Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Is that the same witling wallflower girl from two days ago?
Blinking, Cedric shook his head and gravitated back to the shelf and poured out another glass of brandy.
She has a point. Why did I shout at her?
Scowling at himself, he applied himself to a new speech for Parliament. He was positively going to skewer the other side of the aisle because his irritation with himself—and Ariadne—was inspiring a great deal of it.
Something was niggling at the back of his head.
She was too calm.
His grip tightened around the pen, and with his free hand, he rubbed his temple where a headache started blooming.
A part of him wished they had been standing nearly toe to toe like that ill-fated night she wanted to share his bed. Her defiance, her clean, feminine scent, maddened him. His fingers flexed.
He didn’t know what he wanted, which was a first for him for a very long time.
He wanted her defiance.
He wanted her subservience.
He wanted to shake her for merely existing; for drawing out old emotions he’d once thought were dead.
“Pardon me, Your Grace.” Hunt’s calm voice pierced through his haze of confusion and unexpected lust. “There is a missive for you.”
He looked up to see his butler hold a silver platter with the letter, and in his other hand he held a cup of coffee.
Suddenly, he needed one.
“Thank you, Hunt,” he took the cup with relief. “I needed this. Who is the letter from?”
“Lord Stromwell, Your Grace,” Hunt replied.
Rolling his eyes, he opened the letter and read that he was shifting their usual day at the stables, inspecting the horses and negotiating with buyers, to instead have a day for the children at the orphanage to interact with the ponies, tomorrow. On a Friday.
The disturbance settled under his skin like an itch.
“If you don’t come on your own volition, I will drag you out.” He laughed as the end of the letter. “You’ve made that threat for years, but I have yet to see you do it.” The last line of the note sobered him. “And take your new wife.”
It did feel smart to make an organic integration of the young boys and girls with the lady who would manage them, but he was not sure if this was the proper place to do it.
Does she know how to ride a horse?
He reached for his coffee and, after taking a long drink, summoned a maid. “Please notify my wife that our presence is required at the Humbolt Stables and to make sure she dresses appropriately. Thank you.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the maid curtsied.
He was made to focus his attention on his work when the doors pushed open again. “Not this time, Hunt, I—”
“Don’t be angry at her, Papa,” Emily said.
“Emily!” He shifted in his chair to see the little girl, already clad in her frilly nightgown and her hair done up in rags and tied off, standing at his doorway, holding fast to her cloth doll. Standing, he crossed the room to scoop her up and over to a chair near a window.
Seating her on his lap, he asked, “What are you doing up out of bed?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Emily said quietly. “Are you still angry at Lady Aria for taking me to see Amelia? I asked her to because she likes cats.”
Cedric didn’t know how to explain the panic he’d felt when he’d arrived home to find her gone, only then to know that she had gone with Ariadne before he had truly vetted her.
Logically, he knew Ariadne would not harm a hair on Emily’s head, but he was so protective of his daughter that logic did not pierce emotion.
“I’m not angry, pumpkin,” he said. “Well, not anymore. When I came home and saw you were gone, it did make me worry, but I am not angry anymore.”
“Don’t you like her?” Emily asked, while gazing up at him co innocently.
It’s not a question of liking her; it’s a question of how I am going to go through this marriage.
He rubbed her back, “I think she is just fine, but I do not know her as much as I should.”
Emily rested her head on his chest, “I know cats like her, and that is fine with me. Maybe you should get to know what she likes, too.”
Devil and damn. Out of the mouth of babes.
She noted the taut ridges of muscle straining against his tailored waistcoat and trousers. The morning light cast an inky sheen over his hair and illuminated the sculpted angles on the unmarred side of his face.
“May I ask a question?” Ariadne looked at him as the carriage rode off from the main house. At his curt nod, she said, “I was told you visit the stables on Tuesdays. Since this is a Friday, it this a bit… disturbing?”
His eyes narrowed, but his tone was light, “I can adjust when needs be.”
“Can you?” She asked. “Breaking from your routine must feel like rolling in pampas grass.”
“Stop needling me, Ariadne.” His tone dropped to a growl.
“How had your last few days been?”
She fingered the plain reticule on her lap. “I—I had to adjust quickly. Yesterday, I made the mistake of trying to pitch in with the household tasks because I am used to doing so at home with my sisters.
She sighed, “It’s going to take a while to get out of those habits.”
For a moment, she thought she was only talking to herself, but then he spoke, “Speak to Anderson.”
Her head snapped to him. “What?”
“Anderson Tully, my head groundman,” he said. “He can set you up with a plot if you want to garden.”
She blinked and blinked again. “…Oh. I— Thank you.”
What— what just happened? Is this…is this some measure of progress with him?
He nodded, then reached for a satchel and pulled out a folio to look over the document inside. Ariadne took that to mean the conversation was over until he handed her the folio.
“This is the last set of records my steward set over about the orphanage I patronize. You won’t have time for it now, but look over the numbers when we return,” he said.
She flicked the cover over, and her eyes coasted over an array of accounts frameworks she was familiar with. Closing it, she nodded, “I will. Since you sent me that note, I must ask, is Lord Stromwell a patron of the orphanage as well? He did create this outing, after all.”
“He is,” Cedric nodded as he looked out the window. “We’re arriving.”
When the carriage stopped, and she looked out for a moment, she did not expect to see such a grandiose building.
Through the great wrought-iron gates and into the courtyard of the estate, the two long buildings rose in stately symmetry, their brick walls softened by ivy, the roofs pitched high with dark and solemn slats.
She had seen stables before, but those were small and had a thatched roof, with a single entrance. Cedric’s establishment was so much more. Two large stagecoach carriages were parked on the drive, and she assumed those had carried the children in.
Chin up, shoulders square. You are a duchess now.
An hour later, Ariadne watched as the grooms led three ponies around the paddock with children on them. The other children were measuring feed for foals, and two girls were braiding a mare’s mane.
One of the grooms was speaking with a sixteen-year-old boy about working in the stables after he left home.
Cedric had disappeared into the stable’s office to speak with the manager while Silas accompanied her at the side of the paddock.
“Do you know how to ride, Your Grace?” Silas asked.
“No,” she said, “I never learned because my mother thought it was an unladylike activity.” She paused to laugh. “That idea is incongruous now as my youngest sister throws on a pair of breeches and goes riding astride whenever she wants.”
Snorting, Silas said, “That is how it goes for the firstborn, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” she said.
“You know, you can learn to ride here and now, if you’d like?” Silas offered.
Looking at the children bravely getting on the back of ponies still taller than them, she nodded, “I think I will. Thank you.”
“One moment,” Silas bowed and took off with a trot to the stables.
She watched as he came back, leading a golden mare already saddled and with a lead. He stopped near her while the horse shook her head and pawed at the ground.
“Your Grace,” he said. “This is Eliza, the oldest mare we have. She’s been used with adults who want to learn how to ride. Get to know her for a few moments.”
She gently stroked her neck and lightly rubbed her velvety nose as she cooed to the gentle mare. “She is lovely.”
“She is,” Silas replied. “She is the antithesis of Medusa, a hellhound of a yield mare who has a penchant for biting and threw a young woman before bolting off.”
Snickering, Ariadne asked, “You named a horse Medusa?”
“Yes, Medusa. She was originally named Sweet Pea, but she turned out to be a gorgon when the groom began training her. I am sure you will be an excellent horsewoman.”
Is he being nice or flirting with me?
“Shall I try now, or…” she fingered the fine leather saddle.
“I can help you up,” he offered while maneuvering the horse to her. “First, place your foot in the saddle and grab a hold of the pommel.”
As carefully as possible, she lifted the hem of her long skirts to cock the head of her boot in the saddle, while she felt his hands brace her waist. “Now, jump and—”
“What the devil do you think you are doing?” Cedric’s dark growl pierced through her like a spear.
Stepping out of the office, Cedric was ready to fully introduce Ariadne to the head groom when he saw a flash of dainty, white stocking-covered ankles and up the sweet curves of her calves—and saw red.
He strode over and eyed Silas, “Explain to me what is going on here?”
Blushing slightly, Ariadne replied. “Lord Stromwell offered to teach me how to ride, and I said yes.”
“Your dress is utterly unsuitable for such a thing,” Cedric said with finality. “You need to have riding habits made.”
Crushed, Ariadne sighed, “I suppose next time then.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, you can let her take a few turns around the paddock,” Silas sounded exasperated. “If you want to be a barbarian and lift her into the saddle yourself.”
“They created mounting blocks for that purpose.” Cedric’s tone did not lose its sharp edge. “Fetch me one.”
Silas shook his head. “God knows why I do these things for you.”
As he went off, Cedric pinned her with a gaze sharp enough to cut glass. “Care to explain what you’re doing?”
Shaded by the brim of her straw bonnet, her greenish blue eyes were so huge and clear that Cedric could see himself reflected in them, and he didn’t like what he saw. More to the point, he didn’t like what he felt. Could he be jealous of his friend and a little bit of stocking?
The idea was laughable. Absurd. There was no way in hell he felt threatened by Silas. He told himself that he just didn’t like the fact that she had been exposed to all and sundry.
Four inches of stocking is not exposed.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” she said.
Her answer, the nervous way she wetted her lips, did not improve his disposition. “Lord Stromwell only offered for me to do something I have never tried before—” A notch formed between her brows as her gaze flittered between his eyes. “You can’t possibly be jealous… of-of Lord Stromwell. Are you?”
Wrong bloody thing to say.