Chapter Eight
A week later, Rafe mounted his gelding, waiting while the groom handed Juliana up onto her mare. ‘We’re to ride the western forest today?’ she asked as they set their horses to a trot down the carriageway.
‘Yes. Sterling and I have done a fairly comprehensive review of the cattle and sheep farms, but I’ve yet to inspect the woodlands—which we put off as unlike livestock, they didn’t require immediate tending and weren’t going anywhere.
Sterling wants me to inspect the willow stand and review the blocks of oak and ash for pollarding.
He said, you having accompanied him several times during Ian’s stewardship, you would know where to take me. ’
Rafe gave her a rueful glance. ‘Not that I know much about either process. Forest management is another of those tasks in which, not being raised to be the heir, I received no training. And I don’t think my army experience will be of much use here.’
‘Frankly, you probably have as much expertise as Ian had. As you know, he had little interest in farming and never concerned himself with the day-to-day work of the estate, even before he fell ill. Which was one of the reasons Young Taylor was able to get away with what he did.’
Rafe sighed. ‘I expect you meant that to be encouraging.’
‘You may not know forestry, but the mastery of detail you described that a good officer must possess—seeing to your men, their supplies, their health—will stand you in good stead here.’
‘Now that is encouraging.’ Feeling the truth of his words as he spoke them, he continued. ‘That’s why I like having you ride out with me. You always make me feel better about my ability to learn all that’s required to manage Thornthwaite.’
And he did like having her ride out with him.
Partly because the tenants, aware of how she’d attempted to help them during the dark days of Ian’s illness and Young Taylor’s mismanagement, received him more warmly with her beside him than they did if he were accompanied just by the estate manager.
Not only did she buoy him up, but while overseeing the estate for Ian, she’d applied the keen powers of observation that allowed her to capture the essence of animals and birds she drew to learning the duties and needs of the estate’s various enterprises.
She might not have the breadth of knowledge Sterling possessed, but she knew the basic tasks that must be performed far better than he did.
Best of all, she seemed to sense when to offer a word of advice or encouragement, when to remain silent, to always ensure he appeared the master of Thornthwaite, she just an assistant.
She assisted him so well, in fact, that it had taken him these last several weeks to realize just how much she’d helped ease the burden of responsibility he’d half dreaded assuming. Assistance for which he was profoundly grateful.
He smiled to himself. He suspected his clever wife could run the estate all on her own as well or better than he would.
Of course, the fact that she continued to delight him in bed played no small part in his satisfaction with life in general.
She seemed never too weary, no matter how long the workday, to respond to his caresses, to caress him in turn, her clever hands and mouth finding his body’s most sensitive, responsive spots and stimulating them to bring him to a shattering climax.
After a month of marriage, the excitement of their intimacy had not dimmed.
He’d never been promiscuous, but he’d had a modicum of sexual experience.
Intimate comfort was not much available on campaign, as he didn’t fancy availing himself of any of the ‘ladies’ always attached to the van of the army.
Perhaps his body had built up a deficit of lovemaking, because he went to his chamber every night already aroused and eager.
He simply couldn’t get enough of his bewitching bride.
His intriguing wife, who could go from boldly exploring his body with hands and lips in the darkness of their bedchamber, to meeting him over the breakfast table or accompanying him on rides like this with perfect friendliness, displaying not a hint of coyness or suggestion, never attempting—as had been his experience with other women—to use her sensual power to gain rewards or favour.
As if her character possessed two sides, one a seductress, one a companion and sister, with her able to easily switch from one to the other.
To crown all that, she was a friend who would never threaten his heart.
On this fair spring day, with his charming, helpful bride at his side as he explored another vital facet of Thornthwaite’s production, he meant to enjoy every minute of it.
‘Did you not love to roam through the coppiced woodland as a child?’ Juliana asked, recalling him from his musings.
Rafe cast his memory back and found it hazy.
‘I suppose I did. Mainly I remember riding or creeping through the woodland, playing Robin of Sherwood Forest or soldiers with Cary Smith. Sometimes, little devil that I was, waiting in the hut by the river to ambush Ian when he sneaked out to find a quiet spot to read.’
‘You would also accompany me to the forest when I managed to get away. As I recall, you found it amusing to watch me curl myself into a ball behind a fallen tree or crouch under a shelter of leafy branches to lie in wait for the bird or animal I wanted to observe.’ She chuckled.
‘You’d watch for a bit, anyway, before you grew too bored and ran off. ’
‘I always came back to check on you!’ he protested.
‘So you did. I was ever so grateful. My governess would never have allowed me out of sight if you hadn’t assured Mama you would make sure I came to no harm. You were the only one who, if not quite understanding it, still indulged my keenness for observing the natural world.’
‘I found your unusual interest amusing. It did annoy me, how unkindly your family treated you, just because you’d rather roam the lake, rivers, and forest than sit in the drawing room, doing needlework or practicing deportment.
I could well understand your eagerness to avoid that!
Another reason I enjoyed escorting you about, as having given my pledge to your mother to keep you safe, I could convince Papa to allow me to escape our tutor and roam about far more often that I would have been permitted otherwise.
It was almost torture for me to be confined indoors for any length of time. ’
‘Which is why you were so suited for the army. You certainly earned my devotion with your kindness, whatever inspired it. Especially after Bixby.’
He must have looked puzzled, for she repeated, ‘Bixby! The baby squirrel you helped me rescue. Surely you recall that episode.’
Memory returned in a rush. ‘Ah, yes! The red squirrel that had fallen from his nest. You persuaded me to help you bring the creature back to Edgerton.’
‘Not just that. Knowing he would never be permitted in the house, you helped me construct a nest for him and bribed one of the grooms to allow us to install him in a vacant stall and keep silent about his presence. Anyone else would have left the poor animal to die. You helped me save him. You were my hero that day.’
Both gratified and uncomfortable, he said, ‘At the risk of lowering myself in your estimation, I must confess that I didn’t do it out of altruism. More out of curiosity, to see if we could actually get away with such a prank.’
‘Perhaps. But you didn’t brush off my concern or belittle me for wanting to save an animal many considered just a pest.’
‘Whatever happened to Bixby?’
‘Once he grew big enough, I carried him in the nesting box and released him into the forest.’ She smiled.
‘For a while, the groom reported that a red squirrel would appear at the edge of the pasture, hop up on the fence railing and run along it, looking towards the barn before returning to the woods. I saw him once or twice myself when I came to the stables for my ride.’
‘Coming back to check on you and say, “thank you”?’ Rafe suggested.
‘I like to think so. I hope he returned to the woods, found a mate and had babies of his own to raise.’
Rafe shook his head at her. ‘You have such sympathy for the small and helpless.’
‘I know what it is to be small—and virtually helpless,’ she said soberly.
‘Unable to control almost anything in my life.’ Looking up at him, she said earnestly, ‘Which is why I’m so grateful to you, for changing that.
For giving me this.’ She lifted a gloved hand to gesture around her.
‘I only hope to give you enough help and support in return to deserve it.’
Warmth welling up, Rafe wondered again why her family did not recognize the honesty, strength and goodness in her that was so apparent to him.
Why they placed so little value on that, esteeming instead Society’s definition of proper maidenly deportment, which so often meant mastering every feminine tool and artifice to improve one’s status and position.
If he’d not sensed it before, his time with the army had made him keenly aware that character was worth far more than birth or status.
When in the throes of battle, rank and elevated family meant nothing; one could rely only on the bravery, resolve and selflessness of the soldier fighting beside one, whether he be the son of a butcher or a duke.
He might have indulged Juliana as a youth because her oddities amused him. He would protect and encourage her as a man for possessing the virtues he’d come to esteem so highly.
The path they’d been following now opened up into a large field of oaks.
After inspecting the broad pollarded stumps, from which thick limbs of varying length and size rose up, they rode on through uncut forest to several fields where willows were being pollarded to provide the thin branches that would be made into the baskets and fish traps that provided another source of the estate’s income.