Chapter 9
The days leading up to the races had made the staff at Ashford Hall restless.
From dawn, the stable yard rarely quieted. Horses moved constantly between the paddocks and training grounds, stablehands hurried between instructions, and Dorian spent more hours than he cared to count buried beneath financial concerns he had once managed with far greater confidence.
But it was not all bad. Investors had begun returning now that rumors surrounding his marriage spread through Yorkshire, though their optimism remained cautious. A duke with a duchess appeared respectable, a respectable duke suggested stability, and stability suggested profit.
Still, even with the stables regaining attention, the pressure remained unbearable.
Diamond’s performance in the upcoming race mattered more than anyone outside Ashford Hall understood.
One failed showing would shatter weeks of renewed confidence, and though Dorian trusted his trainers, trust had become a complicated thing after so many recent disappointments.
Strangely, the one opinion he had begun relying on most was Anne’s.
At first, he had expected her involvement in the stables to remain temporary. A few afternoons beside Diamond, he thought, and she would leave it all be. Instead, she had inserted herself into the running of the stables so thoroughly that half his servants now deferred to her without hesitation.
More annoyingly, they were right to do so.
“You are pushing him too quickly.” The voice drifted across the stable yard one cold afternoon, calm but firm enough to halt movement almost immediately.
Dorian looked up from the ledger in his hands. Anne stood near one of the younger thoroughbreds, her gloves dark against the horse’s chestnut coat, while a visibly nervous stablehand hovered nearby.
“He has to strengthen before racing season, Your Grace.”
“He has to trust the rider first,” Anne corrected gently. “You cannot force confidence into a frightened animal. This is why he throws you all.”
The horse stamped once against the dirt. Anne rested a hand against his neck, and almost instantly the tension in him eased.
“You are asking him to obey you before he feels safe,” she continued, her voice softening slightly. “That never ends well.”
The stablehand nodded quickly. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Dorian closed the ledger slowly, unable to stop watching. His wife moved differently there than she did inside the house. She was more certain of herself, more alive.
Ashford Hall still overwhelmed her in certain ways, particularly during formal meals or endless visits from neighboring families who suddenly seemed desperate to congratulate him on his unexpected marriage, yet the stables belonged to her. He found himself watching for those moments far too often.
“You are staring again.” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
She had approached without him noticing, her horse following behind her with startling obedience.
“I am observing,” he corrected.
She gave him a look that made it painfully obvious she had already grown tired of that answer. “If that is what you wish to call it.”
“And what would you say it is?”
“Suspicious, for one.”
“Suspicious?” He raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Anne, I am wounded.”
“You will survive. I am certain of it. Any man who can be thrown and live to tell the tale can face some honesty.”
Her words were mildly icy, but the way she was looking at him was anything but. If he were a less intelligent man, he might have thought that she liked him.
“There it is,” he said.
Her brows drew together slightly. “What?”
“The way you are looking at me.”
“I do not know what you mean. I never look at you in any particular way.”
“But you do, and this look in particular is the one you give me when you are trying not to show that you find me entertaining.”
Anne looked immediately unimpressed. “I never find you entertaining.”
Diamond nudged her shoulder impatiently, as though he were waiting for the discussion to be done with.
Dorian narrowed his eyes at the horse. “You are most disrespectful.”
Anne’s lips twitched faintly. “He simply has excellent judgment.”
“Your horse dislikes me.”
“He tolerates you, though.”
“That somehow feels worse.”
“He tolerated no one when you bought him,” Anne reminded him. “You should consider yourself fortunate.”
Dorian leaned casually against the paddock fence, watching her loosen Diamond’s reins.
“You know,” he said after a moment, “my trainers now listen to you more than they listen to me.”
“That says more about your trainers than it does me.”
“No,” he said quietly, still watching her. “I think it says something about you.”
She glanced up briefly. Something softened between them for only a moment, before she looked away again.
Dorian had begun noticing these moments more frequently—the pauses, the almost-smiles she seemed annoyed at.
Marriage had not made her softer exactly.
She still guarded herself carefully, yet he had begun seeing glimpses of someone warmer, someone who still laughed when she forgot herself long enough to allow it.
The realization unsettled him more than he cared to admit, mostly because he had begun wanting to be the reason for it.
“You should ride with me.” The words left his mouth before he thought them through.
Anne looked up immediately. “No.”
The refusal came so quickly that he nearly laughed.
“You did not even consider it.” He pushed off the fence. “You spend all day here.”
“You spend all day here.”
“Yes,” he agreed easily. “Which is precisely why I deserve to spend some time away, and with company.” He followed her as she led the horse toward the paddock. “One hour.”
“No.”
“Half an hour?”
“No.”
“You bargain terribly.”
“I am not bargaining. I am refusing.”
He sighed dramatically. “You are astonishingly difficult for someone legally obligated to tolerate me.”
Anne finally looked back at him, though annoyance warred visibly with amusement in her features. “You are very persistent.”
“Yes.”
“You do not tire of hearing no?”
“Not when I suspect that it may become a perhaps.”
“You are impossibly confident.”
“It has served me exceptionally well.”
“For gambling, perhaps.”
“For other things too.”
She shook her head once.
After another long pause, she exhaled quietly.
“One hour,” she allowed. “That is all I shall give you. Tempest will have to do a great deal of work soon, and I do not wish to exhaust him.”
The satisfaction that swept through him felt embarrassingly disproportionate. He was tempted to correct her on the horse’s name, to remind her that it was Diamond, but he did not wish to push his luck.
The countryside beyond Ashford Hall stretched endlessly beneath heavy gray skies, softened by lingering mist from the morning rain. The ground remained damp beneath their horses.
Anne looked different outside the estate. The tension she carried constantly indoors eased slightly whenever the open countryside surrounded her. Loose strands of chestnut hair escaped her coiffure, fluttering softly in the wind while her horse moved confidently beneath her.
Dorian found himself watching more than riding.
“You are doing it again,” Anne drawled.
He smiled. “You make it difficult not to.”
She glanced sideways at him, immediately suspicious. “That sounded rather close to flirtation.”
“It was absolutely flirtation. I may do that, under such circumstances.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “You would flirt with everyone.”
“Not everyone.”
“Most women in Yorkshire would disagree.”
“Most women in Yorkshire would say anything they need to about me. It would come with a great deal of power.”
“Is that to say that you do not flirt at all?”
“I do not recall saying that. I only said that I am selective.”
“And I suppose that should flatter me.”
“I would like it to, and seeing your reaction, I will assume that it has.”
That startled her enough to quiet whatever response had been hanging on the tip of her tongue.
Eventually, the conversation shifted toward the stables, then Diamond, then stories Anne had not told him before. She talked about riding with her father before sunrise, about growing up in Yorkshire, about the loneliness she felt when he passed.
Dorian listened more than he spoke, and gradually Anne relaxed. Then he said something ridiculous about one of the younger trainers nearly falling directly into a water trough during morning exercises. To his utter surprise, she let out a genuine laugh that he had never heard before.
The sound caught him completely off guard because suddenly, she looked younger, lighter, as if grief had loosened its hold long enough to let something beautiful return.
She caught him watching almost immediately. He hesitated longer than usual, then spoke honestly.
“You should laugh more often.”
Her smile faded slowly. “I used to,” she admitted.
The quiet sadness in her voice settled heavily between them.
“Sometimes,” she continued after a moment, “it feels wrong.”
“What does?”
“Being happy. Sometimes I feel as though I am forgetting him if I stop hurting too much,” she said softly.
Dorian understood far too well.
“Sometimes,” he said carefully, “we feel as though grief is the only proof that those we lost mattered, but you are allowed to miss someone and still live your life. You are allowed to laugh without betraying what you lost.”
She was quiet for a moment, then whispered some gratitude that he barely heard. He had known loss, the most painful kind, but he did not feel the need to say so in that moment. He only wished to make her feel better.
The ride had taken them farther than either of them had originally intended, far beyond the borders of the estate. The sky had begun to darken, but Anne did not mention it, and he was not about to do so either, for he was enjoying her company too much.
She rode slightly ahead, Diamond moving with an easy, rhythmic confidence that had only fully returned to him since she had returned to him.
Dorian kept pace beside her without comment, though his attention often drifted to her rather than the landscape.
It had become an increasingly difficult habit to break, one he had stopped pretending was accidental.
The path ahead narrowed toward a shallow stream cutting across the field, its surface broken by small stones and softened banks from recent rain. The water itself was not deep, barely reaching the horses’ lower legs, but the ground leading into it had been churned unevenly.
Dorian noticed too late that Anne had already guided Diamond toward it.
“Anne,” he said sharply.
She turned slightly, just enough to register the tone. “It is a crossing,” she replied. “I have used it before.”
“That does not mean it is safe.”
Anne gave him a look that suggested he was being unnecessarily dramatic, then eased Diamond forward anyway.
For a moment, everything seemed fine. The horse stepped into the water, steady and controlled, his hooves breaking the surface cleanly.
Then the ground shifted. The slick stone beneath the streambed rolled just slightly under the horse’s weight, and his footing faltered.
The horse jolted, and Anne’s balance shifted with it.
Dorian moved before his thoughts caught up. “Anne!”
He was already off his horse, and the distance between them disappeared in a few fast strides, his boots striking wet ground as he crossed.
Anne had barely begun to correct her position when his hand closed around her waist, pulling her down and into him before she could fully lose control of the saddle.
The force of it steadied her instantly, though it left her breathless for a moment. Diamond, freed from her weight, regained his footing with a sharp shake of his head and a low snort, stepping away as though nothing had happened.
Anne did not immediately move, nor did Dorian release her. His arm was locked around her waist, holding her securely against him in a way that felt instinctive. Her hands had come up automatically, one pressed against his chest to steady herself and the other braced lightly against his shoulder.
Her breathing slowed gradually as the shock faded. She seemed to become acutely aware of how close they were standing, and of the hand on her waist that had not moved away.
Dorian had not fully recovered either. His eyes had not left her once since he pulled her against him, though it was not urgency now that held his attention.
Anne swallowed hard. “I am fine.”
Dorian did not respond immediately. His gaze flickered briefly across her face, not quite focused in the way it usually was when he was speaking to her. Then his eyes lowered to her lips and stayed there, unguarded in a way that felt far more dangerous than anything he had ever said aloud.
“Dorian,” Anne said, uncertain whether she was warning him or herself.
The sound of his name on her lips seemed to break something inside him. In that moment, he realized just how beautiful she was. She was hardly ever quiet, and with all their back-and-forth, he never had time to truly see her. Yet the moment he had the opportunity, it was all he could think about.
She was tempestuous and far more opinionated than a lady was supposed to be, but Dorian knew that the very last thing he would have wanted was a lady who did not dare speak.
In the moments when she quietened, he also could not help but think she was the most beautiful person he had ever known.
And, in their position, he truly wished to act on that.
“Dorian,” she repeated. “What is it?”