If you love:
friends to lovers
witty banter
Bridgerton without the blushes
best friends sister
road trip romance Regency style
adventure regency
You’ll love A Dash of Daring!

Chapter One

In which an Earl is Found in the Stable with a Shovel

Suffolk County, July 1808

Diana Kingsley strode across the garden, in full view of her new stepmother’s drawing room window, an apple in each pocket of her riding habit.

It was high time the new Mrs. Kingsley learned Diana was six-and-twenty and did not need to be schooled on manners, deportment, or any other ladylike accomplishments she felt were lacking. The thought of being cooped up in that drawing room made her skin itch. Head down, she lengthened her stride, each step taking her closer to the stables and freedom. Today, with its warm breeze and clear blue sky, was not a day to sit inside and practice one’s needlework. 

If she could just saddle Equinox quickly enough, an entire morning of trousseau preparations would be avoided. How many embroidered handkerchiefs did a newly married lady need in any case?

Every step felt like it would be the one where her stepmother’s deceptively calm voice called her back. “Diana, if I could have a word?” But nothing happened. She let out a sigh of relief as she arrived at the training quadrangle. The Kingsley stables were still new enough to be of constant delight, a compound of beautiful sandstone buildings that were the latest and best in equestrian management.

Diana stopped short and frowned when she saw Equinox being put through his paces in the training ring by Ned. Her beautiful boy had long since retired from racing and was well and truly at stud. He had nothing to prove to anyone, no reason to be put through his paces. 

Her father, famous thoroughbred breeder Beau Kingsley, leaned on the fence as she’d seen him do a thousand times before. Dressed in his usual tailored navy superfine, with buckskin breeches and a crisp white cravat, Father looked more aristocratic than his guest, who wore an ill-cut coat of drab brown. She did not recognize him.

The sun warmed her back, and the breeze pulled hairs from her loose bun into her face. Diana brushed them aside and squinted, trying to place the man Father was with. His stiff back spoke of the army, while his softly padded frame suggested a man who hadn’t used his body in battle for some time.

Seeing army men at the Kingsley stables was not unusual because many of the regiments purchased horses from their stables. It broke her heart every time, and she wished her Father wouldn’t sell them into such a grim life. 

But at least this man would not be looking at Equinox for that reason; he was far too valuable at stud.

As if in answer, Equinox threw his head back and neighed loudly, shaking his mane. He always put on a show, like he was the most headstrong horse imaginable. For her, with an apple and a few sweet words, he was ready for any adventure.

“He’s magnificent,” she heard the man say as the wind carried their voices toward her. “So much fire …”

The men stayed silent for a few moments, admiring Equinox as he pranced around the ring. 

Her father spotted her and beckoned her over. She smoothed her hair and went to his side. 

“Diana, may I introduce you to Major Bloomfield. He acts as aide to the Prince of Wales.”

Diana bobbed a curtsey, her mind racing. Nobody from anywhere as illustrious as the prince’s stables had visited the Kingsley Estate for years. Not since she had ruined herself. The ton had stayed away in droves, choosing Father’s competitors to buy their horses from.

Things like that happened when you jilted an earl of the realm, whether he deserved it or not. One was expected to do one’s duty, especially when your family was not quite on the same social strata. The Kingsleys were definitely gentry, holding substantial land to breed their horses. But they weren’t titled; nobody in the family was.

Perhaps all had been forgiven, now that she was finally engaged again. This time to a duke’s nephew. No title, but still a connection that reestablished the Kingsleys as “good ton.”

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” So pleased someone so illustrious has arrived, so I can let go of some of the guilt I’ve been carrying around like a tattered reticule all these years.

He took in her riding attire, a smile tugging at his lips. “Going out for a gallop then? Lovely morning for it!”

“If you must know, I have escaped my stepmother’s rigorous embroidery schedule.” She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

Diana took her leave. But she stayed close. Then, after a few minutes, Father shook the man’s hand with a hearty laugh and waved him off. Returning to the stable, he stopped short when he saw her, his cheeks flooding with color. “You may have guessed what is happening.”

“The prince wants to use Equinox as a stud horse?” Before long half of England’s racehorses would be sired by him. Not really, but the thought made her smile.

Father shook his head. “Close. The prince wants to buy him.”

“A dream doomed to be crushed,” she said, holding out both hands for her father to take. He did not take them and her stomach fell. “Oh no, Father, please say you didn’t.”

If a horse could be the jewel in the crown of the Kingsley stables, Equinox was a fist-sized unflawed diamond. He had finished his five-year racing career with twenty-one wins, including twelve King’s Plates. More than any horse in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales. He was the stuff of legends. 

He was her legend. He raced for her, she knew it. Something tightened in her chest, and suddenly it was hard to breathe. Because more than that, he was her best friend. She had assumed he would comprise part of her dowry once more, and live with her forever. It was hardly his fault that this marriage was a means to an end.

Father shrugged in a calm way that suggested the bargain was sealed. “I must. The prince is opening his new royal stables in Brighton in three weeks and wants Equinox there. If the prince is buying from us, everyone will deal with us once again. There can be no greater endorsement.”

She shook her head. “Give him some yearlings, for pity’s sake. Not the best horse we have.” 

“That would not be quite the spectacle that Equinox is. And, the prince has invited us to the opening of the stables. Not an opportunity I have any intention of missing. Cordelia is most excited.”

Pulling on his hand and begging him would be a mistake, but something must be said. “Think, Father, just last year he sold off his entire stud to pay his debts. How can you trust him not to do the same to Equinox?” The outrage wanted to burst forth in a horrible river of tears, but that never helped matters and allowed him to label her “hysterical.” So, she tamped it down and took a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m sure he has learned his lesson well. Equinox will live out his days in royal stables.”

Diana swept her arm to take in the entire stable area. “More like Equinox must leave his only home, and all the people and horses he loves, so we can reestablish our good name. I thought my engagement might have done that for us.”

His lips were compressed, with a white edge around them. “Every little bit helps.”

She drew in a shocked breath. “I hardly think agreeing to marry a man fifteen years my senior, nor you selling our best horse, are little things.” One alone felt earth-shattering, two was more than her mind could comprehend.

His jaw was set, and he looked at her steadily. “No, although you must admit your situation was of your own making.”

It was cruel to remind her of that time, now five years past; it was best put in a dark little box, tied with string, placed in the topmost shelf in the attic, pushed to the back and covered with a blanket. But social annihilation just didn’t die that easily. Luckily, neither did her conviction that she had done the right thing.

“I regret nothing. My life would have been intolerable with Lord Fortescue, and you know it. I remain happy to do my duty and marry Colonel Webster, who gives me no such qualms. But why should Equinox suffer?”

He crossed his arms, his mouth pursed in annoyance. “I hardly think being the prince’s prize horse will be a hardship. He’ll be eating royal oats soon.”

Diana looked down at her boot and traced a pattern in the dust. “Was it Mrs. Kingsley’s idea to take Equinox out of my dowry and use him thus?” At this point she couldn’t bring herself to call her either Cordelia or Stepmother.

His eyes narrowed. “Sometimes I wish you were not so quick, Diana.”

“Sometimes I wish it too.” Surely, she would feel things less keenly. His betrayal was making her hands shake. “Just once, I wish you would choose me and my needs over what is best for Kingsley Stud. Seeing your priorities so baldly continues to hurt.”

His eyes focused on her trembling hands for a moment too long. Then he looked away, and nothing had ever felt so cold. “Hurtful or not, Mrs. Kingsley reminded me that last time Equinox formed part of your dowry, we did not attract the right kind of suitor.”

He was not wrong. And she’d found out almost too late that such was the case. It was hard to learn he was not actually her horse this way, though. “What did the prince pay?”

He sighed, conveying his annoyance at having to talk about something as commonplace as money with her. “Two thousand guineas, if you must know. The highest amount ever paid for a racehorse.” 

She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth involuntarily. A small fortune. Any thought she had for buying him back with her meagre savings faded. “Have you signed a contract?”

“Not yet. It will come in the next week.”

Her hands trembled again, so she clutched them together. Father saw that too. “There is nothing you can do. I have shaken hands with the man. The prince will get the king of horses. It is fitting, in a way. Equinox will be the star of the stable opening. And, I hasten to tell you, I have made one stipulation: Honey has to go with him, or there’s no deal.”

Relief rushed over the anxiety. “Oh, thank goodness! At least he will not be entirely alone.” It didn’t make it better, but it helped. The little pony was like a warm blanket for the seventeen-hand stallion; he had never been to a race meet without her. Now they spent their time in the same field and were often found resting together under the same tree.

“I let him know Equinox becomes completely unruly and impossible to control without Honey close by.” He smiled sadly. “But he already knew. Honey’s fame precedes her.” 

It was much the same way Diana was known by all and sundry as Lady Luck because Equinox won whenever she attended the races. The times she had not attended, he had not even placed. It happened often enough that punters would look for her in the crowd before placing their bets. “I’m still not happy.” But they were in the business of breeding and selling horses. She should know better than to become so hopelessly attached to him. “I will still do whatever I can to get him back to us after the prince’s precious stable opening.” It was the only thought that made it bearable. Her mind was already racing through an inventory of what she could sell to raise funds. But two thousand guineas. It was impossible. 

“I would expect no less. Although I do hope you’ll stop short of outright theft.” He waggled a finger at her, as though his jest made everything right. “You may just have to trust me on this. I know it may seem hasty, but I have not built these stables without meticulous planning and attention to detail. The contract will have clauses ensuring we can send mares to him to sire more foals. We just won’t have him wandering in the fields all day.”

Diana shook her head. “I promise nothing. I care little about the foals, but I care a great deal about him being in my fields every day.”

He smiled and put an arm around her. “Incorrigible. Will you come back to the house with me?”

She shrugged herself out of his embrace and walked toward the stall where Equinox was now waiting for her. “No, I will take my dear boy for as many rides as he will let me, for as long as we have him.” 

Once there, she pulled an apple from her pocket. “Did they make you show off then, did they? And no apple afterward?”

He took the fruit from her hand and crunched happily, then pushed his nose into her hand for another. His warm brown eyes met hers as though in understanding. She hugged his neck. There was no way the wastrel prince was going to keep him. She’d move heaven and earth to make sure this relocation was of the shortest possible term.

She was lost in thought, mindlessly stroking his neck, when somebody called her name.

“Ahoy there, Miss Kingsley.” Alec, Lord Templeton, stood in a stall, dressed in working breeches and a white shirt, open at the throat, where a small patch of skin demanded her attention. 

In other words, it was Templeton, stripped of his usual sartorial glory, looking for all the world like a stable hand. But even clothed like that, he was beautiful. Like a dark-haired pirate, all lithe and sprung with energy, ready to bound over the decks with sword in hand. Just looking at him made her long for … for something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Adventure, perhaps? When she was younger, just having him in the same room had caused her to light up like a hundred-candle chandelier. Even his lack of any kind of offer over ten whole years had done nothing to dull his effect on her. It was exhausting, because as long as he remained unattached, her heart refused to give up all hope. But now with another man’s betrothal ring on her hand, the hopes and dreams of her youth could not be allowed to hold her back from her future. 

The boy next door simply did not love her back.

Her stomach twisted and lurched, as though memories of the times she had hoped in the past were only yesterday. Waiting for him to court her when she made her debut. Dancing three dances with him at her coming-out ball. Being led into supper and him bringing her a plate of nibbles and her first glass of champagne. Thinking from their lively flirting that he finally saw her as more than an annoying little sister to be rescued from scrapes.

Engaging herself to Fortescue when that never happened.

Waiting for him to realize that after his father died, she would help him through.

Just waiting.

Then realizing he would never wake up, no matter how often she flirted with him as though her life depended on it. 

Damn you, Templeton. No wonder I love Equinox. He is so much less complicated.

She looked around the stalls for her brother—where Templeton was, Pip invariably followed—but she couldn’t see him. She needed a moment to take a breath and settle herself after the shock of Equinox being sold. But Templeton was the last person to calm her roaring emotions. Quite the opposite.

He was leaning on a shovel and watched her with his usual lazy gaze. His eyes looked almost black in the dull stable light. But in proper daylight they were the color of dark rum. 

“In the doldrums, Miss Kingsley?” He motioned to Equinox. “Perhaps you should take him for a ride. Nothing like the wind in one’s hair to raise the spirits.”

Diana fixed him with a stony stare, eyebrows raised. “My dear Lord Templeton, how lovely to see you. Although you were at last night’s assembly, were you not?” She had found over the years that the best defense against his charm was a brutal offense.

His brown eyes lit, acknowledging her deflection. “Indeed, I was. Were you there too? I’m sorry we did not dance, if you were.” 

She shook her head slowly in disbelief, because their eyes had locked more than once during the evening. He truly loved to spar with her, and perhaps indulging him would burn off some of the horrid swirling in her stomach that grew with each thought of losing her horse.

She took a brush hanging from the stall wall and applied it to Equinox’s glossy mane. “You surprise me. I know you saw me, and one would think you’d love to dance with such an old friend. Although, I suppose I do not qualify as potential wifely material.”

“Correct. Father always wanted me to save him by marrying an heiress. My reply was ever that I would rather choke and die with my face in porridge than give him the satisfaction of a wealthy bride. My bride will come from the gutter, if I have anything to say about it, and bring with her a family of twenty penniless aunts who I will install in Althorne Park in triumph.”

Diana smiled, even as her heart twisted at the thought. “And cats. There must be a menagerie of cats and any other stray animals you can round up.”

“Exactly!” he said, his eyes lighting. “But now that he is gone, of course, I find I cannot marry an heiress for entirely different reasons.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You are not very attractive to them, perhaps?” Present company excluded.

He laughed. “Well, there’s that.”

She pretended to think about it. “Or they’re not attractive to you? All those years searching for a guttersnipe has changed you?”

He raised a single eyebrow, one of his signature expressions. “Oh, I’m not particular. Don’t be misled. A good heart is my only requirement. The problem is, how can I marry for anything but love?”

She blinked in mock horror. “Good lord, you’re a romantic. That would have been my very last guess.” You never fell in love with me. Her stomach hurt a little. 

He raised a finger to his lips. “Please don’t tell anyone. If Pip finds out, my life will not be worth living.”

Lowering her voice, Diana leaned toward him, getting a healthy dose of his lemon verbena mixed with hard work scent. It was heady stuff. “Your secret is safe with me. I shall put it in my famous secret chamber.”

“I have it on good authority that your secret chamber can be easily accessed with a glass of champagne or two at supper.”

She lifted her chin. “Lies! Name one secret I have divulged.”

“That Pip let Equinox in a field with the wrong horses, and now you have a couple of very closely related foals?”

“Ha! That was never in the chamber. It was much too entertaining. But none of this answers why you did not stand up with me last night.” She loved to dance with him. It felt like flying.

Templeton smiled at his boots, a small secret smile that suggested he was thinking something he dare not voice. As if that ever happened. “My instinct for self-preservation informed my decision. I was not of a mind to be skewered by your conversation.” 

“Why ever would I skewer you, Lord Templeton? I assure you I have the utmost regard for you.”

As they were growing up, Lord Templeton had spent many summer holidays at Kingsley House. Some might say he was almost like a brother. Except that was laughable. He had never felt like a brother. More like a boy demi-god who she would gladly trail after if only he’d drop her a crumb. But he seemed more inclined to just poke and tease her.

He did not behave like that with other ladies. She’d watched him at last night’s assembly. He charmed every lady he stood up with, from debutantes to their mothers, and sometimes even their grandmothers. They generally finished dancing with him, slightly bewildered and patting their hair. And it wasn’t just because he had a windswept poetic look to him or a jaw you could likely hew wood on—because any gentleman could be handsome. No, it was because he looked at them like whatever they were saying was important to him, like they were the only person in the room. 

But none of that charm was ever aimed at her. Instead, she got the Templeton who took anything she was trying to hide and lifted it to the light like an interesting specimen he found in the mud on a riverbank.

“Oh, you’d find a way. It wouldn’t be long before you were discovering that I had spilled champagne on my cravat or tied my shoelaces together. Then you would tease me without mercy, and then I would have to tease you in retaliation and before we knew it, the entire dance floor would be a battlefield, with you and I left bloody and bruised before the quadrille was over.” He shrugged. “So, you see, I did both of us a favor by not asking you to dance last night.”

He punctuated his last sentence with a jab of his shovel onto the bricked floor. “And, in any case, you were always occupied with some country squire or other. Your derriere did not touch the seat of a chair for the entire evening.”

“Templeton!”

“You most certainly did not need me to dance with you, unless it was to prove that every gentleman in the room was under your spell.”

“Oh, I should never think that of you. You are far too tough a nut to crack.”

“And you are far too hard a toffee for me to try.”

She blinked. They seemed to be talking about something entirely different, but it was impossible to tell exactly what. “Me? A toffee? We both know I am not that sweet.”

“Exactly. You are one of those toffees that you can’t quite decide whether it is sweet or bitter, because the cook took it too far, but then after a moment of concentration, you decide, no, it’s just bitter.”

“Oh! You beast!” A swift stab of hurt was followed by anger. She scowled in consternation, trying to stop the rush of tears. This morning had been more than enough. She dipped her head, and he dipped his, too, looking into her eyes when she would rather he went to Hades.

She could swear she heard him swear under his breath.

“Damnation. I’m sorry, Diana. I went too far.” 

“I do not believe I have given you leave of my name.” But of course, she had, back when they were both ten. 

“Miss Kingsley,” Lord Templeton said formally. “Please forgive my insult to your good person.” He sounded like he meant it.

She waved him away, not wanting him to think, for even a moment, that she was soft. She could bear many things from him, but not his pity. “Oh, no need to apologize. I enjoy having one man on earth who treats me as an equal. Pray, continue to think of me as a bitter toffee.” She strode off, leaving him behind, all thought of her ride gone. “With any luck, you’ll chip your tooth, then choke on it.”

“That’s my huntress,” she heard him say softly behind her. “Skewered me well and good. But whatever has happened to put you out of sorts?”

Release Date: September 25th, 2021

EBook ISBN:978-0-6451218-4-1

Print ISBN: 978-0-6451218-6-5