Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“The rain has finally stopped,” Seraphine observed, standing at the drawing room windows and gazing out across Rosemere.
“Yes, you’re right,” agreed Louisa, coming to stand beside her cousin. “Look, there’s a patch of blue sky again, and the wind is blowing the clouds away to the south. How lovely it looks!”
She loved Rosemere in every weather. Now in perhaps her final weeks living here, Louisa was determined to enjoy and impress every moment on her memory.
“After three days, it’s about time the rain stopped,” grumbled Damien. “The children are going mad from being so much indoors and I’m likely to go the same way.”
“This is normal weather in the lake district,” chuckled Lady Esher. “It is the rain that gives us such greenery and scenic lakes. We are used to it, aren’t we, Louisa?”
Louisa nodded contentedly, thinking of how the gardens would thrive after the rain and how beautiful Rosemere lake itself would be after such refreshment.
“Anyway,” continued her silver-haired aunt, “the rain has given me much time to finalize preparations for the engagement party. All is now in place for the flowers, musicians and food, unless you or His Grace have any further thoughts?”
Laughing, Louisa shook her head, glancing across the room towards the Duke of Northwick, whom she could have sworn was looking directly at her only a moment earlier.
Aunt Beatrice seemed to have talked of nothing but the engagement party for days and although Benedict was polite, Louisa could tell that his patience had long worn even thinner than his interest.
“You have already arranged everything wonderfully, Aunt Beatrice,” she said. “What more could I ever ask?”
Except that this was not happening at all, Louisa added to herself, and found to her surprise, that even this thought had lost its sting. She supposed that she must be getting used to the idea now, and her mind had resigned itself to the fact of her marriage.
“If the weather is turning, why don’t we go out for a ride?” Benedict suggested, standing and joining the two ladies at the window, likely hoping to further ward off the chance of another interminable discussion of flower arrangements or dresses.
“Yes,” Louisa agreed. “I should like to check on Storm first. I have not been to the stables for some days and it can’t be long now until her foal comes.”
“You won’t ride her today?” asked Seraphine and Louisa shook her head.
“Not in all the mud, and not for a long ride,” Louisa answered. “I’ll take Moonlight and you can have Starlight, Seraphine. Hector will do well for Damien, as long as his foot is recovered. Will you ride Thunder, Benedict?”
The Duke of Northwick grinned and nodded.
“Yes. I believe that he will be longing for a gallop across the fields just as much as I am.”
The grey stallion was a fine, high-spirited and energetic horse although not one that everyone could handle. Although they had not ridden together, Louisa knew that Benedict had taken Thunder out frequently in his time at Rosemere and the grooms reported him to be an excellent rider.
As my future husband, the grooms are bound to tell me that, but he can obviously keep his seat at least, and send the horse in the right direction…
“You must all stay together,” Lady Esher instructed them sternly as they younger people began to move towards the door to ready themselves for their outing. “
“The weather has not been quite that bad, Aunt Beatrice,” Louisa reassured her. “There will be some mud, but the rain has not been heavy enough to do any real damage to the paths, or create any major obstacles. We will ride safely too.”
“I am not only thinking of accidents, Louisa,” replied her aunt. “I am not entirely sure that you should be riding out alone with His Grace before the wedding, under the circumstances.”
“We will not be alone,” said Benedict swiftly, as Louisa flushed self-consciously.
“We are riding out with Seraphine and Damien and all is perfectly proper, Lady Esher. If you are thinking of a certain gentlemen taking exception to seeing us, he ought not to spying on Rosemere and Damien and I would be happy to…explain this to him again if necessary.”
“Stay together,” Lady Esher repeated herself, looking to each of them in turn without adding anything further on this subject. “I shall expect to see you all back for tea.”
“Here is a carrot for you, Storm,” Louisa said, patting her mare’s side and then stroking her mane as the horse chomped the vegetable.
The first of the party dressed and ready for riding, Louisa had hurried down to the stables to visit her mare alone before the others emerged from their rooms.
“I brought two because I haven’t seen you for a few days,” she continued . “Just think, soon your foal will be here and we must choose a name. It will be the last horse I name at Rosemere, I suppose…”
This was another thought that would have brought tears to Louisa’s eyes in the first days after her betrothal but now brought only a peculiar bittersweet pang.
“The head groom believes Storm’s foal will come before the wedding, if not before the engagement party,” said Benedict’s voice and Louisa swiveled around, wondering how long he had been standing there and listening.
How handsome he looked in his riding clothes and boots! But where were Seraphine and Damien?
“We may have to wait a few more minutes for the Duke and Duchess of Wexford,” Benedict told her with a knowing smile. “I passed their suite on my way out and did not have the impression that they would be dressed quickly.”
“I see,” Louisa replied, turning back to Storm in order to easily avert her eyes, understanding very well what was being implied and knowing it would be unwise to pursue this particular conversation if she wished to retain her composure.
“Well, it will take some time to get the horses saddled anyway. There is no rush.”
If I cannot speak to Benedict of such things without blushing and saying nonsensical things, what will I ever do after we are married and he takes me to his bed..?
As they stood there, Thunder was led past them from his stall, the stallion stopping to rub noses with Storm. The two horses whinnied, as though in conversation and both Louisa and Benedict laughed.
“Yes, your foal is almost here, Thunder,” said the duke. “You know it, don’t you?”
The stallion neighed in apparent answer, much to everyone’s amusement.
“I think he does, Your Grace,” remarked the young groom with a grin, patting the animal on the shoulder and encouraging him to move along again.
“Good boy. I’ll walk Thunder around the paddock a few times before I try to saddle him.
He’s been a bit fretful indoors and you know how much energy he has. ”
Louisa and Benedict both nodded and the grey stallion was led outside.
On the other side of the yard, some groundsmen were carrying pieces of wood, metal and other materials out from the sheds to a cart, likely for repairs to some outhouse structures showing damage after the rain.
Idly, Louisa wondered whether it would be the roof of the old folly, or some of the gamekeeper’s buildings…
A loud crash brought her back to herself with a gasp, as one of the groundsmen lost his footing on the muddied path and a load of wood and metal clanged loudly down onto the cobblestones. Louisa was not the only one startled by the noise.
Out in the paddock, the excitable grey stallion had leapt and jerked away from the groom and was now bolting across the paddock at great speed, as the youth ran yelling after him.
“Oh no!” Louisa exclaimed, temporarily forgetting everything else and rushing out of the stables.
Without a rider, Thunder was the kind of horse who might easily jump the paddock fence and go racing halfway across the countryside before he stopped.
The poor creature might be lost for days and even do himself an injury.
What on earth could Louisa do? Then, she realized that someone else had already perceived the same danger.
The Duke of Northwick sprinted purposefully along the outside of the paddock, although Louisa doubted anything or anyone could stop Thunder from bolting now.
To her astonishment, the duke vaulted onto a fence post at the end of the paddock and from there, leapt onto the horse’s back.
Quickly stilling Thunder’s bucking, Benedict brought the unsaddled animal to a halt and swung him around to trot back across the paddock.
“I’d better take him around a few turns,” he called to Louisa and the relieved groom. “That noise gave him quite a fright and he was agitated enough already.”
“Thank God!” Louisa murmured as the groom whistled his admiration for the feat they had witnessed. “Poor Thunder!”
“I’ve never seen a gentleman ride bareback like that,” the young man said in awe, “nor perform such tricks. I’d break my neck if I even tried… I shouldn’t be surprised if the Duke of Northwick was the best rider in England, Lady Louisa.”
“Nor should I,” she marveled. “I’ve never seen anything like that, except at a circus…”
“I shouldn’t think His Grace learned it there,” laughed the groom, having known Louisa since he was a child and speaking easily in her presence.
“No, I shouldn’t think so either,” Louisa agreed thoughtfully, realizing quite how much she still didn’t know about the man who was to be her husband.
How does the Duke of Northwick know how to ride bareback, and to perform such stunts as that?!
Within the half hour, Seraphine and Damien were at the stables and four horses were saddled and ready to ride.
While the ladies and Damien made use of the mounting block, Benedict swung himself easily into the saddle from the ground with an echo of the same ease and grace that Louisa had witnessed in his leaping from the fence onto the back of frightened and fast-moving horse.
Her curiosity piqued, Louisa took the first opportunity to ride alongside him as the Duke and Duchess of Wexford fell back together, flirting and teasing one another like newlyweds, despite their six years of marriage.
“Thank you for what you did with Thunder earlier,” Louisa said. “It was amazing, but where did you learn to ride like that?”
“I learned as a child,” answered Benedict, laconically at first, although with an easy smile.
“But how?” she pressed, sensing how much more there could be to this story below the surface. “I have never seen anyone do what you did. If I had not witnessed it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it was possible.”
Who had taught him? Why? How had he become so good? Louisa saw some tension in Benedict’s handsome smile as he considered her second question with more thought, and then gave another answer that only deepened the mystery.
“When I was young, I often had to ride quickly to bring the physician to my mother. There was no time to saddle a horse.”
“Was she very ill?” enquired Louisa, envisioning a tragic scene where a beautiful ailing woman swooned on a bed as her husband clutched her hand, the servants wept, and their young son rushed valiantly off into the night to summon help.
“Did your father have to stay with her? Why couldn’t the servants ride out, or at least saddle a horse for you? ”
What had afflicted the duchess, she wondered? What had Benedict said of his mother before? Only that she was sweet-natured, fond of society and well-liked. Would it be crass to ask how his mother had died, and his father too?
Louisa remembered how the duke had spoken of his mother at the dressmaker, with great love and great sorrow in equal measure. The last Duchess of Northwick had Benedict’s dark hair and blue eyes, she recalled him saying, these details now entering the touching sick-bed scene in her imagination.
“Ha! They wouldn’t have dared,” Benedict told Louisa through gritted teeth. “The servants were too frightened of my father. If I hadn’t gone, likely my mother would have died…well, eventually she did die.”
“I’m…so sorry,” responded Louisa uncertainly, confused by both his words and their delivery, his answers obviously taking him much effort. “I didn’t mean to bring up difficult memories. You ride so well, and with such…unusual skills that I was intrigued.”
“I ride as I do because I had no choice except to learn,” Benedict added slowly, still speaking with difficulty and casting little light on the questions in Louisa’s head. “I had to move fast and act quickly enough that no one could stop me, and to follow my own conscience.”
By now, something wasn’t right with the scene in her imagination and Louisa felt a cold touch of dread, of the same kind as the moment when she had realized that she was not alone in the orchard that awful afternoon.
What had Benedict meant by his comment about the servants fearing his father so much?
Had the former Duke of Northwick had some grudge against the physician, perhaps?
Or had he been an over-religious man with an unshakeable faith in prayer?
But still, if his wife was so very sick, surely he would have relented?
“What ailed your mother?” Louisa asked.
“My father,” replied Benedict, his voice catching strangely in his throat and his face turning away.
Abruptly, the Duke of Northwick urged his horse into a gallop, streaking ahead along the path and leaving Louisa blinking after him in confusion.
What did I say?!