‘He’s offered to do a reasonable amount of work for us, in exchange for the place. We’ll speak of rent when he grows his business, and he knows I’ll still pop in and make a nuisance of myself whenever possible. He’ll be joining us for dinner, by the way.’
Hypatia nodded, and led the horse into the stable—which reminded him he had all these doors to repair at some point—gave him some food and water, and Thorn busied himself dragging the cart into its spot.
‘So, where were you, that you avoid telling me?’ Hypatia asked, emerging once again.
‘I went to speak with your family,’ he admitted, wondering if she would think him too forward, too presumptuous, tooanything, but obviously knowing she had the right to know what had been said. ‘I…permitted myself to tell them some of what you did me. And advised them they should wait until you were ready to contact them again.’
Hypatia nodded, playing with her bottom lip between her teeth, her gaze moving to the woods, and pigs just visible beneath the semi-distant trees.
‘Are you angry with me, Hypatia?’
‘No,’ she chuckled softly, looking back at him, her eyes holding a softness he’d never seen before, but then, perhaps that was a trick of the light. ‘I just find it amusing, as I spoke to Helen, and mentioned some of what you told me. I thought you might be angry with me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Sometimes I suppose we must slay each other’s demons. Or so Helen said, in a more gracious and elegant manner.’
‘I like your manner well enough,’ Thorn told her, crossing the distance dividing them, meaning what he said far beyond what his words suggested, which he hoped she felt, or heard with her heart. ‘You know, you’re always free to leave,’ he breathed. ‘Tomorrow, in ten years, twenty. Whatever you want, you need, it is yours. With my blessing.’
‘You’re free too,’ she told him, eyes narrowing, searching his for an explanation he couldn’t give.
He wanted to tell her he wasn’t, that she commanded him, that her happiness had become his chief concern, that he loved her, and that it terrified him more than he might have the strength for; that the possibility of loving her and being unworthy to do so, had perhaps been what had terrified him about her from the first. Instead, he leaned down, and told her what he could of that in the sweetest, most searching and relinquishing kiss he’d ever known.
Even if I wanted to, I could never be free of you, for you are part of me now, my love.
Though someday sooner than I wish, I fear I shall need to let you be free of me.
Before I no longer have the strength to do so.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Early October 1839
‘Ithink I like this much better than market,’ Hypatia said, aware that her eyes were likely bulging from their sockets, her mouth gaping as she attempted to take in everything before and around her, all while knowing it was a useless exercise, given the amount ofeverythingon offer. ‘No offence to our market, but this is rather something else entirely.’
‘Well it is a fair, not a market,’ Thorn commented wryly, and she made a face, shaking her head.
‘A few months in the country and you become an expert, I see. I suppose you think yourself very clever.’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘Well come on then, show me around, My Lord Expert,’ Hypatia ordered playfully, wrapping her arm around his.
‘As my lady commands.’
Straightening, assuming a jestingly pompous and self-important air, Thorn led them on into the fray; and what a fray it was.
Set on a grand swathe of land just south-east of an otherwise pleasant, but seemingly quiet and tranquil village—where they’d spent the night as it was too far to make the journey from home in a day—the fair had been held in these parts since theConqueror had established his dominion on the isle, and grown, it appeared, with every passing year.
There was anything anyone could ever want, gathered right here, in tents, and enclosures and carts. Toys, jewellery, beautifully embroidered linens, ribbons, woollen blankets and gloves, baubles, tradesmen of every denomination showing off their skill and wares—from glasswork to smithing. There was entertainment—puppet shows and street games—and food galore. Pies and cakes and biscuits and gingerbread and meats and breads, spiced and cooked any way anyone could desire. There were exhibitions of tools, and the latest innovations in farming, and there was music, and a few thousand voices talking or touting wares.
There was produce too of course, the freshest vegetables, and sweetest fruits, and naturally, there was the reason they were here; the livestock sales, and displays. Cattle, chickens, sheep, pigs, goats, ducks, and all the others gathered, some in great numbers, others here as examples of their owners’ mastery in rearing; horses trotted along with ribbons in their tails and manes, and cattle or goats lumbered and leapt with clanging bells upon them.
It was the most beautiful semi-organised chaos Hypatia had ever witnessed, and it filled her not only with excitement, but hope too, and a hunger to learn, to experience, to be part of this life, this innovation, this work, more than ever before. Thorn seemed just as invigorated, as they wandered and were pushed by crowds here and there, trying to visit and experience as much as they could, sample and learn about as much as they could, and it heartened her more than she could put into words.
The last couple months since that day by the seaside, and those visits from their past, had continued to be that potent blend ofhard, andgood. It had continued to be a blend of working the farm, growing it, and their relationships withneighbours, surrounding villages and markets, and working on Gadmin Hall itself, slowly, but surely. A blend of buying furniture, getting Belinda and Clyde into prize-winning form, and enjoying more delightful dinners with friends, who seemed to multiply with every passing day; be it Malek—who was settling in nicely, and already busy with orders that Thorn sometimes assisted him with—or other local landowners or tenants. It was working their first harvest, toiling in the fields, and protecting their crops from the increasing but so far not too destructive end-of-summer storms, and spending moonlit midnights in hers and Thorn’s stream. It was not days ago attending Sandham’s harvest festival, and dancing by fires to the tune of flutes and fiddles, and hosting their own end-of-harvest celebration with their many friends and neighbours. It was everything.
Thorn himself had been…himself. They spoke as profoundly as they had before, though not as often; still Hypatia felt she grew to learn a little more of him every day. Enough at least, to know for instance, that in the past couple months, he’d looked at her differently—though she’d not quite had the courage to ask what provoked that, and it didn’t really matter, since it was soft, and sweet, and tender, and settled. It didn’t matter that he felt more distant—or perhaps preoccupied was the word; he was present, vitally, with her, more passionate and stalwart than ever, and he would speak to her of whatever preoccupied him in time. Likely it was just the harvest, and all the rest to be done to prepare for winter in the coming weeks, which had and continued to preoccupy too, not only by the amount of work—and workers to keep happy—but also by the new skills to learn, and new season yet to greet them. As much as Hypatia relished the new challenges, the new knowledge, growing what they had already even more, she had to admit, everything in their lifepresented a risk just now, even if they were at a sort of pleasantly productive—including financially—state at last.
