At dinner that evening, however, Harry announced that he was ready to go riding.
“Do not say a word, Ab,” he said, addressing his sister. “I will not be deterred.”
“I had no intention of saying a word,” she replied. “Or ten words. Or even a hundred. I know how pointless it would be. Besides, I did not stay here to fuss you, Harry.”
“But I will need you to ride with me, Gil,” Harry said with a rueful grin at his friend. “Notto hold my hand, but to stop any of the grooms from insisting upon doing so. I could not bear to have one of them riding along beside me like a dashed nursemaid, waiting for me to topple off. You can scrape up the pieces if I should do that.”
“You would never be able to hold your head up again,” Gil said. “Assuming you had a head left to hold up, that is. I will do my best to keep you in one pieceandup in the saddle. No jumping of hedges or gates, though.”
“Good Lord, no,” Harry agreed. “Not for the first hour, anyway.”
So, Gil thought, he was stuck here for at least a few more days, perhaps a week. Harry needed him.
•••
It was two days later before Harry actually went for his first ride. It rained steadily for much of those two days, clearing up only late in the afternoon of the second day. On the third morning, however, the sun was beaming down from a clear blue sky with not a cloud in sight.
Abigail worried, of course. She worried that Harry was not strong enough to ride yet. She worried that the horse he had purchased was too powerful for him in his weakened state, though she knew that one of the grooms had been riding it, breaking it in so to speak, making sure the horse had no unexpected quirks that might be a danger to Harry, who had not ridden for almost two years. She worried that he would overtax his strength and ride too far.
She held her tongue, however.
She walked out to the stables with him and Lieutenant Colonel Bennington. She had not avoided the latter during the past two days. There would be too much awkwardness in the maneuvering doing that would have involved. But shehadthought of going back to London. Except that she did not want to go. And why should she allow herself to be driven from her own home by a few impulsive words from Harry and a brief kiss from his friend?
She wouldnotallow herself.
The horses were saddled and ready in the stable yard. Even so, both men checked everything for themselves. Lieutenant Colonel Bennington mounted and rode to the gateway where Abigail stood watching. He gazed down at her, and she raised her eyes unwillingly to his. He looked extremely powerful on horseback. Also grim. Always grim.
“He is ready for this,” he told her quietly so that Harry would not hear.
“Yes,” she said. “I am sure he is.”
He was telling her, she realized, that he would look after Harry and make sure no harm came to him. He knew she was worrying though she had said nothing. These two men had ridden across Spain and Portugal together, she reminded herself, and across the Pyrenees into France. They had fought together in fierce and bloody battles and skirmishes she had known nothing about until months later. They had fought together at Waterloo. Of course he would watch out for Harry, just as Harry would watch out for him if the situation were reversed.
“Thank you,” she added.
Harry rode up at that moment, looking slender and boyish and eager. Almost—ah,almostlike his old self.
“You ought to come too, Abby,” he said.
She had thought about it. “Not today,” she said, smiling at him. “I have other things to do.”
They both tipped their hats to her with their riding whips and rode off in the direction of the drive.
She spent the next hour in the morning room, writing letters to Camille and her mother, raising her head at the slightest sound to look through the window to see if they were returning. She looked up sharply when she heard at last the sound of horses’ hooves clopping up the drive. They were back. She blotted her letter to her mother, cleaned her pen hastily, and hurried out to the stables to be there when they dismounted.
“Here we are, Abby,” Harry called cheerfully. “Both of us in one piece. You need not have worried.”
“Who said I was worried?” she retorted. “I had better things to do than worry about you. I have written to Camille and Mama.”
“And that is why you are out here almost before us, I suppose?” he said as he dismounted.
He did not insist upon unsaddling his horse as Lieutenant Colonel Bennington was doing, she noticed. A groom was doing it for him.
“It felt good to ride again?” she asked.
“It is the best feeling in the world, Abby,” he said. “You really ought to have come with us. Send my love to Mama, will you? You have not sealed the letter yet?”
“No,” she said.
