The Husband Campaign. Regina Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ done well to remove the tack the previous night, but in his experience, few women knew how to take care of their own horses. They’d never had to learn. Grooms attended them, beaux helped them in and out of sidesaddles. He personally thought sidesaddles ridiculous contraptions that hampered a woman’s ability to control her animal, but he doubted any word from him would make the fashionable change their minds.

      So he laid the saddle on the mare’s back and cinched it up from long experience. He slipped on the headstall, checked that the brass was properly buckled. All the while the mare stool docile, placid. For all her good lines, he sensed very little fire in her.

      He’d always thought the horse reflected its rider. Lady Amelia had called herself timid in passing. Was her polite demeanor truly a sign of a timid heart?

      For she stood waiting as well, a pleasant smile on her face as if she was quite used to gentlemen serving her. He bent and cupped his hands, and she put her foot in his grip. It was long and shapely, even in her riding boot, and she lifted herself easily into the saddle, where she draped her skirts about her. With a cluck, she urged Belle into a walk out of the stall.

      And John walked beside her, feeling a bit like a stable lad attending the queen.

      “What a lovely day,” she said as they exited the building.

      In truth, it was a fine day. The storm had carried off the last cloud, and the field sparkled with the remaining raindrops. Dovecote Dale stretched in either direction, following the chatter of the River Bell, the fields lush and alive. He always felt as if he could breathe easier here.

      But not with the woman beside him. She was trying to initiate conversation, just as she had last night. He remembered the London routine: mention the weather, ask after a gentleman’s horses, talk about family or mutual friends. Had she no more purposeful topics?

      When he did no more than nod in reply, she tried again, gesturing to where several of his animals were out in the pasture. “Your horses look fit.”

      John nearly choked. “Fit, madam? Yes, I warrant they could make it across the field without collapsing, particularly in such excellent weather.”

      Her cheeks were darkening again, the color as pink as her lips. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to give false praise.”

      “No,” John said, forcing his gaze away from her once more. “Forgive me. I haven’t mixed in Society for a while. I find the forms stifling.”

      “I quite understand.”

      The certainty of the statement said she found them equally so, but he suspected she was more in agreement with the assessment of his social skills.

      “Is there something you’d prefer to discuss?” she asked politely.

      None of the banal topics London appeared to thrive on. In fact, he had only one question plaguing him. “Why exactly were you out in the storm yesterday?”

      She was silent a moment, her gaze on the house, which could now be seen in the distance. Her head was so high the straw in her hair stood at attention. Finally she said, “I had a disagreement with my mother. Riding away seemed the wisest course.”

      He’d met her mother when Danning’s guests had come to tour the farm. A tall woman like her daughter, with a sturdier frame and ample figure, she had a way of making her presence felt. And it didn’t help that she had a voice as sharp as a cavalry sword. Riding away probably had been the best choice.

      “You never answered my question last night, either,” she reminded him. “What brought you out in the storm?”

      “One of my horses is unaccounted for,” he said. “I thought perhaps she’d made for the river.”

      She reined in, pulling him up short. “Oh, Lord Hascot, if she is missing you must find her!”

      Her eyes, bluer than the sky, were wide in alarm, her cheeks pale. John raised his brows. “I have grooms out even now. I’ve no doubt they’ll bring her in.”

      “Are you certain?” she begged, glancing around as if she might spy Contessa trailing them. “This place is so wild.”

      If she thought his tended fields wild he did not want to know what she’d make of the grasses of Calder Edge, the grit stone cliff above his property.

      “Hollyoak Farm is bounded by the river to the south,” he explained, pointing out the features as he talked, “and Calder Edge to the north. If Contessa goes east, she’ll run into the Rotherford mine, and they know where to return her. West, and she’ll eventually hit Bellweather Hall. The duke’s staff will send for me. Either way, I’ll fetch her home.”

      She seemed to sag in the saddle. “Oh, I’m so glad.”

      “Why do you care?” John asked, catching the reins before she could start forward again. “Most people treat a horse as nothing but a possession.”

      Her pretty mouth thinned. “For shame, sir.” Her hand stroked her horse’s crest as lovingly as the head of a child. “Belle is no possession. I’m honored to call her my friend. I assumed you felt the same way about your horses, even that black brute I heard you call Magnum.”

      John’s face was heating, and he released the reins as he looked away. “You would not be wrong. Sometimes I’m certain I spend more time in conversation with him than anyone else. Perhaps that’s why I’m so bad at conversing with a lady.”

      “I’m not much of a conversationalist myself,” she admitted, urging Belle forward once more. Her look down to John was kind. “I always seem to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Please forgive me.”

      Either she was too used to taking the blame for the failings of others or she was trying to impress him with her condescension. Still, John found it all too easy to forgive her. For one thing, he had the same affliction when it came to conversation. He found his horses easier to converse with than people. And for another, there was something utterly guileless about Lady Amelia.

      Part of him protested. He’d been down this road before and been left standing alone at the end. It was probably best to walk the other way this time.

      * * *

      Amelia had always prided herself on her congenial demeanor, honed by years of criticism from her parents and her governess. But Lord Hascot challenged even her abilities. He reminded her of a cat that had been petted the wrong way—fur up and claws extended.

      Hollyoak Farm was nearly as unwelcoming. When she’d visited with Lord Danning a few days ago, she’d thought the red stone house a boxy affair, as angular as its owner. Even the bow window of the withdrawing room sat out squarely as if giving no quarter. Now all the drapes were drawn and the doors shut. Lord Hascot led her to the stable yard, a gravel expanse between the two flanking stable wings, where he helped her alight on a mounting block. Taking Belle’s reins himself, he nodded toward the house.

      “You’ll find a maid waiting to attend you,” he said. “If I do not see you again before Lord Danning comes to collect you, know that I am your devoted servant.”

      Though his voice was gruff and his statement an expected one, something simmered under the words, the echo of concern. Amelia smiled at him.

      “Thank you, Lord Hascot,” she said, СКАЧАТЬ