a—a maid in here for propriety?” Bart’s hand knocked against his pen, sending it rolling over his letter and