Fourth Day of Christmas #2
“Hold up a moment,” said Tom. He jumped off his horse and went to hers, putting a hand on its haunch. “Your mare is showing a limp she didn’t have before.”
Tom helped her off the saddle, his hands on her waist, forcing her body to slide down against his. She didn’t mind it at all. And his smile up close was delightful. He smelled like peppermint.
Tom asked her to take the mare’s lead while he rode off for help. He cantered back a few minutes later, Edwin following on another horse. The large stable man hopped down to examine the mare—lifting her foot to check for stones, feeling her leg for indication of injury.
“I don’t know what’s amiss,” he said. “I ache to think she’s hurting and I don’t know what to do for her. Poor girl.”
Kestrel’s belly was roiling like a shaken can of soda.
She tried to stuff the feeling down, but it fizzed all the harder until she started, “Edwin . . .” Even then she hesitated to speak her idea, but when Edwin looked at her with concern for the horse still haunting his eyes, she gave in.
“Have you met Mr. Kern, one of the visitors at Windy Nook? He . . . Uh, I heard he grew up on a dairy farm and is very good with animals. I think . . . He’s probably gone home already .
. . He’s definitely gone . . . But just in case .
. . You could send for him? If he’s still around, I bet he’d be glad to help. ”
Edwin nodded. He took the mare’s lead and began to slowly walk back toward the stables, speaking soft and low, “We’ll take care of you, girl. Don’t worry, sweetheart.”
Kestrel’s eyes pricked with unexpected tears. She turned her back to Tom before he could see. She certainly didn’t want to ruin this excursion by explaining why a little kindness to a mare made her feel like open-mouth sobbing.
“I say, we have two good horses,” said Tom, “but neither with sidesaddle fit for your apparel.”
Kestrel blinked her eyes dry before turning back to Tom. “We can walk the horses back.”
“It’s far. It will take an hour at least.”
“I don’t mind. I’m very fond of walking,” she added, quoting dialogue from the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice movie.
She felt a physical thrill shoot down her spine when Tom responded with Mr. Darcy’s line, “Yes, yes, I know.” He returned her smile, pleased and sunny and fully game, adding, “I must say, I don’t mind anything, not when I’m with you. ”
So she led one horse, he the other, and they conversed freely as they walked. The smell of warm horse and cold piney air felt as comforting as her own bed.
Soon they entered an open field, empty but for a low fence. He looked at Kestrel with a sly smile.
“Somehow I think you might enjoy a little jumping. And somehow I don’t think you’d mind bending decorum in the name of diversion.”
“Sir Thomas, you are speaking my native tongue.”
Kestrel had experience riding on a Western saddle and didn’t have trouble mounting the horse, her skirt up to her waist, her drawers exposed.
Tom gave her pointers on English riding, adjusting the stirrups, showing her how to hold the reins in two hands, how to grip with her knees and communicate with her heels.
She watched him jump his horse over the fence a couple of times and was delighted to have her own go.
As her horse’s canter picked up speed, all her thoughts turned off. She was the sound of the hooves against the ground, the feel of the air, and in the moment her mount leaped over the fence, she was part of it too—part of the horse and the wind and the entire gorgeous world.
“YES!” said Tom, cheering for her as if she’d just won the Super Bowl. “That’s my girl! That is how it is done!”
Kestrel beamed. “Again, please!”
By the time they returned to the house hours later, the gong announced the approaching dinner, and Kestrel whisked off to change. She didn’t realize she was smiling to herself till Juliette remarked on it.
“A certain gentleman on your mind perhaps?” Juliette asked as she dressed Kestrel in a Christmas-green silk gown.
“Juliette, what do you know about Tom?”
“Sir Thomas Adani is a fine gentleman with vast holdings—”
“Tell me the truth, Juliette,” Kestrel said. “Please?”
Juliette rolled her eyes and shook her head, but after a few quiet moments she said resolutely, “He’s a good one. One of the best. And I don’t mind telling on him—he has very nice things to say about you.”
Kestrel nodded, her suspicions confirmed. Tom would be a good candidate for all this huge, messy, glorious loving energy always swirling inside her, desperate for a target. Maybe the dream of being with him outside the story was simply that, but she found it easy to dream.
Once dressed, she ran down to the drawing room, eager to see Tom again.
At first she thought the prickling in her stomach was excitement, but it tensed, twisted, and grew to such an uncomfortable pitch, she was forced to recognize it as dread.
Despite her best efforts to focus on sunny, sumptuous Tom, beneath her every thought ran the constant staticky awareness of Hank.
When Neville opened the front door to the Windy Nook guests, Kestrel and Gussie stood in the drawing room to receive them like proper Regency ladies. Kestrel’s body was tuned in to the sounds from the hallway, listening for any confirmation of Hank’s absence.
“Allow me to take your cloak, Lady Heartwright.”
“Careful, Neville, it is velvet. I just ordered it from Paris.”
“Very good, my lady.”
“Mrs. Martinez, I say, that is a smashing gown.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hardy, it is simply marvelous, isn’t it?”
“Both our ladies look smashing tonight, don’t you agree, Mr. Kern?”
“Yes.”
Kestrel felt her blood heat to a perfect egg-poaching temperature. So, he had stayed. And he had dared to show up again. Well, she was going to ignore him all night.
It turned out that ignoring Hank required Kestrel to constantly check out where he was and what he was doing so she wouldn’t accidentally cross his path.
Ignoring him, she had never been so aware of him.
The cut of the black jacket, the way his high collar and cravat drew attention to the shape of his jaw, the long sideburns left unshaven and starting to grow in.
The way his blue eyes sought her out only to quickly look away again.
Kestrel spent the beginning of the predinner social hour in the drawing room bantering with Tom, but when Gussie pulled him away, Kestrel engaged with Charming, determined to give the woman a lot of good energy.
Meanwhile, Hank was sitting at the piano, playing a soft and aimless tune.
She did a double take, surprised by how at ease he seemed, how natural he appeared in this so un-Hank-like setting.
That is until Lady Heartwright settled beside him on the bench, landing as lightly as a butterfly on a petal.
“Do you know this song?” Lady Heartwright asked, humming a melody.
Hank dutifully played the keys she sang, but his shoulders stiffened.
“No, it’s faster there and then it goes up . . .”
He played some more. This was precisely the kind of awkward situation that made Hank question any decision to be social. Kestrel’s heart went out to him, till she remembered that she didn’t care about him whatsoever.
Mr. Culpepper was suddenly sitting beside Kestrel, staring at her with those intense eyes framed by round spectacles. She smiled, grateful for a new distraction.
“‘She walks in beauty, like the night,’” he quoted. “‘Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes . . .’”
“That’s lovely, Mr. Culpepper.”
“You are lovely. You blush, I see, but I am not able to dissemble. Though I am ready to quote the poets and use words not my own, this is not a device to conceal but rather to reveal. I must always speak the truth, you see. My heart will not allow otherwise. And so when my own words fail to convey the breadth of my emotions, my mind reaches for those who can.”
“That makes sense.” She sat beside him and, looking closely, noticed something new in his eyes. “You have an air of sadness about you.”
“You have observed?” He looked up at the ceiling and smiled without hope. “I thought I was hiding it well. But I suppose you must already know about Lily.”
“Who?”