She would like nothing better. And yet, suddenly a canter seemed far too fast and high. She'd managed it twice, right alongside Mr. Burke, and felt as if she'd fly right off the tiny saddle. And yet, now seemed the perfect chance to try again.
So, she nodded and curled her leg more tightly around the horn, afraid she was becoming addicted to the tight-chested attraction of risk. Flint grinned and set Galahad off. Charlie followed right behind. And Felicity failed to fall off.
The exhilaration of it crowded her throat. Too fast. She was going too fast. She knew it. Too high and too fast. And yet suddenly she found the rhythm of the gait and leaned into it, like settling into a rocking chair. It was just what she'd dreamed riding a horse would be. She curled her knee more tightly yet and made sure the reins were taut and her posture straight.
Felicity had no idea where they were going. They were headed in the opposite direction Mr. Burke usually took. It didn't matter. She all but laughed at the feeling of flight. She loved the sense of sudden freedom, as if the earth fell away beneath Charlie's hooves. She loved the jangle of the tack and the creak of the leather and the pull and ease of the reins through her fingers.
Charlie didn't have the stallion’s size or power, but he was as game as a pebble. He followed right behind the bigger horse as they crossed the fields, clods of dirt kicking up in their wake. If she could, she would run like this forever. She and Charlie would take flight just to see how long they could go, how far behind they could leave their troubles and questions. All the way to John O'Groats, if necessary.
They were approaching a village Felicity didn't recognize. They had been heading southwest away from Edgecombe, the estate village, and crossed a bridge or two. Breaking through the tree line, Flint turned them onto a road that wound through harvested fields towards a group of old brick-and-half-timbered buildings clustered along an abnormally long village green. Swans circled a pond at the near end, and at the other, the road wandered off amid the horse chestnuts that ringed a square church steeple.
Just as they reached the first houses, Flint eased back on his mount. Felicity followed suit, giving Charlie another few pats for his service.
“Where are we?” she asked, breathless from the ride.
They had eased to a walk, Lord Flint falling back to ride alongside. “Frampton-on-Severn,” he said, pointing to the square Norman steeple that peeked through the trees. “That is St. Mary the Virgin. First stone laid down in the 1100s.”
It took Felicity a moment to follow his guidance as she quickly stuffed her wayward hair back into its pins. Thankfully Charlie seemed to know the way.
“What an interesting place,” Felicity mused, her attention caught by all the ancient brick and half-timbering, the air of sleepy disuse that seemed to envelop the road. “Is there any building newer than a hundred years old?”
“I don't believe so. Do you see the green?”
It would have been difficult to miss it. There was no real high street, no square of any kind. Just that long stretch of cropped grass, which didn't seem to contain much activity at present.
“I do.”
“Do you know why the green is this long?”
“Of course, I do,” she said, giving a final pat to her hair and tightening the reins a bit. “Although I've rarely seen one maintained this long. It was the law in the Middle Ages. The green had to extend the length of a long-bow shot, so the local yeomanry could practice.”
Flint shook his head. “How would an instructor of piano and deportment know that?”
She couldn't help smiling. “The instructor reads history for her own pleasure, which she learned from your cousin. Pip was always spouting off things like that. Anything to do with the courtly age, knights in shining armor, quests, Crusades. She was enamored.”
“I believe the word you're looking for is obsessed. Drove us mad with her quests for holy grails when we were young.”
Felicity smiled. “She told me.”
Felicity had listened in rapt attention to what she'd always considered fairy stories of close-knit families and the kind of cousins who abused and amused each other with the nonchalance of familiarity. Adventure amid safety, the easy assumption that one belonged somewhere.
She had listened to Pip from her place in that hard gray dormer bed, envying the bright comforters and knitted throws the other girls had brought from home to keep them warm. Part of the fairy story of belonging.
Flint guided his horse to a small, red-brick inn and dismounted. Striding around to Felicity's side, he reached up without a word and caught her at the waist. Felicity started badly. The last time a man had caught her in such a way, he had forced her to stomp on his feet to get free. But the feeling wasn't the same now. Not at all. When Flint set her down on the ground, she caught herself just short of leaning into him, simply to enjoy the scent of sandalwood and man. Her skin still tingled after he took his hand away. Her knees felt a bit fluid. She quickly stepped away and smoothed down her skirts.
Flint acted as if he hadn't even noticed. Instead he pointed with his crop toward a manor house down the way that was part mellow red brick and part half-timber. “Did she tell you about the Manor?”
Felicity turned to look in the direction he indicated.
He was gazing on the time-softened house with a smile. “The Fair Rosamund was born there. Mistress to Henry II and bane of Queen Eleanor's existence.”
Felicity gaped. “Thatis the Manor?” She shook her head, reconsidering what she saw. “My heavens. I have certainly heard enough about it. Pip has never liked poor Rosamund, you know. She is a staunch Eleanor supporter.”
“Pip is nothing if not loyal.”
“Would that Henry had been.”
Flint's smile grew. “Eleanor was no weeping violet herself.”
