The Duke's Bridle Path by Burrowes, Grace, Romain, Theresa (13)

 

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“Yes, you are going to ride a horse,” Ada repeated. To Colin’s ear, she sounded exasperated. “If you are besotted with me, then sometimes you will have to ride a horse.”

“I can be besotted with you without being besotted with a horse.” Colin thought this was a sturdy argument, but Ada was having none of it.

She continued her march down the row of stalls. “Gentlemen ride, especially in Berkshire. We’re only a shout away from Ascot.”

“I’ll refrain from shouting.”

She ignored this. “And you could be a gentleman, you know. If you chose.”

This was so startling to Colin that he dropped his gloves. “Really?”

“Really.”

Nudging the gloves with his boot, he tried to pop them into the air.

“Just pick them up.”

“This coat is too tight.” It was another borrowed garment, though this time Colin understood the need for it, since he owned no riding clothes of his own.

Ada pursed her lips. With a smooth gesture, she snapped them up and stuffed them into his hand. “And I’m the one wearing stays. Honestly.”

She was a little flushed when she stood upright, which meant her comment was not an invitation to evaluate her appearance. But since Colin wasn’t a gentleman, no matter what she said, he did it anyway. She wore a riding habit of a shade between blue and green that made her eyes look cool and bright. Her hair was tucked up beneath a little shako-style hat, setting off her graceful neck, her stubborn chin. She looked pretty and obstinate and confident and embarrassed all at once, and he could almost forgive her for her determination to seat him on a horse.

The stables were as well-appointed inside as the exteriors had led him to believe. They were scented pleasantly of straw and liniments and warm animals, though the odor of manure underlay it all. Still, it was much nicer than a London street, and he said so.

“The stalls are cleaned more often and more thoroughly,” Ada replied. “Now. Will you choose your mount, or shall I choose for you?”

Colin stalled. “Surely there have been gentlemen since the beginning of time who have not known how to ride a horse.”

“There have, but you are not to be one of them. We are going to ride horses and make ourselves visible as a courting couple.”

“How unbending and obstinate you are. I’m not sure why I’m besotted with you.”

Her brows shot up. “Perhaps you recognize your own qualities in me.”

Despite himself, he chuckled. He enjoyed every minute with her, every spar and parry.

He did not enjoy every minute in the stables. But he could do this. It wasn’t as if he didn’t see horses every day in London. They were more common than dogs, pulling wagons and carts and carriages, being ridden or sold, pampered or abused.

But he wasn’t usually so near a horse. When he rode in a stagecoach, the horses were outside, and he was within. And as he looked down the row of generously sized stalls, at the generously sized animals, his stomach rolled over.

This brown one here, with the black legs. It was much taller than a person, and should it choose to stomp on Colin’s feet, his were outnumbered two to one. “Do you have a smaller horse?”

“I do. My mare, Atalanta. But she wouldn’t hold your weight.” An assessing look at Colin decided her. “No, you’d best ride Equinox.”

Equinox was apparently the large brown animal Colin had just eyed with suspicion. “But I—”

“If you’re my suitor, and we’re going to convince Lord Wrotham that I don’t give a snap for him anymore, then we have to ride. And we have to ride the bridle path that passes between the Lavelle property and the horse farm where he’s buying new animals.”

“Do you know for certain that he’s there? Won’t all our work be wasted if he doesn’t see us?” He was trying valiantly to save himself and Equinox the indignity of being paired. “I know I agreed to the bargain, but this is a great deal of trouble to score off someone you don’t care about anymore.”

“It’s not only that.” She checked the fastening on the headpiece, then scratched behind the horse’s ears. “I need to create an impression, whether he sees us or not. As long as someone sees us, word will get about.”

“An impression. All right. Anything specific, besides the fact that you sit a horse far better than your poor swain, Mr. Goddard?”

“Rather.” She counted on her fingers. “First, that I am not a retiring little snippet of a person who has never returned to London since being jilted. Second, that I’m not the sort of woman who has never since had a suitor. Third, that I’d never be content to spend my days with the numbers created by and for my brother’s business interests.”

“That’s a lot to communicate in one ride. If I’m sifting through all the negatives properly, though, I might add that your description of yourself is far from the truth.”

“It is precisely the truth. But for the two weeks you are here, it’s not anymore.”

He recognized this as an earnest plea for help, though Ada didn’t speak those specific words. “What happens at the end of the two weeks? Should I propose and you refuse me in spectacular fashion?”

She looked startled. “I hadn’t considered the best way to bring an end to the charade. Remiss of me.”

“I’m sure I can think of something dramatic and stunning.” He sounded blithe, didn’t he? Yet, already he was dreading the end of these two weeks. The pretense of fondness for Ada was as comfortable as a warm cloak.

“So. Equinox.” Colin eyed the horse. It eyed him back with a long-lashed eye of deepest brown. “Good name. Does he sleep half the day?”

“Horses aren’t much on sleep, unlike the cats that roam around the stable. The cats catch mice sometimes, but they’re most useful at lying around in sunbeams.” She nodded at a gray tabby that was doing just that. “Equinox was foaled on the twenty-first of March, about six and a half years ago now. How could he be named anything else?”

“I should have guessed. The name makes perfect sense.” Unlike the names of some racehorses, which seemed chosen at random from scraps of a torn dictionary.

“Go ahead, get to know him.” Ada motioned toward the big brown horse. “I’ll get Fowler. He can saddle Equinox for you.”

Thus Colin was abandoned with a horse named after a day of the year. Sometimes his life was strange. “Hullo, horse. How are you?” He extended a cautious hand. The horse plunged his muzzle into Colin’s palm, lipping at his gloved hand, then snorting an enormous warm breath of disappointment.

Ada approached with the wiry groom Colin remembered from their first meeting. “Equinox wanted a treat from you.” She smiled, rubbing the gelding’s long nose and finger-combing his forelock into place. “Maybe he remembers how you admired him in front of the confectionary shop in the village.”

“I could admire him again if you wish.”

“He’d much prefer you gave him something to eat. Here, make friends.” As the groom began saddling the horse, Ada reached into a bin and held up a dirty glob with a stringy top.

“A… rock?”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t be that much of a Londoner. It’s a beetroot.”

Holding it by its top, she knocked it against the stall door to free the loose dirt. He recognized it, now that he knew what it was. The horse seemed to know what it was too. He stretched out his long neck, upper lip folded up as if he were shoving the earthy scent into his nostrils.

Colin held the vegetable by its greens and offered it forward gingerly. Long teeth bit through the beetroot as easily as Colin might chew a caramel candy. The horse displayed purple-stained teeth as he strained for the rest. Colin stepped back out of reflex.

“Don’t tease him,” said Ada. “May I?” When Colin nodded, she stood next to him and cradled his hand in hers, guiding it forward, upward, to be a vegetable platter for the gelding. With another crunch, Equinox took the rest of the root into his mouth.

With Ada’s hand on his, the horse’s teeth didn’t faze Colin a bit. “Uh… thank you,” he said. “Will—will he eat the greens?”

He sounded tentative. He hated sounding tentative. But he couldn’t remember the last time someone had helped him with something so simple and everyday. You can do this by yourself, but you needn’t.

“He’ll eat anything,” Ada said. “Here, lead him from the stall. Fowler, help Mr. Goddard mount while I saddle my mare.”

The groom looked at Colin beadily. “If you’ll come into the paddock, sir? We’ll find a mounting block.” He took hold of the gelding’s bridle and led the horse from the stable.

Colin watched them walk away, man and beast. “All right, all right,” he grumbled. “I’m besotted. And I’m going to ride a horse. Maybe I can take a few notes on the sort of horseflesh the wealthy keep. Stick it into an article sometime.”

Ada laughed. “Only wait until the new duchess returns from her wedding trip. She and Philippe”—it took Colin a moment to realize he was hearing a duke’s Christian name—“are traveling through Spain and Portugal with the express purpose of viewing the native breeds. Harriet is a genius with horses. There’s nothing she doesn’t know.”

Marvelous. Add her knowledge of horses to Colin’s and they’d still make precisely one genius. “And your brother?”

“Harriet got him to ride again after our eldest brother died in a fall. It took years, but he’s as enthusiastic now as she is. She helped him realize how much he’d missed all things equestrian.” Ada tilted her head. “Maybe that’s part of why they fell in love. They’re a little more complete with each other than either of them were on their own. Though that sounds sentimental, doesn’t it?”

“It does, but then again, you’re talking about a newly wed pair’s love for each other. Sentiment isn’t out of place.”

Sentiment. Travels. Horseflesh. Borrowed clothing. Surely he had enough material for his first few pieces for Botolphus Bright. He tried to memorize every word that was passing, so he could tell his brother everything that evening.

“Go into the paddock, my admirer,” said Ada, “and get onto the back of your horse. I’ll join you as soon as Atalanta and I are ready.”

“I should have suspected you wouldn’t make these two weeks easy,” Colin muttered. “But you needn’t go out of your way to make them difficult.”

Her expression was all sweetness and innocence. “Resourceful as you are, you wouldn’t enjoy the game unless it was a challenge.”

“I would never doubt that you were challenging.”

She tsked. “I see. You are trying to bait me.”

“Is it working? Have I got you hooked yet?”

“Possibly,” she said. “But you’ll have to catch me to know for certain.” And looping her skirts up off the floor, she strode down the line of stalls.

“Don’t go that way,” Ada blurted. Her heart was in her throat, her stomach just behind it. “I changed my mind.”

Colin reined in with creditable skill—though, as he’d never allowed Equinox above a slow walk, this wasn’t much of a feat.

“What’s wrong?” He squinted at the bridle path that unwound ahead of them, all shade-dappled and smooth. “Is it unsafe?”

How to explain? She was going to sound like a fool. She swallowed. Cleared her throat. Willed her insides back into their proper order. “No, it’s a fine path. It’s—there’s a legend about it, that’s all.”

“Is there? Now I’ll have to hear it.” His hands went lax on the reins. Naturally, Equinox stretched his head down to crop some grass. “Since it seems my horse has stopped for a late breakfast anyway, I’ve nothing else to do.” Colin looked delighted by the halt.

“Keep hold of the reins, even if you let him graze. If he takes it into his impatient head to bolt, you’ll—”

“Fall off his back at once,” Colin finished. “Let’s not pretend I’m anything but dead weight in the saddle.”

“Adoring, admiring dead weight,” Ada reminded him.

“Naturally, all of that. So, what’s the legend? It must be terrifying if you want to abandon your plans to trot me by the Talbot horse farm.”

“I never planned for you to trot,” she said. “I’m optimistic and hopeful, but not that much.”

As Equinox stepped forward, finding juicy nibbles here and there, Colin fired a long-suffering look at Ada. He did take up the reins, she was relieved to note.

She guided Atalanta toward her stable companion, letting the fine-boned gray mare join in the impromptu graze. “It’s silly. The old legend, I mean. It states that the first person to kiss you on the path by the light of the full moon is your true love.”

He grinned. Already, she was sorry she had told him. “I see. And has this worked in real life?”

“My brother Philippe kissed Harriet Talbot,” she grumbled. “You see how that worked out.”

His smile grew. “You’re afraid that if we ride the path together, I’ll kiss you, and you’ll be stuck with me for good?”

Her mouth opened.

“This is wonderful. I think I can set your mind at ease. First, it is daytime. Second, the full moon will not shine for several more nights. Third, when night falls, if we find ourselves on the path, I shall manfully avoid kissing you. Unless you think the path will exert an atmosphere so intoxicating that I will not be able to resist?”

She didn’t know what she’d thought. Only that Colin Goddard plus bridle path plus legend was a combination likely to endanger her heart or her sanity. “Forget I said anything, Mr. Goddard.”

“Call me Colin, please. Remember, you did agree yesterday. And I always go by Christian names with women who toss old legends at me as an excuse to get me alone to kiss them.” He eyed her appraisingly. “Ah—have you ever been kissed on the path before?”

“On the path? What sort of hussy do you take me for? No, I’ve only been kissed on the lips.” He smiled, and something unlocked within her.

“All right. Let’s chance it.” She nudged Atalanta with her heel. The mare flicked her ears, annoyed at having to stop eating, but obediently walked toward the path.

“There’s no way I can kiss you if you walk off without me,” said Colin. “This old fellow’s going to graze until the next equinox. Oh, hullo! That did it.” At the sound of his name, the gelding had picked up his head.

As Ada watched, he started after Atalanta. Colin held himself still in the saddle, looking uneasy. He was going to have the devil of a sore seat the next day.

They had the winding path to themselves as far as Ada could see. When the horses fell into step next to each other, she asked, “Will all of this go into one of your articles? The path and the legend?”

“And your stubborn insistence that I ride a horse? Yes, it might well. I’ll work it up with my brother later this evening, once I’m back at the inn.”

“Your brother would be welcome to come to the Hall. He needn’t even pretend to be in love with me.”

“He’d be yours in a moment, my lady.”

“Just Ada,” she mumbled. She was regretting all sorts of things about this ride now. Letting Colin into the stable, blurting out all that nonsense about how she’d drawn back from London society after Jonas had died and Wrotham had jilted her.

Except it hadn’t been nonsense, and he’d known it. And he hadn’t teased her, or mocked her, or done anything but look at her with blue eyes that seemed, somehow, to know what she meant.

“You are being ridiculous,” she said crisply. “Do be serious. I recall that your brother is not well. Could he use help with the travel from the White Hare to the Hall? I could send a chair.”

“It’s not that sort of illness.” Colin relaxed his hands on the reins. Equinox’s ears pricked. He looked at Ada, then at Atalanta.

“Don’t do it,” Ada said. “Don’t even think about it.” At Colin’s questioning look, she replied, “Equinox wants to unseat you. He’s getting impatient with the walk.”

“Don’t tell me you want me to gallop.”

“As much as I’d love to see it, no. Take up your reins—good, hold it firmly. Let him feel the pressure of the bit. Not hard, but unmistakable. You’re in charge of him.”

“Glad one of us thinks so,” he muttered.

They had reached Ada’s favorite part of the path. Other parts ran alongside pasture or hopped a burbling stream, and one could see half of Berkshire in such places. But here the bridle path was flanked by rows of ancient oaks, sturdy as walls and tall as church steeples. In summer, the trees cast cool shade, and the earth was soft with dew every morning. Even in these waning autumn days, as the trees dropped their leaves, the path was private. Here, there was no sound but the steady thump of hoof beats, the occasional trill of a bold bird’s song.

Soon, they’d be coming upon the bounds of the horse farm, where Wrotham might be visible. They’d best look engaged as they rode. Delighted in each other.

She reintroduced the subject from which Equinox had distracted her. “Do you want to tell me how I can arrange for your brother to visit the Hall? Or do you want me to drop the subject?”

Colin looked more comfortable in the saddle now, settling into the horse’s gait. “Neither one is necessary. It is Samuel’s wish not to mix in public. He is troubled with…” He thought for a moment. “Within my family, we always called them twitches. Samuel’s twitches.”

“He’s always had them?”

“He’s always had some, since he could walk. They change over time, so he loses some and develops others. But usually he feels he has to move, or to make a noise, as you or I might feel we have to sneeze. He can’t help it—or he can, but it becomes intolerable after a while. As you can imagine, it’s embarrassing to him.”

She had never heard of such a condition. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass him,” she said. “Please give him my greetings and let him know he is welcome at the Hall any time he would choose to accompany you.”

“I’ll tell him.” Colin ventured a tug at the brim of his hat. “Thanks. He’ll like that.”

Perhaps this was why the brothers traveled together. If Samuel was embarrassed to be seen by others, he’d need to stay with his elder brother to maintain contact with the world. “Does he travel with you because he enjoys it?”

Equinox sneezed, shaking his head. Atalanta danced to one side. “We rely on each other,” Colin said at last. “Whether we enjoy it or not.”

“Brotherhood described with admirable conciseness,” Ada said dryly.

“Do you miss your brother, Lavelle? Or is one permitted to miss a duke?”

“A sister is permitted, surely. And I would rather have him around than not, but I am used to being apart from him.” She reined in, easing Atalanta over a stone-scattered part of the path. Here, it was brighter, the oak trees that had cradled the path giving way to hedges. Through gaps, she could see paddocks, grooms, horses being worked. Plenty of eyes to catch sight of the duke’s sister on a pleasant ride with her admirer.

“Besides,” she added, “a duke’s household is full enough of servants that I am never by myself.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not lonely sometimes.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

They finished their ride in a companionable silence—but Ada’s thoughts roamed abroad even as she sat serenely on horseback. She’d known since the moment of meeting Colin Goddard that he had an ulterior motive for seeking her company. But did he have other motives too? Might he be fond of her for her own sake?

How could she know?

And why was she disappointed he hadn’t even tried to steal a kiss?

In his room at the White Hare, Colin groaned as he eased himself into the steaming bath. A copper tub was usually a luxury, but if he hadn’t been able to soak his sore muscles today, he’d be a piece of human hardtack in the morning.

The White Hare was a clean and comfortable inn, neither cheap nor costly. Of habit, Colin held fast to every coin he could, since one never knew when the next would come. Thus the brothers were in a small room under the eaves. The bedstead was hardly big enough for one, but Samuel preferred to sleep during the day so he could spend his waking hours away from curious eyes.

Just now, Samuel sat on the edge of the bed and laughed, head bobbing. “I knew you’d regret riding a horse.”

“I knew it too, though I thought I’d be much worse off than this. A little muscle soreness isn’t bad compared to being tossed on my backside.”

It wasn’t a little soreness. But a man had his pride, even with his brother.

He hissed, sinking more deeply into the water. Through the window, the sky purpled and bled into a sunset.

As Colin took hold of a cake of soap and a cloth, Samuel rose and paced back and forth across the room. Three strides this way, three that.

Five years Colin’s junior, he was the darker of the two brothers, with puckish brows and the angular face of an ascetic. Like their father, Samuel got absorbed in his work to the exclusion of almost all else. For Samuel, the almost was conversation with Colin, his link to the world outside their room. For their father, it had been drink.

“You’re invited to come to Theale Hall anytime you like,” Colin told him. “Lady Ada asked me to tell you so.”

“Did you tell her about me?”

“About your twitches? Yes, something of them. She said she wouldn’t wish for you to be embarrassed, but wanted you to know you might come whenever you wished.”

“She sounds nice.” Nod. Nod.

Colin rubbed the cloth liberally with soap. “Nice is not what I would name as her defining quality.” Proud. Intelligent. Appealing. Prickly. Those suited her better.

Pretty too. Warm. Unexpected.

“But she is nice,” he agreed.

Samuel sat down. “We don’t have to do this, Col. We could leave and write a different series instead. Bright will find something else for you to observe.”

He had thought of that himself. But. “We need this,” he said. “You and I. We’ve scrambled for the day’s pay for years. With this series and a pamphlet afterwards, we’ll have a steady wage. Bright promised.”

More than a steady wage. Colin would become its co-editor.

Samuel’s hands clenched, unclenched. “We’ve never gone hungry yet.”

That was true. “And we won’t. I’ll make sure of it.” He put a soapy hand out, palm up. Samuel pressed it—their old agreement, better than a handshake.

“Two weeks of pretense,” Colin said, relaxing into the hot water. “Lady Ada knows what’s going on. It was her suggestion. She won’t be injured.”

Samuel pulled back his hand, still looking doubtful.

“It’ll be fine,” Colin assured him. “Are you ready to take notes on the day?”

“Ready.” Samuel rose to his feet and took up the portable writing desk with which he traveled. The brothers were always amply supplied with paper, ink, quills, and pencils—as well as a penknife, sand, and anything else that might be needed for the smooth transfer of ideas into the written word.

Samuel wrote with a beautiful hand. Colin could tell that, even though he couldn’t decipher half of what his brother wrote, or what anyone else wrote. When Colin tried to read, the letters wiggled like the contents of a fisherman’s bait bucket, altering and flipping. He knew it wasn’t like that for most people, and no one but Samuel knew it was like that for him. He had a wonderful memory, and that was enough to get him by most of the time.

That, and Samuel’s steady hand.

“The trappings of the upper class,” Colin began. He held the cloth over his head, squeezed rivulets of warm water down. It felt like sensual fingers on his scalp, behind his ears, down his neck.

Kiss me on the path, he had wanted to tell Ada. Or on the lips. Either one.

She was a dangerous woman, with her listening ears and deep, wondering eyes. A man might confide anything in her, even the truth.

A man might fall hard for her, and not just play at being besotted.

Colin had shut his eyes. When they popped open, Samuel was staring at him. “Ready for more,” he prompted.

So, on they went. Colin recounting the day, Samuel transcribing it. The brothers shaping witty, deathless prose—or at least prose good enough to earn their bread for another day, week, month.

They’d write the series, and then they’d return to London. Colin had promised to play the swain for only two weeks.

How far could he possibly fall in that time?