Chapter 4
… The censures which may ensue from striking into a path of literature rarely trodden by my sex will not cause me to keep silent in the cause of liberty.
—from Lydia’s private copy of Catharine Macaulay’s THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I , underlined thrice
Lydia could recall clearly the first time she’d seen one of her pamphlets in the hands of readers.
It had been 1816—a late July afternoon, hot and blue. Her lace petticoats had clung to her legs, and her heart had nearly stopped in her chest when she’d recognized the crisp printing. Two matrons, seated beside each other on a bench, had bent their heads together over Lydia’s words.
One of the women had looked around as if uncertain of her audience, and had cupped her hand protectively over the pamphlet. The other had hesitated, then folded the tract and tucked it away in her reticule, her expression caught somewhere between reticence and desperate, brilliant-edged hope.
That piece had argued for the expansion of the rights of women to sue for divorce. In Lydia’s lifetime, only two women had been successful in their divorce suits in England—a breathtaking double standard that Lydia had become determined to change. She’d worked the language over with Selina Kent, the duchess who ran Belvoir’s Library, again and again, and then Selina had commissioned a satirical print mocking the opponents of reform and their many paramours.
It had sold like wildfire. Her words, Selina’s incisive cartoon—the piece had been daring and honest and right . Lydia had been so proud of that pamphlet. When she’d seen the two matrons in the park—had sensed the hope her words had engendered—she’d felt strong and certain and bright with resolve. She’d felt as though she could do anything.
She tried very hard to recall that confidence as she looked between Strathrannoch’s groom and the two bay horses that had drawn their carriage all the way up to the castle from Dunkeld.
“Where did you say Angus went?” Angus, she had learned that morning, was the postboy.
The groom ran his hand through his thinning sandy hair and looked apologetically at her. “The sheep walk, lass.”
“Perhaps you might point me in the direction of—”
The groom coughed. “With his wife, you ken.”
Lydia did not precisely ken.
“Yon Angus has been away these last two weeks, you see.” The groom’s ears had gone quite red, and he seemed unable to meet Lydia’s gaze. “I suspect it may be some time before they’re back. Perhaps dusk. Perhaps—er—tomorrow morning.”
Ah. That was—ah. She felt her own face heat.
And then the rest of the groom’s words registered. Tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow.
No. No. She could not do it. She would not. She refused to go back to Strathrannoch Castle with her tail between her legs and beg the earl—to whom she had first proposed and then run from like her frock was on fire—for his leave to remain there overnight.
She looked from the groom to the post-chaise, which was currently devoid of horses. “Can you reattach them?”
“What’s that?”
She gestured, a little wildly. “The horses. Reattach them. Harness them back to the carriage.”
“Aye,” he said slowly. “But how do you mean to get back to Dunkeld?”
Lydia thought very hard about her pamphlets and the way she’d felt that day in the park. Resolute. Capable. Intrepid.
Oh God. Oh hell. She licked her lips and forced herself to say the words.
“I will do it,” she said. “I will drive the carriage.”
Roughly a quarter of an hour later, Lydia found herself perched atop a large bay horse, pondering the nature of her life’s choices. At what point, precisely, had this journey gone from “bold and daring” to “utterly, disastrously doomed”?
She had brought a riding habit in her trunk, a fact she was grateful for because a post-chaise was steered not by a seated driver but by a postilion on horseback. There was no driver’s seat.
She was in the driver’s seat, and it was on the back of a horse.
There was also no sidesaddle—of course there was not—and though she’d occasionally ridden astride, she was not especially proficient at it. The saddle between her thighs felt huge and unwieldy, the post-chaise behind her back a looming threat.
She did not care. She was getting herself out of this bloody castle, even if she had to abandon her belongings and walk back to Dunkeld.
She hoped she did not have to walk. Georgiana, she was quite certain, would not be enthused about walking.
Georgiana wouldn’t be terribly enthused about crashing , either, but Lydia tried not to think about it.
She guided the horses and carriage back to the front of the castle. Georgiana—bless her—was waiting just outside, Bacon at her feet and her expression inscrutable. Beside her stood the Earl of Strathrannoch, looking large and imposing and utterly fearsome.
Georgiana arched one elegant brow at the sight of Lydia on horseback. “Well. I presume Angus was otherwise occupied.”
“Get in,” Lydia said, her words coming out a jumbled rush. “The luggage is still loaded. We’re going to Dunkeld.”
“Have you murdered Angus? Because otherwise I cannot fathom why we are not simply waiting for his return—”
“Georgiana,” she said through gritted teeth, “get in.”
“Bloody hell,” said the earl over her, “get down from there. I’ll drive you back to Dunkeld if you’re in such a great tearing hurry—”
“No,” she said, “no, that’s not necessary. I am perfectly capable—”
“I didn’t say you weren’t capable, I said I can bloody well take care of it—”
“Georgiana!”
Her horse danced uneasily beneath her—probably alarmed by the shrill undertone her voice had begun to take on—so she tightened her grip on the reins and clenched her thighs around the animal’s back.
Don’t fall , she told herself fiercely. Don’t fall, don’t fall.
Georgiana gave Lydia one more incredulous look and then gathered her skirts in one hand. She lifted Bacon up into the post-chaise, then leapt up after him, and Lydia did not even turn to look at Strathrannoch or his beautiful, ramshackle castle before she kicked the horse into motion so fast its mate nearly tripped as it tried to keep up.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.
She didn’t. She steered the horses down the long drive, past the ruined gatehouse that she’d looked at with such fondness earlier in the day, and headed back down the road toward Dunkeld.
For all of ten minutes or so, until she heard hooves thundering up the road behind her.
The horses shifted. The one beneath her made to break into a trot, and she tried to pretend she was riding sidesaddle, tried to pretend she was comfortable and competent, tried to pretend she was a woman capable of changing her own life.
But she was only Lydia Hope-Wallace, after all. She was not that other woman.
She twisted her head after she’d calmed the horses to locate the source of the sound.
Strathrannoch. It was Strathrannoch, riding hell-for-leather behind them, mounted on a black horse. He’d shed his smock, and he wore only trousers and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. His mount had a long feathery black mane, which fluttered as horse and rider charged down the road. From a distance they were so well-matched a set that Lydia almost forgot the size of the man, but as he approached, she fairly goggled.
Of course. Of course the man would have a giant horse as well. She suspected that were she to stand beside the horse, its shoulder would top her head by several inches.
But the animal was not half so impressive as the man. His shoulders were huge and broad; she could see the muscles rippling straight through the threadbare linen of his shirt. His thighs strained his trousers as he controlled his enormous mount. It was almost indecent, for heaven’s sake, and Lydia could not tear her eyes from him.
Truly, not even the bravest, boldest, most fantastical version of herself would have ridden up to Perthshire and offered her hand if she’d known the man looked like that .
She forced herself to stop ogling the earl and stared fixedly at the road stretching in front of her.
“I told you,” she said when he was close enough to slow and hear her, “I will look through the letters. I promise you, I will send along any information that you need to know.”
“For Christ’s sake, you wee bampot, I’m not worried about the letters. I’m worried you’re going to kill yourself halfway to Dunkeld.”
“I can ride a horse perfectly well, thank you.”
“You couldn’t even make it across a room without needing me to catch you!”
She was taken aback by his blunt words, and yet strangely she did not feel intimidated. She felt a tiny frisson of outrage, a hot desire to defend herself.
So often, Lydia’s mother and brothers sheltered her from her fears, safeguarded her from harm. If they could, her brothers would wrap her in cotton wool and set her upon a shelf like a doll: just as safe and just as lifeless.
It was peculiar—good—to face this man’s challenge head-on.
“Stop your mount,” Strathrannoch said. “Let me take over.”
Her blood went hotter at his words. Outrage felt nothing like panic and humiliation, Lydia realized. It felt wonderful .
“I do not need you,” she said, and for once her voice wasn’t thin or shaky. It came out strong and carrying, and if she was a little breathless, it was only because she was perched atop a thousand pounds of poorly controlled horseflesh.
“ I came to offer my fortune to you ,” she went on, her voice rising. “I came to help you fix your ancestral home. I have ridden horses since I was six years old and my brother placed me atop his pony and set it loose on Rotten Row. I do not need your help!”
“I don’t give a damn whether you think you need it or no,” he snapped. “You’re getting it. I will not have you try to cross two hours of unfamiliar terrain by yourself, with no one to help you if you get stuck or overturn—”
“The terrain is perfectly familiar! I crossed it this very morning.”
“You were inside the carriage!”
“It has windows! I have eyes!”
She was so busy shouting nonsense at the earl that she failed to notice the zebras.
But the horses did. The horse beneath her caught up short, pulling the one beside it back, and Lydia squeaked and grabbed for her mount’s black mane.
Her fingers caught hold, and she squeezed her thighs into the horse’s flanks. As she did, she looked for what had made the horse startle.
Her mouth came open. Nothing but a soft wheeze emerged.
This morning she and Georgiana had seen a single zebra, wandering down the lane in front of the castle. Now they numbered more than a dozen. They were distant, probably several minutes away, but it was easy enough to make out the churning mass of stripes and hooves.
And they were running.
A stampede. It was a stampede of African zebras, coming toward her at top speed down a poorly maintained dirt track in Perthshire, Scotland.
Lydia whispered an oath.
Beside her, the earl cursed quite a lot louder. “Bloody hell, I forgot about the zebras!”
“You forgot about your zebras —”
Her mind whirled at the inexplicable nature of this man, her circumstances, and the existence of a stampede of zebras in her general vicinity. She ground her teeth and regained the horse’s reins, trying to force her brain to function properly, for all it wanted to freeze in panic and let the zebras trample her into the ground.
“All right,” she said. “You and your horse stay back. I need to get the carriage off the path so we aren’t run down.”
“Do it,” Strathrannoch ordered.
“I am ,” she muttered under her breath.
Strathrannoch’s reply was a decidedly unfamiliar Scots word, which she chose not to attempt to interpret.
She urged the horse beneath her into motion again, nudging it with knees and reins toward the side of the road. The horses looked at the approaching herd nervously, their ears flicking back and forth between Lydia’s instructions and the hoofbeats and churning dust ahead. Lydia’s mount was the worst, stepping more quickly than she liked and arching its neck.
Georgiana, meanwhile, stuck her head out the window. “Is everything all right? I heard a peculiar noise and then we…”
Lydia shot her friend a quick glance when her voice trailed off. Georgiana was staring at the approaching stampede, her pale blue eyes roughly the size and shape of robins’ nests. “I… see,” Georgiana choked out. “Carry on, then.”
Georgiana’s head vanished back into the carriage. Lydia kept her gaze on her horse and her fingers locked around the reins.
At her side, she heard Strathrannoch begin to speak, his voice a low, rough-yet-soothing murmur. “You’re doing fine. All’s well. Just a bit more, my bonny one.”
Lydia’s mouth nearly fell open before she realized he was talking to her horse.
They had almost eased the post-chaise off the road when catastrophe introduced itself in the form of a fat little black-and-white bird. As the carriage’s outer wheels tipped from the packed-dirt road into the softer loam near the forest, the bird burst up from the ground directly in front of Lydia’s horse. The bird gave a short, sharp cry at having been disturbed, fluttering its wings wildly.
And Lydia’s mount promptly panicked. She had just enough time to wrap her fingers in its mane as she felt it gather itself beneath her.
Then it leapt forward and dragged the other horse and the carriage behind them into a mad, frantic flight.