Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) by Grace Burrowes Page A

“Understandable? Why understandable?” 
    “Because you are in mourning? Putting a crop of foals on the ground eleven months hence is not a priority at the moment, is it?” 
    “Are they good horses?” 
    Bargaining was one thing and lying to a lady another. “Very good. Greymoor was impressed, and he turns down some of the mares people bring to put to his stud.” 
    “This discussion doesn’t make you uncomfortable?” 
    “No more than you. Little horses come from big horses, much the same as little people find their way into the world. It isn’t complicated, on one level.” 
    He batted away the uncomplicated image of a nearly naked Lady Rammel singing to his fishes. 
    Her ladyship smiled at her hands, the same secretive, female smile he’d seen once before. He wondered if she were breeding and then wondered where such a strange notion had come from. By force of will, he kept his gaze from straying to her middle. 
    The smile, alas, disappeared. “So we’ll haggle over my mares. Unless I should keep them and breed them for myself?” 
    “Do you want to turn Deerhaven into a stud farm?” 
    She turned her head, rubbing her cheek over the shawl draped over her shoulder. Lanie made the same gesture when tired or out of sorts if her favorite blanket was at hand. 
    “Really, my lord, who in his right mind would buy horses from a stud farm owned by a female? I like the mares, but I have neither the expertise nor the correct gender for such an undertaking.” 
    “I do,” Trent countered. “What I lack is a bottomless supply of ready coin.” 
    “You are fearless,” she marveled. “Coin and breeding in the same discussion. Why would you admit such a thing?” 
    “So you’ll understand my motivation.” Trent rose and propped an elbow on the mantel, ideas tumbling in his mind. “I’d have to buy them over time, making payments, or providing goods or services in kind.” 
    Her ladyship sat up a little straighter in her rocker. “We haven’t even agreed on a price. Is this how you fellows go at your business, all willy-nilly?” 
    “Some of us.” Trent admired the lack of dust on her mantel—his own mantels were not nearly so pristine—and wondered whether he even had fishing poles at Crossbridge. “I’ve plenty of wealth, but I tied up a great deal of it in trusts for my children, in part to comply with my wife’s wishes and in part to safeguard the children from my father’s machinations in the event of my untimely demise. Then too, I’m a firm believer in investments that grow steadily, rather than riskier schemes.” 
    “But you lack the kind of cash you think my mares are worth?” 
    “I lack a willingness to deplete my cash that greatly with a single, speculative purchase.” He had the cash, easily, if he were to break his children’s trusts, which was not a consideration. 
    “So you’re prudent. One has concluded as much even based on our brief acquaintance. If the mares are as fine as you say, then wouldn’t they make a sound investment?” 
    Was prudence truly a virtue? Her tone gave Trent leave to doubt. 
    “To some extent, they are a sound investment, but if strangles or some other disease should sweep the shire, they’re a flat loss. If they don’t catch, if I lose them in foaling, if they throw foals that are too small, mean, over at the knee, cow-hocked—” 
    He’d made her smile, and that was lovely. 
    “Do hush, my lord. I’ll be paying you to take them away before they eat me out of house and home.” 
    “That’s the idea, more or less.” 
    She looked quite fetching in her shawl and blanket as she considered him. “You aren’t joking, though I’m not about to pay you to relieve me of truly valuable horses.” 
    “What if,”—Trent resumed his corner of the couch—“I provided the care, the feeding, the early training, and so forth, and you took a percentage of the profits?” 
    “What profits? Don’t horses take nearly a year to