“You have little choice.”
His little mouth turned down in a monumental pout. “Why do you never do anything helpful?”
When she’d accepted the position as governess to three young children, Sophia had imagined that her days would be spent imparting wisdom to eager learners, going on morning walks and afternoon outings, singing, and laughing. Not one of those predictions had proven accurate. The children disliked her, and she worked hard not to return the sentiment.
“Dermot,” the stable hand called out. “The lassie’s kickin’ her horse again.”
A second stable hand emerged, taking up the reins of the pony that Joseph had been riding.
Dermot turned to face Ella and her mistreated mount. “Am I needing to set you on your feet as well, missie?”
Ella was a bit less blustery than her brother, but only a little. “The pony is too slow.”
“That is because you are practicing riding at a walk today. Of the two of you, only that beast is managing the thing.”
Oh, to have the ability to speak that way to a member of the Haddington family. Dermot Buchanan had an air of inarguable authority about him. She could not imagine Queen Victoria herself arguing with Dermot.
In the early weeks of her employment, Sophia had been rather intimidated by him. But she’d watched him, likely more often than was seemly, and had discovered something else about the stable master. He was stern, yes, but he was also kind. She’d never heard a sharp word spoken to his staff that was not both necessary and deserved. He had never mistreated the animals in his care, even those whose stubbornness must have been exceedingly frustrating. Though he told the children in no uncertain terms when their behavior was unacceptable, he never did so with anger or malice.
Dermot Buchanan was something unique and wonderful.
Ella had twitched her chin up to a haughty angle, an expression she had most certainly learned from her mother. “I do not want to ride at a walk any longer,” she told Dermot.
“Very well.”
Quick as anything, Dermot pulled Ella from her saddle and set her on the ground, just as he had Joseph.
Ella approached Sophia’s chair with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “I meant I wanted to ride fast.”
“Mr. Buchanan will allow you to ride fast when he feels you are ready to do so.” Sophia had spent much of her six months at Haddington House attempting to teach the children to be concerned with the welfare of others rather than only themselves. The effort hadn’t yielded results, but she didn’t know what else to try.
Jenny, a maid from the house, arrived at precisely that moment. She always came to fetch the children at the end of their lessons. She must have noticed that Joseph’s ride had come to a premature end.
“Jenny is here,” Sophia told the children. “You are to wash before your milk and biscuits, as always. Cook will not send up your tray until I tell her to, and I intend to check your hands when I reach the nursery. Is that understood?”
They grumbled, which was all they ever did when given instructions to do something they did not find enjoyable.
Sophia handed Jane to Jenny. “Thank you for fetching them.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Pemberton.” She curtsied as she spoke and kept her eyes diverted.
Though Sophia no longer claimed a spot on the upper rungs of Society, the servants at Haddington House treated her as if she did. Even the upper servants, with whom she was on more equal footing, treated her like a stranger around whom they didn’t quite know what to do or say. Of course, to the Haddington family, she was every bit as dismissible and lowly as a scullery maid or a knife boy.
She had been warned that such was the plight of a governess, to never belong in either world, but the reality of the situation had proven more difficult than she’d anticipated. She had never in all her life felt so utterly alone.
Usually Sophia spent the fifteen minutes after Jenny took the children up to the house leisurely making her way to the nursery. But this day, she’d come to the paddock with a plan, one she hoped she had courage enough to see through.
She approached the gate, watching as Dermot instructed his stable hands in their tasks. Her eye couldn’t help but be drawn to him whenever he was near. He was handsome, yes, but the pull she felt was far more than the appeal of his dark hair and piercing brown eyes. His posture was one of a man confident in his abilities and sure of his place in the world. Everything about him told a person that his respect had to be earned and could be just as easily lost. Such an obvious and palpable degree of confidence was an unusual thing in a member of the servant class, who were taught to appear subservient even if it went against their natures.
What was it that made Dermot so different from others of his station? How was it he communicated so much when generally saying so little? And would he, as she suspected, and desperately hoped, prove to be the one person on the entire estate who might be willing to toss aside conventions and treat her like a real person?
A moment later, he spotted her at the gate and stepped over to her. The tiniest change in his expression asked the question he didn’t speak out loud: What was it she wanted?
“May I ask a favor?”
Dermot nodded, a fresh piece of straw moving up and down between his lips. She didn’t know why he did that, nor why it was so mesmerizing.
“I have Friday afternoons to myself,” she said. “And, I—” Heavens, this seemed presumptuous now that she was actually asking. “When I was growing up, I used to ride a great deal. I would very much like to do so again.”
“You would?” He didn’t speak often, but she never tired of hearing his gravelly, Scots voice.
“I never learned how to saddle a horse, and I realize that means one of your stable hands would be inconvenienced. I am, however, able to brush a horse down after a ride. I don’t mean to leave the estate, so I wouldn’t need any help riding, or anyone to accompany me. I am simply hoping for a moment of…” She wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. She hoped for a moment of enjoyment? Of peace? Happiness?
“How long has it been since you rode?” he asked.
“My father sold the horses four years ago— all but his, that is, but I was never permitted to ride his gelding.”
Dermot leaned against the gate frame. “Was the horse too powerful for you?”
She shook her head no. “I am an excellent horsewoman. My abilities were not in question; he was simply never very good at doing without.”
The straw moved about as he watched her, silently. Had she asked too much? Presumed too much?
“So you’ve not ridden in years,” he said. “You’d be wise to keep to quiet mounts early on, until you’ve accustomed yourself again.”
Hope tickled at her heart. “Then you’ll allow me to ride?”
“That favor’s not mine to grant,” he said. “The master and missus dictate such things.”
“Oh.” That was not good news.
She couldn’t ask Mr. Haddington for permission; he had an unsettling way of looking at her. His presence was only bearable in locations where she knew every possible exit. With Mrs. Haddington’s tendency to insult and demean, she was not a much better option. Still, Mrs. Haddington didn’t feel threatening in the same way her husband did. She was unkind but not dangerous.
Sophia would simply have to choose the lesser of the two evils. “I will ask Mrs. Haddington.”
“Truly?” His brows shot upward and his eyes pulled wide.
“It seems the only choice if I wish to ride again.”
Dermot made a deep sound of contemplation. “If Mrs. Haddington says aye, I’ll see to it you’ve a horse to ride come Friday afternoon. Kelpie would give you a fine ride. Mina would as well.”
“Truly?”
He nodded.
“You won’t change your mind? People are forever breaking their word to me.”
Another communicative nod.
“And please assure whichever of the stable hands assigned t
o help me that I am far better behaved than any of the children.”
He stepped back from the gate. “Aye. I’ll do that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Buchanan.”
He offered no words of welcome or farewell. He simply nodded again.
She watched him walk back to the stable, her heart leaping about. She’d found the nerve to approach him, to speak with him on a personal matter. How long she had wanted to do that.
Her mind spun with possibilities. He would see how well she rode, how much she knew of and enjoyed horses. They would have something to talk about. Perhaps, sometime in the future, he would even ride with her. Perhaps she would be permitted to come by the stables to visit with him. In time they might come to be friends, perhaps more.
Perhaps.
Chapter Two
Sophia Pemberton was a surprise. Dermot had watched her these past six months as she’d struggled with the Haddington children. He had assumed she was no different than the handful of browbeaten, lifeless governesses who had preceded her. But she’d stepped forward two days earlier and asked a favor of him, one that benefitted no one but her— the others had seemed terrified to even acknowledge their own existence, let alone their right to some happiness— and she’d further declared her intention of taking the request to their dragon of an employer.
This governess had a bit of steel to her. A surprise, indeed.
Aiden, the most experienced and reliable of the stable staff, spoke as he cleaned out the hoof of Barnaby, Mr. Haddington’s prized gelding. “’Tis Friday afternoon, Dermot, and we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the governess. Do you wager Miss Proper’ll make an appearance, then?”
“Aye.”
“Then you think the Missus gave her permission?”
“No.”
Aiden set Barnaby’s foreleg down. “Then why d’you believe she’ll come?”
“Civility.”
The Scots tended to fight things out; the English preferred irritating their enemies into submission with ceaseless propriety. Miss Pemberton would come to the stable, not to ride a horse but to apologize for not coming to ride a horse, or something equally English.
“You ought to have put a bit of blunt on that wager, Dermot. You’d’ve won handsomely.” Aiden motioned with his head toward the doors.
Miss Pemberton was but a few steps from the stable. She always wore dark, subdued colors. One would think she was forever on her way to a funeral.
She stepped inside, and her eyes immediately found him. He’d never seen her smile. For reasons he couldn’t yet identify, that bothered him. She seemed like the sort who ought to smile.
“Mr. Buchanan.” She stepped up to him, meeting his eye without hesitation. “I am sorry to have not come sooner. No doubt someone has gone to trouble on my behalf, but I have only just received Mrs. Haddington’s answer regarding my ride this afternoon.”
“And are you to ride?”
Though her shoulders remained squared and her demeanor calm and collected, unmistakable disappointment flickered through her dark, expressive eyes. “She feels my time would be better spent on less frivolous pursuits.”
“Isn’t Friday afternoon your time to spend as you choose?” he asked.
“It is, but the mares are hers to lend out as she chooses, and in this case, she chooses not to.”
So Miss Pemberton was to be denied this simple pleasure. Even the stable hands were permitted to ride now and then in the name of exercising the mounts or cooling them when the family didn’t care to take the time to do so.
How could the family treat her with less consideration than they did their lower servants? She was English, after all. And well born. Refined.
“Would you mind terribly, Mr. Buchanan, if I stayed a moment and simply looked?”
Looked? “You mean at the horses?”
“Yes, please. I do like horses.” Her gaze slid to Barnaby and lingered a moment, admiration and eagerness touching the planes of her face. “I will be no bother; I’m particularly good at keeping out of the way.”
What an odd sort of lady she was, putting forth her invisibility as an asset when her class generally found being unnoticed a disagreeable experience. That, he felt certain, was the reason the other governesses had worn their forced quietude with such discomfort. Miss Pemberton seemed determined to bear it with pride.
As a governess, she was more than merely a surprise; she was a niggling question, tickling the back of his mind. She was a mystery.
“I’ll show you about m’self,” he said.
She shook her head without hesitation. “I could not ask that of you.”
“You didn’t. I offered. If you’d asked, I’d likely have turned you down.”
She accepted his reply with neither offense nor humor. On first acquaintance, one could be excused for thinking her rather emotionless. She hid her emotions well; that was all. He sensed that despite the thick aura of England about her, Miss Pemberton had a bit of fire smoldering beneath the surface.
He jerked his chin in the direction of the gelding. “This here’s Barnaby.”
“His markings put me in mind of Odin, the stallion at Tockwith Grange,” she said.
She’d seen Viscount Cattal’s famed stallion? And at Tockwith, it seemed. Perhaps she came from a more exalted family than he’d suspected. That might explain why she never seemed wholly intimidated by anyone. People were forever puzzling over his reasons for being so sure of himself. He’d wager his reasons and hers were one and the same: despite the current state of their employment, they’d both experienced moments when they were the most important people in the room.
He took her from one stall to the next, to whichever animal she indicated a wish to visit. He gave her the name of each animal and a few details. She asked insightful, intelligent questions and actually listened to his answers, something the Haddingtons and their occasional guests seldom did.
He stopped in front of the stall housing Miss Ella’s pony. “I believe you recognize this tortured soul.”
“I do, indeed. Poor creature must relish the days when Miss Ella does not have riding lessons.”
Will, one of the younger stable hands, approached, but at the sight of Miss Pemberton, stopped abruptly. He hung back, eyes diverted like a lower servant approaching a member of the fine and fancy elite.
“Forgive me,” he muttered. “I only meant to ask what you’re wanting me to do now that I’m done with the tasks you gave me.”
When was the last time anyone on his staff had waited for instructions? Dermot made a rule of keeping a close eye on what each hand was doing so he could assign another job before the first was finished. He’d ushered Miss Pemberton all around the stables when he had a load of other work to do. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so fully distracted.
She must have sensed the direction of his thoughts. “It appears I have interfered with your work, Mr. Buchanan.”
“That you have, lass.” He had no one to blame but himself, yet he meant to do a fair bit of blaming.
Her brow pulled downward, and her wide mouth turned down in disappointment. “I asked too many questions, didn’t I? My father forever told me not make a nuisance of myself by asking questions.” She clasped her hands. “My apologies, Mr. Buchanan. And” — she turned to Will—“to you, as well. I will leave all of you to your work, as I ought to have done from the first.” She gave a quick nod to them both. “Good afternoon.”
Miss Pemberton left swiftly, not looking at anyone as she went.
I should get back to work. Dermot eyed the now-empty stable doorway. There’s loads to do.
Yet his feet carried him from the stable, following the route Miss Pemberton had taken. She’d already reached the path leading back to the house. The lass moved swiftly.
’Twould be easy as anything to simply go back to the stable. Why, then, were his feet ignoring his mind entirely?
“Miss Pemberton.” Apparently his voice was equally as disobedient.
She stopped and looked back. He reached her in the next moment.
“Did I forget something?” How could she look so serene while sounding so uncertain?
“No. You didn’t forget anything.”
Her eyes darted about a moment before settling on him once more. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You left upset.”
“And that was… wrong?”
“Not wrong.”
She turned her head a bit away, eyes narrowing. “I don’t understand.”
This was exactly why Dermot avoided conversations: too many ended in confusion. “You left upset. I didn’t like it.”
“I’m s—”
“I wasn’t lookin’ for an ‘I’m sorry.’” Crivins, she apologized a lot. “I only need to know why you’re unhappy.” Though why he needed to know, even he couldn’t say.
“Oh.” She blinked a few times, as if his concern surprised her as much as it did him. “I disrupted your day and made a burden of myself.”
“You weren’t a burden.” A disruption, perhaps. A confusion, yes. But not a burden.
“A bother, then. And for that I am sorry.”
He heard himself answer with words he’d not intended to speak. “You’re welcome to come visit the horses at any time.”
“Thank you. I promise not to interrupt anyone’s work to do so, especially yours.”
More words slipped from his lips unbidden. “I’d hope you’d offer a ‘good day’ at the least.”
The tiniest hint of pleasure entered her deep brown eyes. “I will.”
She no longer appeared upset or embarrassed or whatever it was she’d been when leaving the stables. That was good enough to satisfy him. He gave a quick dip of his head in anticipation of returning to work.
“Mr. Buchanan?” She, apparently, wasn’t finished.
He paused and silently gave her leave to continue.
“Would you— Might I—” Though she’d never seemed overly talkative, Miss Pemberton was not generally so tongue-tied. Just what favor did she mean to ask this time? “Would you mind if I came and talked with you now and then?” Her words rushed out, quick, almost flustered. “I would be careful of your time and obligations, and I promise not to pester you with questions.”
Sarah M. Eden British Isles Collection (A Timeless Romance Anthology Book 15) Page 6
