by Decca Price
Carey coughed. “No, miss,” he muttered.
“What did you say? I didn’t catch that.”
“I said ‘No, Miss Burton,’” Carey said more audibly.
“You’re a liar, Carey. I should dismiss you on the spot. Goodness knows what else you may be doing behind my back. My father warned me, you know.”
“Yes, Miss Burton, you should dismiss me. But I’d ask that you didn’t punish Tressel or any of the stable lads. They were only following my orders.” He looked her in the eyes. “If you will excuse me, I’ve a few personal items I’d like to collect from the office and, with your permission, I’ll be off the estate by morning.”
“No,” Claire said more calmly. She studied the disappointment in his eyes and said the word again. “No. Let this be a lesson learned—for both of us. You are correct. I never asked about the horse. But you need to trust me more, despite my inexperience, and I need to ask more questions of you—even if that means you’re telling me what questions I should be asking. I don’t want to be a harsh mistress, but mistress here I will be. I expect you to remember that. Now, shall we be off? It’s looking like rain and I want to see this ditch scheme you’ve been so excited about.”
“Yes, miss,” Carey replied smartly. “And if I may so bold?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Already, Mr. Carey?”
“Yes. It’s about the horse, ma’am, Dickon?”
“Go on.”
“He is an extremely valuable animal—” he held up a cautioning hand. “Please, wait before you say anything! What I’m about to say is no less than I said half-a-dozen times to Mr. Carter.”
She waited. “Say what you have to say, Mr. Carey.”
He noted the restoration of the honorific with some relief.
“It’s only that while he needs regular exercise, he shouldn’t be your everyday horse,” Carey said. “Anything can happen in these country lanes...”
“Keep him for my Sunday best?” she asked with a slight smile.
“Well, something like that. But ‘never’ would be better—for the estate. Miss.”
“I will take that under advisement,” Claire replied.
“That’s what he said, Miss Burton,” Carey muttered as he walked off to collect his own, more sedate mount. She pretended not to hear.
Claire was yawning discreetly behind her kid-gloved hand by the time they had finished inspecting what seemed to her several miles of narrow ditches crisscrossing the fields, some with cast iron pipes lying in the tall grass next to mounds of mud.
Dickon was a smooth ride, but he required a deal more attention than Toddy or the demure mare she rode back in Surrey. He tended to get restive and pull if they stood in one place for too long, and her shoulders were going to ache in the morning.
“... and if we divert the runoff toward the wood hard by Copperton Spinney,” Carey was saying as her thoughts drifted off toward hot tea, fresh buttered scones and a steaming bath.
She was watching Dickon’s forefeet as he high-stepped gingerly through the muck when she heard someone speak to her and Carey.
“Lord Montfort!” Carey pulled up and saluted the viscount with a touch to the brim of his hat.
“Miss Burton, Carey.” He bowed slightly from the waist toward her, unable to keep the surprise off his face, but immediately turned his conversation to the steward.
“I’ve been studying this project with interest, Carey, and I have a proposal. If we extended the ditchwork beyond that field just there and onto my estate, the result will be much more effective for both of us and less expensive besides, since the work is already under way. I understand you’re planning to use the reclaimed land for horse pasture.” He glanced over at Dickon.
“I’m thinking of putting more acreage into barley,” he continued. “Cider may be the lifeblood of Herefordshire, but to my mind, the country could use more decent beer.”
“It’s an interesting proposal, Lord Montfort,” Claire said. “Have your property man draw up some figures and Mr. Carey and I will look them over before giving you an answer.”
“At your command,” Montfort said. “May I enquire as to how the school is progressing?”
“It is very satisfactory, Lord Montfort. If you’d like, I will ask the teacher to arrange a visit for you. The pupils would be thrilled...”
“And,” he cut her off. “Parents would be more comfortable with their offsprings’ attendance, if you will. You see, Carey, I know how Miss Burton thinks. I may not be useful in and of myself, but my title has intrinsic value not to be wasted.”
Carey seemed mildly embarrassed at Montfort’s comments, but Claire was unfazed.
“I was going to say,” she went on, “that the pupils would be thrilled if you could share with them some of the true history of this area, from the viewpoint of the family that helped shape it, in place of the romantic tales they pick up at home. Some of the less violent parts, that is.”
It was Montfort’s turn to be nonplussed.
“Indeed?” he said. “You would turn me pedagogue? I think not, Miss Burton. That kind of truth should come from gentler lips than mine.”
He touched his hat to her. “I’ll be on my way, before you entangle me in your academic snares. Carey, you’ll have those numbers day after tomorrow.”
He paused before riding off, though, for one more comment to Claire.
“I see you discovered Dickon at last. Did she read you the Riot Act, Carey?”
“You knew?” Claire exclaimed.
“My dear Miss Burton, everyone in the county knew. Handled right, this horse will be as famous one day as the Godolphin Arabian. If I were you, I wouldn’t have him out in the wet and mud like this.”
“Oh, not you, too.”
“Ah, I should have known Carey would have been fussing at you already.” A smile lit up his face. “I see it didn’t do any good.”
He spurred his horse and leapt out of earshot before Claire could sputter a reply.
Chapter 12
While Claire burned the scholar’s lamp, the school fell into Simmie’s capable hands. It was Simmie who saw that it was properly furnished and prevailed on Mrs. Hanniman and the rector to speak to the parents of promising students.
Simmie engaged Evangelina Gilbert to teach the handful of boys, while Simmie took on the two girls whose parents permitted them to attend. The more difficult task lay in explaining to families that a scholarship stipend was not charity, though the unspoken intent was to replace the income lost because the pupils toiled at books rather than at farm or shop chores. It was Claire’s hope that eventually at least one or two would allow her to send them to university, even a girl now that Girton and Newnham colleges were taking hold.
Annie Parsons arrived at the beginning of July ready to work at Oak Grove and was dismayed at first when she understood that Claire expected her schooling to be first among her duties.
“But Miss,” she exclaimed, holding back tears, “my aunt said I was to train for being a lady’s maid. Whatever will I do with book learning?”
“You will do both,” Claire responded. “How can a lady’s maid do her job properly if she can’t read instructions for cleaning preparations, for example, or notes left for her by her mistress?”
Parsons soon became a star pupil. Her gratitude fairly burst from her when she was with Claire, and her praise for Beatrice Simms knew no bounds. Claire looked forward to the evenings, when Annie came to her room to help her prepare for bed; the girl always had some tidbit of wonderment to share.
“Pardon me, miss, but did you know...? she invariably began, and Claire would relax as Annie brushed her hair and wait for the flood of excited words to begin. It could be anything from an historic fact to a line of poetry or a bit of arithmetic—Annie once labored with paper and pencil to show Claire how to add fractions. The girl absorbed everything that came her way and thirsted for more.
Meanwhile, Claire’s respect for Latimer grew. She looked up to him and envied his eru
dition. And, she acknowledged, he was pleasant to look at. Leaning on his arm when they took a turn about the garden gave her a heightened appreciation for the male physique in the flesh. She was certain he could have taken his place with honor among the athletes of the ancient Olympiad and convinced herself her admiration was purely aesthetic.
Beside him, though, she frequently felt clumsy and unfeminine. She was a little too tall, a little too plump, her hair definitely too ruddy. Under the Herefordshire sun, a decided bronzing had warmed her milk-white London complexion. And no one would call her nose Grecian.
Josiah Carter’s letters became less abstruse as the author’s fame enlarged. It was evident, Latimer noted, that these were written with an eye toward publication. Claire still had not let him see the diaries, however, and he had stopped pressing her.
She sometimes read straight into the night, alone in her room, puzzling over the strange life Josiah Carter led as he pursued fame and fortune. He seemed to be two men, the romantic Josiah who teased, made her laugh and brought a glow to her cheeks—and the cynical man about town who kept late hours and low company. How could they possibly be the same person?
As high summer approached, she found herself riding out more in the afternoons, sometimes with Carey and sometimes not, but always on Dickon, much to the steward’s disapproval.
“It’s not your skills as a horsewoman I worry about,” he would say to her at least once a week. “I just worry. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime animal.”
“Everything living is ‘once in a lifetime,’” Claire would reply. It became a ritual with them. “We can’t all wrap ourselves up in cotton wool, Mr. Carey. What’s the point to being alive if we’re afraid to live?” Every time the words left her lips, Claire marveled that she could think, much less express, such an idea. It was as though she absorbed her new knowledge of life from the very air she breathed in this place.
If Claire knew she was being observed in her travels, she gave no sign. Occasionally she would glimpse Rhys Fitzgordon on his big black stallion riding the valley ridge or their paths would cross among the fields and hedgerows. They would exchange pleasantries and go on their way. He hadn’t called at Oak Grove since the morning after the fire.
But one day in late July, after he presented his compliments, instead of riding on he circled round to pace beside her. Her pulse quickened.
“I never thanked you for deciding to expand the drainage project,” he said in the same bored drawing-room tone he had used to enquire after her health. “It appears to be a great success.”
“It made good business sense,” she replied in the same noncommittal tone.
“I don’t suppose you’d sell me that horse?” he then asked.
She pulled up in astonishment. “Really, Lord Montfort! What do you take me for! Even if I hadn’t grown quite fond of him, every man on the estate would have my head if I let him go!”
“He was born and bred on Montfort land, you know.”
“So it’s not enough now that you want my house, and my woods, and my fields, and my foxes and birds and trout,” she said, emphasizing each “my.” “Now you want my best horse! By what right, may I ask?”
“Because I want him,” Montfort shot back. “There’s no harm in asking, I always say.”
“Ask,” she snorted. “Since when do you ask for anything? And what do you mean, he was born and bred on your land?”
“My late father spent every penny he had trying to produce a champion stallion that would found a line,” Montfort said. “My Brenin here,” he said as he patted the big black on the neck, “is very fine horseflesh, but Dickon was the prize. My brother didn’t really care about horses, though, so when Joss asked, George sold him. A thousand pounds can buy more than enough fine port, claret and brandy. Or an hour at the tables in George’s club.”
They rode on.
Then he said, more seriously, “I’m surprised you care to ride him.”
“Because of what happened?” Claire would have shrugged, had her habit and corset permitted the gesture. “From everything I’ve been told, it wasn’t the horse’s fault. Josiah…” To her dismay, her voice caught. “Josiah fell badly, nobody knows why, and hit his head on a stone. Accidents happen. Trains crash, carriages run down pedestrians, riders fall. Unless the horse is unmanageable, why hold a dumb beast responsible...”
“For being an instrument of God’s will?”
“Don’t attempt to be blasphemous, Lord Montfort. That comment is tasteless, not shocking. I’d be amazed if I had reason to think you really believed that.”
“What about the devil, then? Do you believe he aids the wicked?”
“Of course not. Signing pacts in blood with Lucifer is so, so medieval. We live in a scientific age now.”
“Yet the people hereabouts will tell you ‘accidents,’ or the devil’s luck, help me to my ends all the time.”
“Then those people don’t have enough to do or are woefully backward. There are other explanations.” She caught herself and changed the subject. “Did Josiah really pay a thousand pounds for Dickon, or is that just more local exaggeration?”
“Oh, no. Joss paid. In a way, it was his final revenge on the high and mighty Fitzgordons.”
“I don’t understand,” Claire said. “You all were boyhood friends. Why did Josiah become so bitter?”
“Edward Latimer tells me you’ve been reading his diaries, so you tell me.”
“Josiah was ambitious. People were jealous of his success.” Her words sounded flat.
“Joss was ambitious, yes. He didn’t want to spend his life as a country solicitor like his father, and there’s nothing wrong with that. England is great because she rewards talent and brains. But Joss cheapened his gifts for easy money and traded the regard of his friends for the flattery of strangers who will forget him in another year.”
“You said revenge. I still don’t see.”
“It’s not unusual for the dog with a thorn in its paw to blame the thorn bush rather than his own blundering. Joss blindly chose to profit by hurting the people who loved him, then he was angry when they turned their backs on him.” Montfort touched the brim of his hat. “Good day, Miss Burton.”
And with that, he rode off.
He was back the next day, though, clearly waiting for her where she usually left Oak Grove’s acres and turned onto the public road.
They rode in silence for almost a mile before she said, “I’m not selling you this horse.”
“I’m not asking,” he replied. “I seldom ask for what I want more than once. It just seemed like a pleasant day for a ride and you seem to be going my way.”
She laughed. “It seems more that you are going my way, milord.”
“So it seems,” he said, and gave his horse the spur.
Dickon matched his horse stride for stride as they cantered down the leafy lane. For Claire’s part, she could have gone on like that for hours, he was such a fine horseman and Dickon was so splendid, but Montfort soon pulled up and brought his horse back to a walk.
“I’ve been thinking about your school,” he said. “My mother and sisters will be arriving soon, and I may commend your enterprise to them. A school would be much more in their line, at least in theory.”
“Indeed?”
“All the ladies in our circle in London have some pet charity at home to brute over tea, but the far reaches of Herefordshire haven’t given my sisters much scope. Everything is too perfectly bucolic and prosperous. In fact, my sister Gladys will be chagrined that she did not think of a school herself.”
“Lord Montfort, you aren’t saying you want to introduce me to your sisters? You mustn’t. I refuse to be snubbed.”
“My sisters will do what I tell them to.”
“Then you don’t know ladies very well, Lord Montfort. There are a hundred different ways to put someone her in her place that gentlemen won’t notice. I forbid you to even mention my name to them. If they want to be introduced, they will let you know.”
“Is it so bad for you here, then?” he asked. “I would never have guessed. You seem so—content.” He was groping for words. “Thriving. Healthy. If I had known you before you came here, I’d even presume to say rustication becomes you.”
“You do presume,” she said. “Shall we ride on?”
She was relieved when they came to a crossroads and he said, “Business takes me this way, Miss Burton. I’ll presume you intend to continue on that way and bid you good day.”
Yet the next day he was back, waiting for her without comment. And the next and the next. She started to expect him, and when he didn’t come, her disappointment was palpable. Though she became more comfortable conversing with him, she could never quite relax. The air seemed to fizz about them—or was it just the bees in the summer hedgerows?—and his moods kept her guessing from one minute to the next.
Some days they said little and rode together for a mile or less. Other days, she talked more about her family and restricted life in Surrey, while he talked about the old days in and around Abbot Pyon, retelling stories handed down by his grandfather and the older servants, before the railway came and the faery folk still dwelled in the orchards.
They also talked farming and agricultural innovation. On those days, they walked as much as rode. He would help her to dismount so they could walk into a field to examine some fence work, a crop or a new breed of sheep he was trying out and then lift her up into the saddle again without effort.
The casual contact as his powerful hands encircled her waist and sometimes slipped down to support her buttocks never failed to give her a jolt. He always did it without ceremony, and sometimes without even looking at her, and she appreciated that he didn’t treat her like a breakable object the way Edward Latimer did or those forgotten boys with whom she had danced at arm’s length in London.
A gentleman, she knew, would have merely cupped his hands for her to step up to the saddle, but it never crossed her mind to remonstrate with him. The summer heat and haze, combined with a sense of isolation in the narrow lanes, created a cocoon in which familiarity between them seemed right. Little by little, though she wasn’t aware, he and nature were conspiring to strip away her defenses.
