The third man nodded and shifted, his voice a purr, creased shirt sleeves pulling to display rippled arms with a nasty burn scar puckering the left. His palm stroked the mare’s muzzle, then the bridge of her nose, scratched her ears, soothing and controlled.
Such utter gentleness brought a moistness to Hebe’s eye, a shiver to her skin, more so as the horse snickered and nuzzled to this man’s palm, attempted to expel the foal again as though to please him.
“Calm, girl. I know you don’t want us here,” he whispered low, holding her firm about the mane and crest as the gentleman at the hindquarters prepared to do his job.
Hebe’s eyes refused to stray from the man at the front – his caressing fingers, hair matted with labour, shirt daubed and dirtied with stable muck, breeches crumpled, boots that’d never seen polish.
The mare bucked, a stable lad coughed and this man twisted in profile.
Hebe stilled, chill then torrid.
For a pair of battered and tarnished silver spectacles glinted in the lanternlight, a clefted chin stiffened and sculptured lips thinned in concentration.
Lord Ernest Brook strengthened his grip on the mare and dug a second knee in the straw.
For all the tea in China, Hebe could not take her eyes from the scene before her. Solely hold her breath as the most polished rake of all London dragged a lock of hair from his forehead, not caring that his skin was besmirched with filth. His lone intent to soothe the distressed mare with a hand that bore roughened knuckles and dirtied fingers.
She’d only ever seen him in gloves.
Only ever thought him pale and glossy.
Shallow and foolish.
Then the mare bellowed, the cloth-capped man grunted, and after an absurdly brief moment of noise and mess, a stable lad cheered as Redmond O’Conner reached for a bundle of straw to brush down a bloodied flailing foal.
New life commencing.
Hebe held trembling fingers to mouth. Watched as Lord Ernest splayed a tender palm across the mare’s quivering withers, crooned his congratulations and then…smiled.
She and the mare both ceased their tremble.
And Hebe turned tail and ran.
ERNEST PEEREDup at a low clatter from the cobbled corridor.
“What was that?” he said to no one in particular.
Grampy Tom’s stool creaked as he stretched out a leg from the shadowed recess. “A wary creature, my lad.”
Ernest frowned. “Does it need me?” For some reason, many a forest creature found their way to the stables, and since he’d been a child, left alone here for months on end, he’d patched more broken limbs and salved more wounds than a battlefield surgeon.
“Not yet.”
Ernest nodded. Some took a while, approaching and retreating. Watching, learning to trust.
Redmond, his stable master of three months, grinned. “And what will ya be naming this one, my lord?”
“I hadn’t thought… You can choose a name this time for…” Ernest tipped his head to the hindquarters of the new foal. “Her?”
“Aye, ’tis a filly. But I wouldn’t want to break with ya tradition.”
“I’ll have a gander then, Redmond, at my exceedingly long list.”
This night’s arrival had been born of one of his new mares named Lady Lucy, whom Ernest had purchased already large with foal, the start of his stud breeding venture.
A surge of exhilaration filled him – to one day buy these horses from his brother for his own stables and have the most select breeding establishment in all England.
He longed to shout it from the castle parapets and share it with…
