“I’m not calling you Myrtle.”

“Because of propriety. Mrs. Belden would approve.”

“Who in hell is . . . ?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Get going.”

“So you can read, yes! I will leave you to it.” The lady dipped a polite curtsy. “That way when we again meet, we might be able to speak about Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy?”

“Who?” he blurted.

She gave another waggle of her dark, well-shaped eyebrows. “You’ll see. Good day, Your Grace!”

He’d see?

They’d meet again and speak . . . ?

Which meant the chit intended to return.

Which also meant he would be expected to see her again.

All this, when the absolute thing he wished was to not see or be with anyone.

Determined to disabuse her of that fool notion, he stuck his face in hers. “I don’t want your company, and I don’t want your book. I don’t want anyone here. I want to be left alone, and certainly by you. Am I clear?”

The only thing clear in that moment was the rapid intake of her breath, highlighted by the little clouds of white she puffed into the winter air.

The lady’s smile slipped, and she cleared her throat. “I think you will thank me for that book someday, Your Grace.”

“I won’t.”

“However, I know when I’m not wanted.”

That he rather doubted. “Come along, Lady,” he gritted, collecting the reins of his mount.

“Of course!” The young woman—Lady Myrtle—hastened to join Val, his horse, and Horace.

Cursing, Val abruptly stopped. “Not you,” he barked. “Definitely not you.”

The lady immediately came up short. “But you said . . .”

“My horse,” he growled.

The young woman drew back, then looked from the horse to Val and then back again at his horse.

Don’t ask. Don’t indulge her. Don’t encourage her.

“What?” he snapped.

“You’ve named your horse . . . Lady?”

He’d not. Rather, his wife had, and he would have changed his own name to Bartholomew Baldo if it had assured him just one of her smiles.

Myrtle leaned down and assessed Val’s mount . . . between his legs. “Er . . . I . . . You do know that your horse is, in fact, a male.” As was her way, she didn’t allow him a word edgewise. “You see, there”—she straightened and pointed to the flesh dangling from between his legs—“are his male pieces. That is what makes him different from a female. Or, that is what I’ve heard, anyway.”

And with her rambling on with a lecture on male and female horse bits, he didn’t know whether to be shocked or horrified or amused.

Amused?

He silently scoffed. Certainly not that. He wasn’t one who was entertained by anything. And certainly not anyone. And most decidedly not by her.