Chapter 29
The next morning dawned bright and clear, a perfect day for a ride.
As promised, Edward met with the groomsman first thing, instructing him to saddle the black gelding for Calliope and the chestnut stallion for himself.
He’d had a moment where he almost took the liberty of choosing Dove, a sweet gray mare, for Calliope instead, but Calliope’s words—I like a challenge—came back to him, and he’d found in the last week and a half that he did not have the heart to deny her anything.
It turned out, however, that he needn’t have worried.
Morning Star—Star for short—who kicked and bucked even the most trained professionals, positively melted beneath Calliope’s calming touch.
Edward watched her leather-gloved hands stroking Star’s neck, he and the horse equally mesmerized by her gentle clucking.
The groomsman had prepared a sidesaddle, but the moment Calliope saw it, she requested a regular saddle, which was fitted immediately.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she told Edward as the straps were cinched and the seat secured. “I can ride sidesaddle, but I don’t prefer it.”
“You won’t get any judgment from me,” he replied. “Frankly, I don’t know how ladies do it.”
“Very carefully,” she quipped.
Once the groomsman was done, Calliope thanked him and, in one fluid motion, placed her foot in the stirrup and swung herself onto the gelding’s back without a modicum of assistance, her full riding skirt cascading down either side of her mount.
Edward whistled beneath his breath.
Calliope glanced at him, her cheeks turning a dusky pink color. “Is there something you would like to say, my lord?”
He kept his gaze on her as he swung onto his own saddle and took the reins. “Only that I do believe you are even stronger than I realized.”
“Does that frighten you?” she teased. “Are you beginning to doubt your proposal?”
“Honestly, the more time I spend with you, Miss Hart, the more I am convinced that I could not have chosen better had my life depended on it.”
Her blush deepened at his compliment. He spotted a small tilting at the corners of her lips, but she quickly hid the smile behind a click of her tongue that set Star into a trot. Edward did the same, following close behind.
His hopes had risen the previous night, when Calliope had agreed about the importance of saving estates such as Whitefawn, for the people who lived and worked there, as well as for the land itself.
Her sentiment confirmed what he had already suspected of her, which was that she had a deep passion and respect for those things that had been here long before she was born and would be here long after if properly preserved.
Now Edward just had to convince her that Whitefawn could be her life’s purpose, just as it was his own.
Of course, Aesop and Bethilda were not helping matters, planning the date for a wedding that hadn’t yet been decided.
What had his mother been thinking, inviting them?
They were quite fortunate that Calliope had decided to see the humor in his relations rather than run screaming from the house, but still, he could not help but feel his mother had created yet another hurdle for him to jump.
Calliope, I know you do not love me, and you never imagined yourself becoming tied down to an estate such as Whitefawn, nor to a way of life such as the peerage, but would you overlook all of that and consider becoming my wife?
Oh, and overlook my family, as well. We really won’t have to see them all that often.
He rolled his eyes at the thought, feeling more and more ludicrous by the second.
Certainly such a sentiment would do nothing to promote his cause, but what would?
He had nothing else to offer her, aside from his growing affection for her, but as she had made it quite clear that she could never feel the same about him, he knew any pronouncement of love was off the table.
Encouraging a love for Whitefawn was his only hope, knowing he alone would never be enough.
Two hours. That was all it took for Calliope to see what exactly it was about Whitefawn that Edward wanted to save.
He began by showing her the wheat fields to the north, a blanket of golden tassels abutting the forest in the far distance.
The crop looked to be doing well despite the heat, no doubt due to the irrigation system that was already in place, and hopefully, in time, to the one currently being installed, but the rivers from which they’d been directing the water were measuring at record-low depths and continuing to fall, and she doubted Edward’s efforts would be enough to save his crops if the drought kept up through the remainder of the summer.
He told her of the various innovations in farming techniques he’d been studying and hoped to employ over the next few years.
He also introduced her to the farmers who lived with their families in the quaint stone cottages lining the fields.
She’d giggled when the children had all rushed Edward, crying, “Your Lordship!”
They then proceeded to dogpile him until, laughing, he’d yelled, “Mercy, children! I beg of you, have mercy!”
The children, claiming victory, peeled themselves away, only to then be chased by a growling Edward who told them they had awakened The Great White Wolf of the North.
They squealed in delight and hid behind haybales and fence posts, only to be grabbed and then employed by said Wolf to help him find the others.
It seemed to be a game Edward played often, for one little girl pouted at the end and remarked, “I never get chosen to help find the others.”
Bending down, Edward tapped her on the nose and replied, “That, Lily Connelly, is because you are the best hider in all of Hampshire. I keep trying to find you first but it’s like trying to find a flake of salt in a snowstorm.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “You swear?”
“On my honor.”
She pursed her lips to the side, debating this. Finally, a smile broke. “I am rather good, aren’t I?”
Edward grinned. “The best.”
Mr. Connelly appeared at the fence post next to Calliope, where she had been watching this exchange with tender eyes and an increasingly uncertain heart.
“He’s always been good with the children, His Lordship,” Mr. Connelly told her as he leaned against his shovel.
“Even when he was a child himself, he was a natural-born leader.” He chuckled, thinking back on it.
“I remember the countess wanting to throw him a birthday party. He had agreed to it, until he saw that she had only invited children belonging to their own kind. He was spitting mad and refused to attend unless the village children were invited too. Our oldest was three at the time and merited an invite. Her mother and I marveled at the way the earl chose to fix his attentions on the less fortunate, even then. Those upper-class children who refused to mix at the party were ignored, while those who let go of their social prejudices to play with the others were rewarded with a slew of games His Lordship had invented for them all to play.”
Calliope kept her eyes on Edward as he removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to help another little one with his chores of feeding the chickens. The heat was rising from the ground again and beginning to scorch, but she barely felt it, she was so entranced by the sight.
“Mr. Connelly,” she began, wanting to know as much as she could about this man who seemed to be claiming more and more of her heart with each passing second. “You’ve known the earl for a long time, is that correct?”
He nodded. “I remember the day he was born. Lived closer to the manor then, helping my father work the kitchen gardens.”
“What sort of man would you say His Lordship is?”
“The best sort, miss. He looks after us all. I can’t imagine working for anyone else.”
Her gaze found Edward’s frame once more. He was now turning the crank at the well, sweat dampening his white shirt so that she could see the ridges of muscle roping his arms and coiling across his shoulders.
There was that strange stirring in her belly again, a fluttering that took the breath from her lungs and made her long to do ridiculous things, like set her horse galloping away from her so that she and the earl would have to share the same saddle for the rest of the day, his arms around her waist. Her spine pressed against his chest. His breath fanning her ear.
Edward handed the bucket now full of well water to the little boy, rubbed his hands together, and glanced her way.
She quickly banished the image from her mind and turned to Mr. Connelly.
She asked him for a tour of his house, hoping Edward had not seen the truth of what she was beginning to feel for him in the depths of her gaze.
There was no reason to give him any more ammunition than he already had, not when she was finding it more and more difficult to remind herself why it was so ever-loving important to return to New York.
After being treated to slices of cobbler and glasses of fresh milk by Mrs. Connelly, they rode out to the forest, each on their own horse, which was definitely the way it needed to be.
Edward showed her the various wildlife populating the land: goshawks and red squirrels; foxes and voles; pine martens and grouse.
They even spotted a sweet little hedgehog nestled in a fallen tree trunk.
He pointed out beaver dams in the river. The decline in the water level made it easier to inspect the intricacy of their work but also spelled trouble for them as well, should the drought continue. They also studied various species of frogs, fish, and turtles who called the water home.