Chapter Four
William usually rodeimmediately after breakfast. Jenny feared he would become impatient if none of the grooms were available to accompany him, and might ride off on his own. If only she could ride with him. The green wool riding habit hung from a hook in her cupboard. Why had she brought it here? Homesickness, and the struggle with her loss of independence stirred again, although it had begun to ease. There was little point in wishing for the moon. Her father, furious with her, had decreed it. This was her fate and she must accept it. She was well fed, with a roof over her head, which many could not claim, though she did wish for more company. Nanny was kind, if a little vague at times, while the children warmed her heart and gave her days a sense of purpose.
Yesterday, a letter arrived from her sister, Arabella, in York. News from home was always accompanied by a flutter of anticipation. Jenny pulled the crumpled paper from her pocket, smoothed it out and reread every word while she partook of her porridge, tea, and toast at the table in her room.
At seventeen, six years Jenny’s junior, Bella kept her up to date with the latest happenings at home. It seemed that Papa still buried himself in his library engrossed in his Medieval studies and turned his back on the rundown estate. As with Jenny, there was no money for a London Season. Papa’s hopes rested on Bella, the prettiest of the girls, who he was confident would attract a gentleman of means at the York or Harrogate Assembly dances, now that she’d turned seventeen.
Her sister wrote about how she longed to escape the miserable atmosphere at Wetherby Park. Jenny prayed Bella’s union would be a love match. That she wasn’t pushed into marriage with someone she disliked. Her sister would not be able to refuse an offer as Jenny had done.
Jarred, the eldest at twenty-four, was scholarly like their father, but he had to give up his dream of attending Oxford, and now worked as a clerk at the Inns of Court, hoping one day to become a barrister. Jarred sent money home whenever he could, but living in London took most of his wages. Colin at twenty was away in the navy. Jenny’s other three siblings were too young to venture out into the world. Her gentle sister, Beth, was thirteen, then there was twelve-year-old Charlie, and Edmond, the youngest, who was eight. It remained a sorry state of affairs, which Jenny felt would not have come to pass had her mother lived. Mama had been practical and capable, and life had been much better then.
Papa did not expect you to accept his ultimatum to either marry Mr. Judd, or leave us,Bella wrote.He misses you, Jenny. I think he sorely regrets you leaving. You are the most like Mama, and Papa has not been himself since she died. I am still unsure what was said between you before you left us. I know you disliked Mr. Judd. I haven’t warmed to him myself, although Papa thinks he’s a capital fellow, they are often in the library pouring over old tomes and chuckling together. I wish you would come back. I miss you dreadfully. We all do.
Bella.
The letter cast Jenny into despair. Was Judd still visiting them? He would be, of course. It should have occurred to her. Walter Judd had fostered a shared interest in Medieval literature with her father. They spent hours reading poetry and discussing it, and she suspected her father had begun to regard Judd as a chivalrous knight. She should be there. If she’d accepted Judd’s proposal, she might have been able to help her siblings. But after what she’d discovered about him, she just couldn’t.
Her mind on her appointment with His Grace at eleven o’clock, she finished her breakfast, tidied her hair, and made her way to the stables to check on William.
The autumn mist still hovered high in the trees, the grass sparkling with dew as Jenny walked toward the stable yard.
Suddenly the duke rode out of the woods on his stallion, thundering down the driveway toward her, scattering gravel. For a moment, Jenny stood still and admired him. A glorious sight, he and the horse moved as one. If William was with him, it would delight the boy, but there was no sign of him riding behind his father.
The duke drew rein as he came up to her, close enough for her to read his expression. She gasped. His dark eyebrows were lowered in a heavy frown as he pulled his mount up, the magnificent chocolate brown horse’s nostrils flaring. “Miss Harrismith, do you know which of the bridle paths my son might take?”
Jenny stepped back, although it was obvious the duke was in complete control of his mount. “Yes, Your Grace. Lord William prefers to ride to the river.” With a feeling of foreboding, she pointed toward the bridle path which angled away through the beech trees and disappeared deep into the wood. “Is something wrong?”
The stallion threw up its head, pale mane flying. “William’s riding Storm Cloud,” the duke growled. “That horse is almost as big as Cicero and has a nasty temper.”
She started. “Lord William knows he is not allowed to ride one of the big hunters!” she said, her uneasiness about the boy having proved right. “Isn’t the stable master, Ben, or Jem with him?”
“Ben is laid up with an injured leg, and Jem has escorted the baroness and her brother over the estate,” the duke threw back over his shoulder as he wheeled his horse away.
“Lord William would wish to impress you with his horsemanship, Your Grace,” she called after him. He would not like to hear such a comment from a governess, and indeed he ignored her. He nudged his horse’s flank, and urging the animal into a canter, disappeared into the trees.
William could not have saddled the horse himself. Did he ride bareback? She’d seen him ride one of the smaller horses without a saddle, but Storm Cloud? That was ridiculous. But she couldn’t quell her fears as she hurried along praying it would come to nothing. William would manage the horse quite well as long as he didn’t try to jump a high gate, or a fox or hare didn’t startle the horse.
She hurried under the archway and entered the stable yard, a large cobbled area made up of the stables, coach house with the staff accommodation above, and storehouses. Inside the duke’s immaculate stables, the stable boy was scouring out a stall with vinegar and baking soda, the same as they used at home in York. The air was tinged with the faint smell of urine, overlaid with oil and leather. Horses shuffled in the loose boxes, but several stood empty, swept and clean.
“Did you see Lord William ride off, Sam?”
“I did, Miss, but I was out forking straw bales off the cart and couldn’t stop ’im. Not that his lordship would’ve listened to me.”
“Storm Cloud was saddled?”
“One of the stable lads did it for ’im, Miss.”
“Well there’s that at least. I imagine His Grace will find him.” But William would be in trouble, she thought gloomily. An unfortunate beginning when father and son were just getting to know each other. She left the stables to wait in the yard.
William was determined to show his father how accomplished a rider he was. She hoped the duke would keep a cool head, and not drive a wedge between them, although she feared he might, for he did look furious.
A lady trotted her horse into the stable yard with two gentlemen, a groom following behind them. Their mounts crossed the cobbles to the mounting block.
The tall dark-haired gentleman dismounted effortlessly, threw the reins to the groom, called goodbye and left, walking away toward the house. Jenny knew him to be the duke’s cousin, Mr. Forsythe, come to visit, because the nursery maid, Mary, had told her so when she’d brought her breakfast.
The groom assisted the dainty lady to dismount. She was dressed in a scarlet-colored habit edged with black braid in the military style, and a jaunty black riding hat. A golden lock curled over her shoulder. Thanks to Mary’s penchant for gossip, Jenny knew the guest was Baroness Elsenberg. Her brother, Herr Von Bremen, strolled over the cobbles toward Jenny, peeling off his leather gloves. He removed his hat, and smoothed his hair, the same color as his sister’s, back from his brow.
The handsome man stood before her. Close up he was younger than she’d first thought, but still several years older than her. “How charming. And who are you, pretty lady?” he asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
