Lydia watched Mr. Fawkes race across the yard towards the tack room. He was obviously excited as anything for her to ride a horse, which was nice, if a little odd. What a stock these men put by getting on horseback! What a fuss over nothing! She stroked Tilly’s face as she had been instructed, running a hand between the mare’s blinking brown eyes. Despite all of her fears that she had been stoking for a lifetime, Tilly really had turned out to be as harmless as a sheep. The mare let her ears flop, something Mr. Fawkes claimed meant that she was utterly relaxed, and half-closed her eyes. She let out a breath with a big flutter of nostrils, and Lydia noticed that still more specks now adorned the old green cloth of her borrowed riding habit. Thank goodness Grainne had lent it to her — Lydia had never been so messy in her life.
Or so tired! Her arms ached with the work Mr. Fawkes had set her to: the currying, rubbing the horse all over with a round brush; the dandy brush, knocking all the dirt off that the curry comb had brought up; the hoof picking — oh that had been worst of all, getting right under the horse and pulling the dirt and muck out of the horse’s hoof while Mr. Fawkes held the leg up for her, promising all the while that one day he’d teach her to pick up the leg and hold it herself. Imagine! Holding up a horse’s leg, standing right under a horse’s leg, and picking the dirt out of the hoof! What could be worse?
And yet it hadn’t been so terrible, not as awful as she had expected, even if it was twice as exhausting. Spending time with Mr. Fawkes — that had been splendid, of course. And watching him move so gently around the horse, treating the old mare as if she was the finest racehorse in the prince regent’s stables, that had been revealing as well. She had been admiring Mr. Fawkes from afar for so long, attributing to him a number of hero-like characteristics, and she was finding that instead of bold and regal as she had imagined, he was kind-hearted and loving, and it seemed immeasurably more pleasant to find that was the case. He was every bit the gentleman she had fallen for, but he was that much more of a gentle soul that she thought would love her with all his heart — if only such a thing were possible.
“I can’t get the thought out of my head,” she whispered to Tilly, and the mare’s ears waggled a little in response. “It shouldn’t be there, I’m a bad daughter for thinking it, but… there it is. I can’t help but imagine how happy we should be together. Horses and all.” And she sighed, and she shrugged, and she giggled a little, to think that she, Lydia, was now the sort of person who would talk to a horse.
And now here came Mr. Fawkes again, with a side-saddle perched over one arm and a bridle hanging from one shoulder, the reins looping around his ankles. He stepped out of them and into them again and again, as if he was practiced at this sort of thing. He grinned as he got closer, that toothy cheery grin that made Lydia’s heart clench up tight, and said: “I always let the reins fall, after all these years. My riding master at Eton would have taken a riding crop to me for letting the leather get so dirty. I apologize, my dear Miss Dean, for sullying your tack,” and with a flourish and a bowed head, he granted Lydia the bridle like it was a royal offering to a queen.
She took the leather and metal thing in her hands and regarded it uncertainly. Beside her, Tilly had picked up her head and opened her eyes again — she knew what was it was about, even if Lydia couldn’t tell one end from the other.
“We’ll do the saddle first,” Peregrin told her, and they went back into the box so that he could show her how to place the saddle on the withers, and then slide it back a bit so that it sat in exactly the right place. “Too far forward and you restrict the shoulder,” he said mysteriously. “Too far back and you injure the kidneys.”
Lydia had not the slightest idea where the shoulder was or what the kidneys were, but she assured Mr. Fawkes that she would do neither. Then he did up the girths and she had to laugh to herself at the thought that she would ever be strong enough to do such a thing.
“All of this work makes you strong enough, though,” Mr. Fawkes said seriously. “And wouldn’t it be nice to be strong enough to do things for yourself, and not have to always wait for a man-servant to do it for you?”
Lydia was silent. She had never contemplated such a scenario, whether for good or for ill. She scarcely knew what to think about it. Would it be good? Would it be bad? She didn’t have any idea. It would certainly be different.
“And now the bridle,” Mr. Fawkes announced, taking the heavy leather from her hands, and then he seemed to perform some sort of magic trick with his hands, for the straps and buckles and joints that were a mass of loops in her hands suddenly became a bridle on the horse’s head, the bit in Tilly’s soft mouth, the crownpiece behind her ears, the noseband buckled around her jaw. Lydia could only gape.
“What’s next?” she said then, her mind suspicious. She thought she knew. But she couldn’t possibly do it. Even after all of this, she couldn’t possibly —
“Riding.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Riding.
This was it, then. Lydia took a deep breath and looked up at Mr. Fawkes. He was gazing down at her with a kindly expression, the sort she supposed he used for injured birds and lost children. She swallowed a sob that was half-fear, half-disappointment.
Fear, of course, of the massive beast, the one she had just combed with her own fair hands, who was snorting and pawing at the door, ready to be taken out. Tilly must have known that the saddle and the bridle meant exercise. And disappointment? Disappointment that Mr. Fawkes would most certainly never see her as more than an injured bird, or a lost child. She was about to get on a horse looking like a fool, she would probably shriek like an infant if the beast made on step she wasn’t expecting, and neither of those things was never ever going to capture his heart, that much was for certain.
This had been such a mistake. Oh, and to think she had supposed Grainne would have taught her! She had imagined Grainne bringing out a small pony for her to learn to sit elegantly upon, and then she would have paraded before Mr. Fawkes and shown off her gentlewomanly skill of perching upon a sidesaddle without toppling off. Instead she stood dirty and disheveled before Mr. Fawkes, in a borrowed riding habit of ancient design, about to make an utter cake of herself with this ancient, long-toothed broodmare.
“Well come on, then,” Mr. Fawkes urged her. “Open up the stall door and make sure you her reins in hand like this —” and he cupped her hands gently around the reins, one just below the mare’s jaw — so close to the teeth! Lydia shuddered — and one farther down, to stop the loops from falling to the ground and tripping them both up. “That’s it! And now you start walking, and she’ll come with you.”
Lydia bit her lip and did as she was told, walking forward determinedly out of the stall door.
But the mare did not.
Lydia felt the reins jerk in her hands and stopped instantly. She looked back at the mare, perplexed, and the mare tilted her wobbly mule’s ears at her. “Whatever — whyever — why won’t she come?”
Mr. Fawkes, to her great dismay, laughed and clapped the old mare on the shoulder. “I guess she wants you to ask her nicely.”
Lydia flushed. This was really too awful. “Ask her…” How on earth did one speak politely to a horse? “Horse, won’t you please come out?” she tried.
The mare yawned.
“I don’t understand! A second ago she was banging on the door!”
“That was when you wanted her to stay in,” Mr. Fawkes explained.
“I want you to stay inside,” Lydia told the contrary beast, but evidently the mare was not easily fooled, because she did not stir a step from inside the stall. “Please come outside,” she tried again. “Dear Tilly, won’t you come outside? It’s very nice out.”
Tilly was unmoved. Her brown eyes started to close.
Lydia’s blue eyes started to water a little.
“Come on now, you just have to know how to ask the horse,” Mr. Fawkes said, giving in at last and putting on his teacher’s face again. He put his hand on Lydia’s
, which nearly made the entire experience worthwhile, and showed her how to give the reins a little tug while he made a clucking noise with his tongue. The mare sighed, fluttering her nostrils with great contempt, and made a reluctant step forward, her iron shoe making a clopping sound on the cobbles. “That’s the way. Come on Miss Dean, you’ve heard horsemen make that sound before. Try it. Tch tch tch,” he clucked again, and the mare, with a great bob of her head, came out of the stall and walked sedately beside Lydia and Mr. Fawkes, as politely as could be.
Lydia felt a great swell of pride. “Tuck tuck tuck,” she attempted the horsemen’s cluck, and Mr. Fawkes praised her.
“A bit more tch and a bit less tuck, though,” he instructed. “More of a fast-paced sound, if you know what I mean.”
And Lydia found that she did.
She tch tch tch’d the mare all around the yard, wobbling around grooms who grinned familiarly at Mr. Fawkes and his little student, taking in the whole great square of the stable-yard with her new puppy-dog walking beside her. Gradually Mr. Fawkes let go of her hand, and walked a few steps behind her, but Lydia was so conscious of her new-found responsibility in guiding Tilly’s great hooves (and avoiding them) that she scarcely noticed he had gone. It was a strange new feeling, this: having a great animal who had always terrified her actually rely on her for instruction and guidance. If she stopped, Tilly stopped, and if she turned, Tilly, without so much as a tug on the bridle, turned. It took only a few gentle clucks of the tongue and a step forward to get the mare moving again. Tilly, a giant horse, was actually under her control.
It was a heady, heady feeling.
Finally their circuits of the yard had them at the stable-gate. She and Tilly came to a halt at the great iron gate and peered out through the brick archway at the world beyond. The road to the house forked just beyond the stable and led off into the trees. “What’s down that way?” she asked, and Mr. Fawkes smiled.
“The menage,” he said. “A closed-off paddock for schooling young horses. Would you like to go there?”
“Can I lead Tilly there?” Lydia was beginning to feel that she would like to lead Tilly everywhere. The mare lipped gently at the extra cloth bunching around her wrists, and she watched, enchanted, as the teeth never even came close to her arm. Why, that mare didn’t want to eat her alive at all! This must be the nicest horse in the world, Lydia decided. Perhaps she could take her around the park on a lead like some girls did with puppies. How much nicer would Tilly be than a puppy — no tiresome barking at all.
Lydia had fallen quite in love with Tilly on this walk.
“You can lead her there,” Mr. Fawkes said after a moment of consideration. “Hold onto the reins a little tighter though — like this — ” and he adjusted her hands on the reins, giving her another spreading feeling of warmth throughout her entire body. Awash with good feeling, she smiled up at him with unabashed admiration, and was delighted to see a flicker of recognition in his face. She didn’t feel a bit fast, either. Let him know she was his for the taking — what did it matter if he couldn’t afford her? Having this horse do her bidding was giving Lydia all sorts of wild, independent thoughts. She felt like an American.
Satisfied that her hands were tight on the reins, Mr. Fawkes opened the gates. They swung noiselessly to either side, a great opening large enough to comfortably drive a carriage through, and between them Lydia marched her puppy-dog, her old mare, her new best friend Tilly, and they went swinging down the drive together at a comfortable pace.
This was really lovely, Lydia was thinking. There wasn’t any need to actually get on a horse, who knew? Why did people complicate things? A horse was just a nice companion, it turned out, someone to take a stroll with. She looked at Tilly and smiled with pure happiness. Had she been so frightened of this horse just a half an hour ago? Why, Mr. Fawkes had said Tilly was gentle as an old sheep, and he’d been right!
And Mr. Fawkes! Lydia’s focus shifted from the horse she was guiding to the man a few steps behind her. He grew more delightful with every moment spent in his presence. Lydia knew that she was hopelessly in love, and she fretted over it with the nervous knowledge that she could never, ever, accept an offer from him — that he would never even be foolish enough to offer for her, even if he felt strongly about her at all.
And there was no reason to believe that he did. The way that he touched her, the familiar way his hands closed over hers — that was nothing to indicate that he had any sort of feelings for her. He was teaching her horsemanship, nothing more — she had already seen that these horsemen, these mad Mr. Fawkes and Lord and Lady Archwood and even, to a certain extent, Lord Sutton, thought of horses in a completely different way from normal people. There were no rules of Society or of etiquette that applied when it came to the handling and training of horses. Everything went straight out the window, and so if Mr. Fawkes thought that he needed to grip her hands in a most familiar way when teaching her to hold the reins, well, it meant nothing at all, and Lydia knew it.
But the current of electricity between their fingers, the warmth that spread across her entire body, that all-too-familiar weakness of limbs and shuddering within that his touch set off in her body, was that really something that wasn’t shared between them? Were all those reactions really isolated to her alone? Surely that wasn’t possible — surely he must feel it too. She hazarded a glance back at Mr. Fawkes, caught him watching her with an abstracted smile and a warmth in his eyes that a teacher really shouldn’t show towards a student, and her breath caught in her throat — and then she tripped over a stone in the road, and fell forward.
It wouldn’t have been so terrible if she hadn’t been holding so tightly to the reins. But as she came crashing down, she didn’t let go of her hold on Tilly’s bridle. “Let go, let go!” she thought she heard, but she had twisted her ankle and the pain was blindingly bad, rosettes of red in front of her closed eyes, and then she felt a tightening around her hand and she screamed, it was so terrible, and then she felt a horrendous yank and she was being pulled by her arm, pulled along by the agonizing tightness around her hand, her body scraping against the pebbles in the road, and she could feel her dress tearing, and the pain in her hand and arm and shoulder was unbearable.
Then there was a sudden crack, and the pressure stopped instantly and she hit the ground face-down and lay very still.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Peregrin had not enjoyed himself so much in years. Following the slim young Dean girl around the yard while she led that old broodmare — adorable. She had been so deeply afraid of the horse the entire time they had been grooming, and so he’d been a bit unmerciful, he had to admit — making her clean out the hooves, and go right behind the horse to comb out her tail — but he’d wanted to show her that there was no part of the horse that she shouldn’t be able to safely handle. The frightening hooves, especially. It was a shame she’d been allowed to harbor this terror of horses her entire life, and he wasn’t impressed with her father for letting it happen, but he was determined to help her recover from it, and understand that horses were animals to be cherished and respected, not horrible beasts bent on injuring humans.
Now she had suddenly reached an understanding: that Tilly, like nearly all horses, wanted to be guided and instructed, and it had changed things. Had she ever been in charge of anything in her life? Peregrin was no stranger to Society; he might not have had a sister to have seen it all in action, but he knew that young ladies had less power than the average riding horse. They were raised to act a certain way, to look a certain way, and to marry the right gentleman of the right breeding. In many ways they were treated like horses — like prize blood-horses, to be sure, but horses nonetheless. They were groomed and taught to go through their paces, and then they were sent to Almack’s to catch the eye of the highest bidder — in what way was that any different from breeding and training up youngstock to send to Tattarsall’s?
It was a sad thing, but now he was seeing one of these trod-upon young fil
lies finding her own strength, and that was beautiful. He had seen it when training young horses for the races: as soon as they were told you may run as fast as you like and I will not stop you, it changed something in them. Horses who had grown used to toiling in traces or trotting endlessly learned that how strong and powerful they were, even under saddle, and grew in themselves. They stepped out with more pride. They held their heads higher. They even grew an inch or two; perhaps from changing the way they carried themselves, Peregrin wasn’t altogether certain. But it was true: on several horses he had trained for the downs, even as they had grown more wasp-waisted with conditioning, they had grown taller as well.
Would Miss Dean grow taller as she became a horsewoman, he wondered. Would it change the way she held her chin, would it brighten her eyes, which so often seemed downcast and worried, as if she had things on her mind that no young lady of Quality should have had to worry about. He had wondered what was going on in her mind since she arrived — she sat so quietly around the abbey, always wanting drawing out in order to be included in any conversation.
He frequently found her eyes on either him or Lord Sutton. She looked at him warmly, he liked to think that she thought of him as a friend, as an ally.
She looked at Lord Sutton with something else — warily, but with interest, as if she didn’t know quite what to think of him, but was trying very hard to sort him out in her mind.
Peregrin thought perhaps within her quiet persona there was a very busy mind, labeling and pigeonholing each of them according to their characters, and once she had done that — what? She would make up her mind and either make a play for one of them, or go back to London and resume her husband hunt there?
What if she made a play for him?
Peregrin watched the graceful sway of her hips as she walked beside the mare, turning this way and that as she practiced making the horse go where she commanded. She already seemed taller, he thought. She was already standing straighter. The extra fabric on the riding habit was bunched a little below her waist, and it seemed to accentuate her curves. What if she did?
The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Page 14
