Chapter Eight
The Talbot conveyances were aging but well maintained. Harriet had finished the last ride of the morning when the ancient coach rumbled around from the carriage house, Jeremy at the ribbons.
“Is Papa going somewhere?” Harriet asked, shading her eyes to peer up at the groom.
“Aye, miss. Got a note from the Hall, and said to have the carriage ready at noon.”
The coach mostly collected dust. If Harriet had errands to see to, or the housekeeper or cook needed to attend the market, they took the dog cart. But then, clouds were gathering and the wind had picked up half an hour ago.
“Have you any idea where Papa’s off to?”
Papa himself came thumping down the steps from the front porch. He’d troubled over his appearance, combing his hair, donning his top hat, and wearing a pair of clean gloves. He dressed thus for services and for calling on his banker or his solicitor.
“Has Ramsdale bothered to come by yet?” Papa asked. “His lordship assured me he’d be here well before noon.”
“I haven’t see him. Are you and his lordship paying calls this afternoon?”
Papa pretended to inspect the coach, though at this distance, he was unlikely to see details. “Aye, we’re off on a business appointment.”
Harriet had been preoccupied lately—missing Philippe, wondering what she might have done differently at his last lesson, wondering what in blazes had gone amiss between them—but her father’s sheepish expression got her attention.
“Where are you going, Papa?”
“To see a man about a horse.”
When Harriet’s mother had been alive, that phrase had been a euphemism for everything from a trip to the jakes, to a ramble down to the village tavern, to an actual transaction involving an equine.
“With Lord Ramsdale?”
“Aye, if he’d deign to keep his appointments. He should be here by now.”
“Let’s sit on the porch while you wait for him,” Harriet said. “Jeremy, you may walk the lane a time or two while my father and I await his lordship.”
Papa’s ascent of the steps was uneven. He used his right foot to gain a stair, then brought the left even. Up with the right, even with the left.
“Your hip hurts,” Harriet said. “You will take some willow bark tea tonight if I have to pour it down your throat myself. Am I to know the nature of your business appointment?” For the past year or so, she’d lived with a gnawing fear that Papa would sell the stable. She wouldn’t miss the endless work, but she’d miss the horses.
She’d miss knowing she had a livelihood very much, and in a hopeless way, she’d miss knowing she had an inheritance to bring to any union.
Not that she’d be marrying anybody. Philippe had obliterated any schemes in that direction. He’d given her some lovely memories, along with an inability to consider making similar memories with any other man. Ever.
Ramsdale was a keen horseman, had means, and had visited the area often. He might well be accompanying Papa to a call on the banker in Reading.
“Where exactly are you off to, Papa?”
“Please do not think to intrude into the financial aspects of running this property, Harriet,” Papa said. “I can’t stop you from taking the horses in hand, and I mean no criticism of your domestic skills, but I am the owner, and you are my daughter. I’ll manage this stable as I please.”
Harriet had ridden many—many—a fractious horse. When a beast ten times her size decided to turn up sullen and contrary, she knew better than to allow its bad behavior to upset her. She corrected the horse’s errors firmly but without rancor and offered it a chance to do better next time.
She ought to have reminded Papa of his manners long, long ago. “When I inquire as to your destination, I am hardly wresting the ledgers from your grip. If you’re making decisions that affect me, then I have a right to know of them.”
Though as to that, Papa’s entries in the ledgers had become all but unreadable. Harriet had taken to reconstructing the monthly figures by virtue of studying the tradesmen’s bills, the wage book, and the receipts herself.
And those figures were sometimes discouraging.
“I provide for you more than adequately,” Papa replied, “and no daughter of mine will presume to insert herself into a domain wherein for nearly forty years I have—”
Harriet rose, because her own hips ached, because her heart ached, and because Papa was wrong.
“I am your daughter,” she said. “Also your barn manager, trainer, chief groom, breeding consultant, groundskeeper, hostess, nurse, veterinarian, foaling expert, assistant farrier, equine dentist, harness repairer, and—because you are too stubborn to purchase a pair of dratted spectacles—also your eyeglasses. I have long since intruded into the male sphere, and you were the first to boost me into that saddle. You own this stable, you do not own me.”
“Harriet Margaret Talbot, you will not take that tone with me.”
The coach had lumbered down the drive and with it went the last of Harriet’s self-control.
“I am tired, Papa. I stink of horse all the time. I no longer have a nice pair of boots because the sand in that arena has ruined them all. I spent so much time repairing bridles, saddles, and harnesses last winter that I have barely anything decent to wear to services. I haven’t embroidered a pretty handkerchief since Mama died, and now you are about to sell the stable that I have all but married myself to. The least you can do is warn me.”
The jingle and creak of the wagon faded, and a cloud of dust slowly dissipated over the drive.
Harriet made unruly horses, cheeky grooms, and presuming customers mind their manners with her. Why hadn’t she demanded the same respect from her own father? Like Gawain with an inconsiderate rider, she should have tossed Papa’s high-handedness to the dirt long ago.
Papa rose shakily, balancing both hands on the head of his cane. “I am taking on a partner, Harriet. Lord Ramsdale has funds to invest, a sharp eye for young stock, and a fine appreciation for a well-run operation. You have nothing to say to it. We’re meeting with the solicitor this afternoon, if his lordship hasn’t cried off.”
A partner.
Harriet did most of the work and much of the worrying that kept the stable from failing, and Papa was taking on a partner, everything but the handshake already in place.
“I see.”
He brushed a glance over her. “What do you see?”
“I see that I am through being helpful, biddable, good-natured, meek, and dutiful. I see that this operation has been well run for the past five years because I’ve run it, despite your insistence on selling good horses to bad riders. Despite your unwillingness to expand our breeding program. I wish you and his sharp-eyed lordship the joy of your partnership. I’m off to see about finding a partner of my own.”
She passed him her riding crop, sat long enough to remove her spur, and tossed her gloves at his chest for good measure.
“Harriet, where are you going?”
“To the Hall. I’ve tried being patient. I’ve tried being a good friend, being understanding, and tolerant, and saintly, but it won’t wash, Papa. Philippe owes me—and Gawain—an explanation, at the very least, and I intend to have it, even if that means I never set foot in the Hall again.”
Papa thumped his cane against the porch planks. “The damned man took a fall, Harriet. Leave him his pride and let good enough be good enough.”
“Good enough is not good enough,” Harriet said, marching down the steps. “A cot that grew too small fifteen years ago isn’t good enough. Waltzing with the earl isn’t good enough. Selling a gorgeous mare to that bumbling toad Dudley isn’t good enough. And kisses and pleasure aren’t good enough either.”
Papa waved the crop at her. “Young lady, you will control your words lest I—”
“I’m not a young lady, Papa. At my age, Mama had a ten-year-old daughter and had less than ten years to live. Philippe will listen to what I have to say if I have to kick, buck, snort, strike, bite, paw, clear the arena, and—who on earth is that?”
The bridle path curved around the Talbot pastures and paddocks, and for much of the year, the way was shrouded in greenery. As autumn advanced and the leaves fell, riders traversing the path became visible, mostly for the simple fact that they were moving objects against a backdrop of fixed trees and fences.
Somebody was coming around the curve at a dead gallop.
“He’s going to take the stile,” Papa said. “Going to aim that beast straight for our lane.”
The rider’s form was excellent. He stood in the stirrups, balanced over the horse’s withers to free its back from his weight, hands moving to follow the rhythm of the horse’s head. He wore neither coat nor hat, which made his horsemanship only more evident.
“They make a handsome pair,” Harriet said, then an odd shiver traveled over her arms. “That’s Philippe, Papa. That’s Philippe, and that gate is nearly four feet—”
For a silent eternity, Harriet’s heart went airborne, three-quarters of a ton of fear, hope, and admiration soaring with Philippe’s horse.
“Well done!” Papa exclaimed when the horse landed as nimbly as a cat and cantered on around the far end of the arena. “Foot perfect and right in rhythm.”
“But, Papa, that’s Lavelle. His Grace promised me he’d never sit a horse again, and he just cleared a four-foot gate at a gallop and made it look easy.”
Papa sat back down, using his cane and the table to brace himself. “Well, then, the duke must want to talk to somebody rather badly. Do you suppose it could be you?”
“I certainly want to talk to him,” Harriet said, taking off at run for the stable yard.
When she got there, and Philippe had leaped from his heaving horse, Harriet didn’t say a word. She simply hugged him, and hugged him and hugged him, until he put his arms around her and hugged her back.
* * *
“What were you thinking,” Harriet shouted, once the stable lad had led Ramsdale’s horse down the drive. “Jumping an obstacle like that on a horse you’re not familiar with? You fell not two weeks ago, before my very eyes and over a smaller jump in good footing. You could have been hurt. You could have been killed! Philippe, you c-could have been k-killed.”
She went from shaking him—or trying to—to squeezing Philippe so tightly he could barely breathe.
“That gelding is nothing if not athletic,” he said, speaking as calmly as he could when his lungs were ready to burst. “We hopped a few stiles in the last mile, and I knew he was up to the challenge, but, Harriet, it’s Ramsdale who’s taken a fall. He said he was merely winded, but I know he took a knock on the head, and I fear a worse injury.”
“Hang Ramsdale,” Harriet retorted, pulling back but keeping a good grip on his arms. “You rode like a demon, Philippe. Like a winning steeplechase jockey when you swore to me…” Her eyes, which had been filled with concern, narrowed. “You swore to me you were done with horses forever. You had tried and failed, and nothing I could say, threaten, or promise would change your mind. You gave up.”
Jackson Talbot thumped down the porch steps. “What’s all this about? Good form, Your Grace. Harriet, let the man go.”
“Send the lads to assist Lord Ramsdale, Papa. He’s taken a fall, and I will not turn loose of His Grace until I’ve had an explanation.”
Talbot’s eyebrows climbed nearly to his hat brim. “Ramsdale’s taken a tumble?”
“I left him sitting beneath an oak where the bridle path, the woods, and the stream all meet east of here,” Philippe said. “He seemed right enough, if a bit dazed, but the clouds are gathering, and he’s miles from shelter.”
“And you left him your coat,” Harriet said. “What if it had started to rain, and you on a strange horse, in bad footing, no coat… I taught you better than this, Philippe.”
She was scolding him, also stroking the lace of his cravat and calling him Philippe.
“You are concerned for me,” Philippe said.
“Of course she’s concerned,” Talbot said. “Else she’d not be so ill-mannered as to use your Christian—”
Harriet left off petting Philippe’s chest and faced her father, hands on hips. “Hush, Papa. I can speak for myself. Your business partner is sitting beneath a tree nearly three miles away, possibly addled and injured and storm on the way. Hadn’t you best concern yourself with him?”
Philippe slipped an arm around Harriet’s waist. “I’d be obliged if you’d send Ramsdale some aid, Talbot. I can continue on to the Hall, but your property was closest to his mishap, and I’d hoped to count on my friends for assistance.”
Harriet stiffened beneath his arm.
“Of course,” Talbot said. “Cooper! Hitch up the dog cart. Tell Jeremy to put up the coach and get word to the solicitor that I’ll have to reschedule my appointment. Lerner, you go down the bridle path on horseback. Earls can’t be left out in the wet or they grow contrary.”
A raindrop landed on Philippe’s cheek in the midst of Talbot’s stream of orders.
“You come with me,” Harriet said, wrapping an arm around Philippe’s waist and urging him in the direction of the barn. “I have a few things to say to you, and I want to say them in private.”
Philippe had things to say to Harriet as well—a question to ask, rather. They left Talbot barking more instructions to the grooms as the raindrops organized into a cold drizzle. Some considerate soul had lit the stove in the saddle room, though, so it was warm, which—now that Philippe was no longer riding at a gallop—felt good.
Harriet’s hug, when he’d dismounted had felt wonderful.
“What did you want to say to me?” Philippe asked when Harriet had closed and locked the door. The look of her—hems wrinkled, the toes of her boots dusty, braid coming a bit undone—warmed his heart.
“I’ve missed you.” They spoke the same words at the same time.
“Ladies first,” Philippe said, gesturing to the worn sofa.
Harriet took a seat, very much on her dignity. “Can you, or can you not, acquit yourself adequately on horseback?”
“That’s what you wanted to ask me?”
She nodded, gaze solemn.
Philippe took the wing chair—he did not dare sit beside her—and now, when his arse was planted on a flowered cushion, he felt as if he faced an obstacle too high and wide to negotiate confidently. He could continue to dissemble, to stand aside for true love, or he could trust Harriet with the truth.
“I can acquit myself adequately on well-trained mounts,” he said. “I have had the benefit of good, patient instruction, and my skills rest on a solid foundation.”
Harriet bent to unlace her boots. “You rode like Lord Dunderhead’s incompetent twin at your last lesson. What was that about?”
The sight of her removing her footwear—her old dusty boots—was distracting. “I saw you with Ramsdale, Harriet, at the ball. He’s clearly smitten, and I’m happy for you. I hope he offers for you and spares me the burden of calling him out.”
She set her boots aside. The soles and the uppers were coming apart near the toes, a common injury to riding boots.
“Ramsdale is smitten, and you are happy. What about me, Philippe?”
She was not happy, but beyond that, Philippe dared not venture. “You are Harriet, my dearest Harriet, and if the earl is your choice, then I owe you both my best wishes.”
But what if Ramsdale was not her choice? A chat on a secluded terrace wasn’t the same as an afternoon spent without clothing on a wide and comfortable bed.
“Did it not occur to you, Your Grace, that I might have required some practice at the waltz? London ways are slow to catch on in the country, and I’ve been too busy waltzing with equines. Ramsdale was instructing me, or humoring me. I wanted to do you credit when I stood up with you, and then you couldn’t be bothered to ask for my supper waltz.”
This was… this was very bad, and possibly wonderful.
“You never granted me your supper waltz. I assumed Ramsdale—”
Harriet smacked his arm. “Why must you assume anything when I’m right here, where I’ve always been? If I’m your dearest Harriet, you can ask me. You can simply put a question to me—not to Ramsdale, or Papa, or Gawain, for pity’s sake.” She jabbed her thumb at her chest. “Ask me.”
Do you and Ramsdale have an understanding? But that wasn’t what Philippe wanted to know. Understandings were private and not exactly binding.
Do you love me? She’d say yes. That question was almost cowardly, because he knew she’d say yes.
So Philippe aimed his courage and his heart at the most important challenge he’d ever faced. “Will you marry me?”
Harriet sat very tall, and very still, like a skilled whip at the start of a carriage race. “I beg your pardon?”
“I love you. I have always loved you, and when I finally set aside the notion that I must martyr myself to my brother’s sainted memory, or to the title, or to polite society’s inanities, I see that you have always been in my heart. You have never treated me as anything less than your honored friend. You have had faith in me and been patient and kind, and then I kissed you, and… God, Harriet. I do know what it’s like to take a bad fall.”
She put a cool hand to his temple. “Does your head pain you?”
“Not in the least. Twenty years ago, your dear papa made sure I knew how to take a mere tumble into the sand. My heart pains me. I saw you with Ramsdale, overheard your conversation with him, and realized you would be better off with a man who could ease your burden here, not take you away from who and what you love.”
She was frowning at the worn carpet, and frowning was bad.
“You appeared to return his affections,” Philippe went on, “and it’s as if the breath left my body and hasn’t returned. I can’t think, I can’t sleep. I am nobody’s Philippe. Nobody’s friend. Nobody’s dearest anything. I ceased in some vital way to function, as if I left the best of me in the sand of your riding arena.”
Harriet drew her feet up and wrapped her arms around her knees.
So much for the efficacy of an impassioned proposal, and yet, affection for her—bottomless, admiring, desiring affection—welled in Philippe’s heart. He would always love her, and that would always give him joy and cause him an awful ache.
“Say something, Harriet. You told me to put my question to you, and that means you owe me an answer.”
She turned her face, resting a cheek on her knee, her expression cross. “I’m making up my mind, choosing my words, trying to train myself out of a bad habit. If I’m to answer with anything other than ‘Yes, Papa,’ or ‘Of course, Philippe,’ this will require some effort on my part.”
Philippe wanted desperately to kiss her, but she’d probably whack him, and then he’d want to kiss her even more.
“Tell me if you’ll be my duchess,” Philippe said. “We can sort the rest out from there.”
Her glower became ferocious. “No, I will not be your duchess.”
* * *
Harriet was angry, and not with herself. Papa’s decision to take a partner—meaning to bring a titled lord with money into the business, because what mattered hard work and loyalty—and the notion that Philippe had fallen on purpose at his last lesson left her upset in ways too numerous to list.
She and Philippe had much to sort out, but as with any spirited mount, she would begin as she intended to go on.
“A duchess is not a prime filly,” Harriet said, “to be owned by this or that lordling, raced by this or that stable. She’s a person married to a man who has a title. If I marry you, we will be husband and wife, but I hope I don’t consider you my duke.”
Philippe stared across the room, at the rack of saddles and bridles neatly arranged on the wall. “Is that a yes, Harriet, or a no?”
She dropped her knees and smoothed her skirts. She’d told Philippe to ask her, but the habit of answering for herself would take some time to develop.
“I love you,” she said, taking him by the hand, and drawing him to sit beside her. “You have been in my heart forever too, and when you took me to bed… I will never be the same, Philippe. I like that. I like that I chose to share that with you, despite propriety, despite common sense. I want to marry that man, the one who can inspire me to reach for my heart’s desire, to step off the bridle path and gallop the fields and forests.”
Philippe slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I want to be with the woman who gave me the confidence to get back in the saddle, and to pitch myself from it. The woman who made me think about whether I’m living my life, or trying to live my brother’s. I’ll never be an avid horseman, Harriet.”
“I’ll never be an avid duchess.”
He took her hand. “Fair enough. I’m not an avid duke, and with you, I’ll never need to pretend otherwise.”
The rain began to beat against the windows in earnest, and Harriet tucked closer to Philippe’s warmth. “You needn’t be an avid horseman either, Philippe. I’ll be an avid wife, though.”
“I will be a passionately avid husband.”
He kissed her, and what happened next had to qualify as the fastest disrobing of a woman in a riding habit in the history of equitation. Philippe made a bed of wool coolers before the parlor stove, and amid the good smells of leather, horse, and hay, Harriet made the decision to anticipate her vows.
Two hours later, a sopping, irascible Earl of Ramsdale had been retrieved by the grooms, and Philippe was passing out toddies in the Talbot family parlor.
“A toast,” Ramsdale said, “to new ventures succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.”
“To new ventures,” Philippe said, lifting his glass and smiling at Harriet over the rim.
She’d requested that they not announce their engagement until Philippe had told his sister. Philippe had inquired whether Harriet wanted him to observe the protocol of asking her papa for permission to court her.
“You can ask Papa for permission to court me,” Harriet murmured as Papa and the earl began bickering about repurchasing Utopia from Lord Dudley, which they’d both agreed was a fine idea.
“And if he says no?” Philippe asked.
“He won’t. He wants to be asked, though, included in the discussion. I know this, because I’d stopped including him in matters relating to the stable. I didn’t want to bother him, he probably didn’t want to bother me. I see that now.”
“I’ll bother you frequently, Harriet,” Philippe said, “and I’d rather not have a long engagement.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Ramsdale groused.
“Breeding stock,” Harriet replied, which retort had the earl and her papa looking perplexed, and Philippe grinning.
As it happened, the firstborn child of the Duke and Duchess of Lavelle arrived a scant eight months after the wedding and, true to Harriet’s promise, was named after the Earl of Ramsdale.
Lady Seton Avery Ellis rode like a demon and waltzed like a dream, but that’s a tale for another time.
As for the Earl of Ramsdale… his happily ever after lay in the direction of a long-lost Italian manuscript that scholars claimed held arcane secrets for capturing the affections of another. Ramsdale certainly didn’t believe in Cupid’s arrows or Aphrodite’s potions… and yet, he fell in love anyway.
And fell very hard, indeed, which is also a tale for another time…
THE END