The Duke's Bridle Path

by Burrowes, Grace

  “A very little. It is an uncommonly large nose. I did like his wife, which I wasn’t expecting to.”

  “He doesn’t deserve her.”

  Ada looked at him curiously. “You take my part with admirable prejudice.”

  “I didn’t like him. I’m glad you didn’t marry him.”

  “I came to the same conclusion soon after he jilted me. If the only thing he wanted of me was my family’s good name…”

  “Then he was a fool.”

  Ada smiled. “Spoken like a man who recently fabricated a shocking alternative to one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

  “You weren’t shocked at all. You liked it. Shall I finish my recitation? I only did the first four lines of the poem. The next bit is meant to be about your cheeks not being rosy, or your breath not being like perfume, but I can make it much more enticing.”

  “Ah… that’s all right.”

  He shrugged. “For the best, since your cheeks are looking rosy right now. Embarrassed? I was only doing what I promised. I’m besotted with you, or don’t you recall?”

  “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten a word of our earlier conversation.”

  He nodded at the book she held. “You’re holding that so tightly your knuckles are going white.”

  She released the book as if it were a hot poker, letting it thump to the floor. “I always hold books like that when I come upon someone flipping through them unexpectedly, thus violating his professed code of ethics.”

  “I did not. You left it open on your desk, which meant it was all right for me to look through it.” He hesitated. “It’s not in English, is it?”

  Her brows lifted. “No, it’s not. Couldn’t you tell? It’s German poetry.”

  He shifted in the chair, drawing his legs in from their sprawl. “I wasn’t aware it was possible to write a poem in German. An argument, yes, but a poem?”

  “A few people have managed it over the years. I’ve been reading this one so long, it’s more of an old friend than a mere book by now.” And she’d dropped it on the floor, poor book. She bent to pick it up, dusting off its binding of faded red morocco leather.

  “Why this one?”

  She smiled. “It was the only book small enough to fit into my pocket and hide from the governess.”

  “Your governess wouldn’t allow you to read poetry in German? Strict woman.”

  “She was German,” said Ada, as if that explained everything, and Goddard laughed.

  “I was never encouraged to read much,” she added. “Numbers were my particular gift, and therefore I had to work with them.”

  Numbers, numbers. Ever since she’d joined Philippe for his childhood lessons from their governess, the family had made it known that Ada had a head for numbers. And so she did. A column of numbers was as easy for her to read and make sense of as a page of words.

  But it was words, twisting, mysterious words, that Ada really loved. One couldn’t jot columns of numbers at random in one’s bedchamber when the lights were low. But one could write—and hide the pages, knowing that disappointment and punishment would follow if they were ever found. Her observations ran toward the ordinary and wry: on which days the governess’s breath smelled like whisky, or how much less time the lower housemaid took to change the linens on her own, as opposed to when one of the footmen helped her behind a closed door.

  Such observations were not encouraged. Whenever she’d spoken of them, the conversation had been turned toward numbers again.

  “Dear me. Are you a mathematical genius?” Goddard adopted a tone of mock distress.

  “That’s putting it too strongly. But I had a knack for addition. And because it came easily, I had to learn more and more maths.”

  “So you are a genius. And here I sit in your presence. I knew I felt a warm glow.”

  “That’s the fire, thank you very much. And I have a talent for maths, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the subject.”

  “Don’t you?” He looked genuinely interested.

  “I manage my brother’s estate in his absence, and I keep the accounts. It’s… all right. But it’s not for me—does that make sense?”

  “Maybe. But why do you spend so much time on it?”

  She thought about it. “Just this: I want to help my brother, but I know anyone with a decent head could do this work just as well. If he ever chooses to hire a steward, he won’t need me at all.”

  Recently, Philippe had been dropping hints that he wanted to do just this. You should go to London, Ada. We should hire someone to do this, Ada. You can’t be wanting to spend your life doing this, Ada.

  No, she didn’t. But what else was there for a spinster with no other family?

  “Sisters aren’t kept around because of the good they can do,” Colin Goddard said. “Or so I’ve gathered. I never had one myself.”

  She traced the tooled shapes on the tiny poetry book’s binding. “Why would one keep a sister around, then?”

  “Because a brother loves her and wants her to have a safe and comfortable place to live.” He leaned forward, took up the poker, and jabbed it into the glowing coals a few times. “Though that’s only a guess. I’m much more diabolical. I keep my brother around because he’s a workhorse and I can take advantage of him.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.” When he sat back again, she said, “You tore a strip off me earlier with all your talk about morals and privilege.”

  “Is that what I did? I wondered why a feeling of unaccustomed power was coursing through me. Now I know.”

  “Yes, that was it. And I let you because I didn’t know if it was worth punching back. So to speak.”

  “Of course it was! I’ve been told before that my face is very punchable.”

  He had a winning way, she could not deny it. That smile, that comfort in his own skin. It made one want to stick to his side and tell him everything. She wondered if this talent had led him to writing, or if it had been the other way ’round.

  “It wasn’t your face, but the words coming from it. However, if I engaged in every argument someone wanted to foist upon me, as the sister and representative of the Duke of Lavelle, I’d never get anything else done.”

  His waving hair glinted in the firelight. “What a contentious life you lead.”

  “You have no idea,” she said dryly. “But you’ll be pleased to know, I’m sure, that I like you more than I expected to. You were ridiculous this evening, but you acted with decency.”

  “Thank you.” Somehow, from his seated position, he managed a servile bow.

  “Which is why I’m going to tear a strip off you before we go any further with this bargain of ours.”

  He snapped upright. “Ah. It’s about the writing again, isn’t it? Why does this bother you so much, Lady Ada? If you’re not hurt, why not let me benefit?”

  She chose her words carefully, like picking her way through a quagmire. “Because it does hurt. Scandal devoured my eldest brother’s memory. It brought me the humiliation of a jilting. And now it dogs my remaining brother.”

  The on-demandes after Jonas’s accidental death had been brutal. Was Lord Chaddleworth’s fall truly an accident, or did he arrange it to cover his despondence? Was it because of debt? An illicit love affair? Could she have met the writer of those questions, she’d have given him answers that he wouldn’t forget for a lifetime.

  Jonas’s death was exactly what it had seemed. Horse plus man plus jump plus wall—plus muddy earth and not enough training—equaled a broken neck, unconsciousness, inevitable death. But because of The Gentleman’s Periodical, questions that ought never to have been asked were then on everyone’s mind. And from their minds to their lips was but a small journey.

  Ada sighed, remembering. “Let me put a different perspective to you, Mr. Goddard. When you write about someone and collect your pay, do you ever think of what comes next?”

  “Always. I think about spending it on bread and clothing and paying the rent on the rooms I share with my brother.”
r />   “Do not be deliberately obtuse.”

  He schooled his expression into one of greater seriousness. “You mean, I suppose, do I ever think of what comes next for the people my brother and I write about. No, I do not. I don’t have time to. We have to find someone or something else to write about.”

  “You spread rumor and scandal for profit, never thinking about the pain caused by your written word. The strained marriages, the broken engagements. The friendships befouled by jealousy and doubt. Everyone you write about is a real person, but they are not real to you. As you just said, you don’t have time to think of them as real. You don’t think of them at all.”

  * * *

  Her crisp, calm words were darts into the blithe armor with which he covered himself. With which he had to cover himself, to shift from one voice to another, one false persona to another. To earn the money that took care of himself and his brother.

  “I can’t afford to,” he said. “The people I write about are those who can afford much more than I. But I am sorry for any pain I’ve caused you. I didn’t do you justice.”

  He wanted to say more, but he clamped down on further apology. What good would it do for her to know he’d thought up the scandalous questions that had dragged her life askew?

  She looked at him with those silvery eyes of hers, and something tight in her posture relaxed. “There you go, acting like a human being. What am I to do with you?”

  “I have two ideas. First, you could call me Colin. And second, you could give me some clothes that fit properly, or else let me wear my own for the remainder of the fortnight.”

  A smile sneaked across her features, then vanished. “Yes to both. And you may call me Ada, since you are madly in love with me.”

  With that, she bid him good night. When she swept out of the study, leaving him alone, his heart was still stammering over her final words.

  She was one to watch out for, was this Lady Ada Ellis. Frankness and humor and all that collected breeding—Lord have mercy, if he didn’t feel himself going soft about the edges already. It would be only too easy to pretend to be in love with her. The difficult part would be remembering why he was truly here with Samuel: to take notes, to write their pieces, to make money, to leave.

  He didn’t realize until he was back at the White Hare that she’d never specified the favor she would claim of him if she won their bargain.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Alas, when one seeks to mingle with the upper class, one must adopt its more foolish trappings. Affectations of dress and behavior—such as the unaccountable fondness for equestrian sports—hold no purpose except to prove that one belongs in the company of the wealthy. For the wealthy, this is purpose enough.

  Vir Virilem, Ways to Wed for Wealth

  “Yes, you are going to ride a horse,” Ada repeated. To Colin’s ear, she sounded exasperated. “If you are besotted with me, then sometimes you will have to ride a horse.”

  “I can be besotted with you without being besotted with a horse.” Colin thought this was a sturdy argument, but Ada was having none of it.

  She continued her march down the row of stalls. “Gentlemen ride, especially in Berkshire. We’re only a shout away from Ascot.”

  “I’ll refrain from shouting.”

  She ignored this. “And you could be a gentleman, you know. If you chose.”

  This was so startling to Colin that he dropped his gloves. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Nudging the gloves with his boot, he tried to pop them into the air.

  “Just pick them up.”

  “This coat is too tight.” It was another borrowed garment, though this time Colin understood the need for it, since he owned no riding clothes of his own.

  Ada pursed her lips. With a smooth gesture, she snapped them up and stuffed them into his hand. “And I’m the one wearing stays. Honestly.”

  She was a little flushed when she stood upright, which meant her comment was not an invitation to evaluate her appearance. But since Colin wasn’t a gentleman, no matter what she said, he did it anyway. She wore a riding habit of a shade between blue and green that made her eyes look cool and bright. Her hair was tucked up beneath a little shako-style hat, setting off her graceful neck, her stubborn chin. She looked pretty and obstinate and confident and embarrassed all at once, and he could almost forgive her for her determination to seat him on a horse.

  The stables were as well-appointed inside as the exteriors had led him to believe. They were scented pleasantly of straw and liniments and warm animals, though the odor of manure underlay it all. Still, it was much nicer than a London street, and he said so.

  “The stalls are cleaned more often and more thoroughly,” Ada replied. “Now. Will you choose your mount, or shall I choose for you?”

  Colin stalled. “Surely there have been gentlemen since the beginning of time who have not known how to ride a horse.”

  “There have, but you are not to be one of them. We are going to ride horses and make ourselves visible as a courting couple.”

  “How unbending and obstinate you are. I’m not sure why I’m besotted with you.”

  Her brows shot up. “Perhaps you recognize your own qualities in me.”

  Despite himself, he chuckled. He enjoyed every minute with her, every spar and parry.

  He did not enjoy every minute in the stables. But he could do this. It wasn’t as if he didn’t see horses every day in London. They were more common than dogs, pulling wagons and carts and carriages, being ridden or sold, pampered or abused.

  But he wasn’t usually so near a horse. When he rode in a stagecoach, the horses were outside, and he was within. And as he looked down the row of generously sized stalls, at the generously sized animals, his stomach rolled over.

  This brown one here, with the black legs. It was much taller than a person, and should it choose to stomp on Colin’s feet, his were outnumbered two to one. “Do you have a smaller horse?”

  “I do. My mare, Atalanta. But she wouldn’t hold your weight.” An assessing look at Colin decided her. “No, you’d best ride Equinox.”

  Equinox was apparently the large brown animal Colin had just eyed with suspicion. “But I—”

  “If you’re my suitor, and we’re going to convince Lord Wrotham that I don’t give a snap for him anymore, then we have to ride. And we have to ride the bridle path that passes between the Lavelle property and the horse farm where he’s buying new animals.”

  “Do you know for certain that he’s there? Won’t all our work be wasted if he doesn’t see us?” He was trying valiantly to save himself and Equinox the indignity of being paired. “I know I agreed to the bargain, but this is a great deal of trouble to score off someone you don’t care about anymore.”

  “It’s not only that.” She checked the fastening on the headpiece, then scratched behind the horse’s ears. “I need to create an impression, whether he sees us or not. As long as someone sees us, word will get about.”

  “An impression. All right. Anything specific, besides the fact that you sit a horse far better than your poor swain, Mr. Goddard?”

  “Rather.” She counted on her fingers. “First, that I am not a retiring little snippet of a person who has never returned to London since being jilted. Second, that I’m not the sort of woman who has never since had a suitor. Third, that I’d never be content to spend my days with the numbers created by and for my brother’s business interests.”

  “That’s a lot to communicate in one ride. If I’m sifting through all the negatives properly, though, I might add that your description of yourself is far from the truth.”

  “It is precisely the truth. But for the two weeks you are here, it’s not anymore.”

  He recognized this as an earnest plea for help, though Ada didn’t speak those specific words. “What happens at the end of the two weeks? Should I propose and you refuse me in spectacular fashion?”

  She looked startled. “I hadn’t consider
ed the best way to bring an end to the charade. Remiss of me.”

  “I’m sure I can think of something dramatic and stunning.” He sounded blithe, didn’t he? Yet, already he was dreading the end of these two weeks. The pretense of fondness for Ada was as comfortable as a warm cloak.

  “So. Equinox.” Colin eyed the horse. It eyed him back with a long-lashed eye of deepest brown. “Good name. Does he sleep half the day?”

  “Horses aren’t much on sleep, unlike the cats that roam around the stable. The cats catch mice sometimes, but they’re most useful at lying around in sunbeams.” She nodded at a gray tabby that was doing just that. “Equinox was foaled on the twenty-first of March, about six and a half years ago now. How could he be named anything else?”

  “I should have guessed. The name makes perfect sense.” Unlike the names of some racehorses, which seemed chosen at random from scraps of a torn dictionary.

  “Go ahead, get to know him.” Ada motioned toward the big brown horse. “I’ll get Fowler. He can saddle Equinox for you.”

  Thus Colin was abandoned with a horse named after a day of the year. Sometimes his life was strange. “Hullo, horse. How are you?” He extended a cautious hand. The horse plunged his muzzle into Colin’s palm, lipping at his gloved hand, then snorting an enormous warm breath of disappointment.

  Ada approached with the wiry groom Colin remembered from their first meeting. “Equinox wanted a treat from you.” She smiled, rubbing the gelding’s long nose and finger-combing his forelock into place. “Maybe he remembers how you admired him in front of the confectionary shop in the village.”

  “I could admire him again if you wish.”

  “He’d much prefer you gave him something to eat. Here, make friends.” As the groom began saddling the horse, Ada reached into a bin and held up a dirty glob with a stringy top.

  “A… rock?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You can’t be that much of a Londoner. It’s a beetroot.”

  Holding it by its top, she knocked it against the stall door to free the loose dirt. He recognized it, now that he knew what it was. The horse seemed to know what it was too. He stretched out his long neck, upper lip folded up as if he were shoving the earthy scent into his nostrils.