But horses, like sex, had become a delight whose payment was greater than the offered pleasure. The rhythmic motion of horseback riding invariably instigated three days of agony in a darkened room, his body covered in sweat and gripped by nausea, his head clenched in a steel band of pain. And the only advice doctors had offered was that his head injury of six years ago had led to an inability to endure rhythm. Any kind of rhythm.

Quill’s jaw hardened and he mentally shrugged off the image of a galloping horse. To his mind there was nothing worse than lamenting what could not be. Women and horses were simply part of his past, and no part of his future.

Then he grinned. The very sports he was mourning—a hard riding session and a woman’s nightly companionship—were delights that held absolutely no interest for Peter. Lord, but he and his brother were as alike as chalk and cheese.

At any rate, he was probably worrying about Gabrielle and Peter for naught. Peter might not like the idea of marriage, but he did love female companionship. A decorous French miss, with whom Peter could gossip, discuss fashion, and attend balls, might well become his closest friend. And Gabrielle was an elegant name, one that brought to mind a woman versed in the ways of the world. Peter had a great admiration—nay, a passion—for beauty. Surely an exquisite young Frenchwoman would be able to coax him into compliance with an unwanted marriage.

UNFORTUNATELY, QUILL WOULD HAVE ABANDONED that hope could he have seen the aforementioned exquisite Frenchwoman.

Peter’s fiancée was kneeling on the floor of her cabin, looking into the eager face of a young girl who sat before her on a small tuffet. Gabrielle’s hair was tumbling about her ears, and her old-fashioned dress was crumpled. The last thing she resembled was a sophisticated French miss from La Belle Assemblée.

“The tiger crept through the tangled jungle.” Gabby’s voice was a thrilling whisper. “He put one paw softly before the next, barely disturbing the song of the magpies far above. His long tongue licked his chops at the thought of the delicious meal that trotted before him.”

Phoebe Pensington, a five-year-old orphan being sent to live with English relatives, shivered as Gabby, whose soft brown eyes had taken on a tigerish glare, continued.

“But when the tiger reached the edge of the forest, he stopped short. The goat was walking along the shore, his white hooves prancing at the very edge of the tumbling azure waves of the Indian Ocean. And the tiger was afraid of water. His stomach urged him to follow, but his heart pounded with fear. He stopped in the speckled shade of a bongo-bongo tree—”

“But, Miss Gabby,” Phoebe broke in anxiously, “what did the tiger have for supper that night if he didn’t eat the goat? Wouldn’t he be hungry?”