Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The village of Greytonwic was rarely quiet, but on the day of the fair, it seemed to positively boil.
Stalls crowded the cobbled streets, bright with bunting and ribbons.
The scent of spiced cider and roasting meat drifted through the air, mingled with the cries of merchants competing to be heard over the fiddlers and drummers.
Children darted about with sticky hands, women bargained fiercely over bolts of cloth, and a pair of jugglers dropped flaming brands to delighted shrieks.
“Oh, your money has been used to marvelous effect by the Parish Council!” Cordelia enthused. “And mine too, of course.”
“I have funded this?” Winston asked.
“An endowment was created ages ago by your great-grandfather to supply five pigs and twenty barrels of cider for the fair. I created my own endowment so that the village might have the funds to employ acrobats and musicians and such. Oh, what a spectacle. Well done, Winston!”
She grinned mischievously. Adeline felt as though she had stepped into another world, a world that was chaotic, loud, and unrestrained in a way a great house could never be permitted to be.
Though I have known a chaotic house but not the joy that accompanies this chaos.
She had the impression that Winston would have been content to watch from the safety of the carriage, but the Dowager Duchess and his own daughter had insisted on alighting and walking among the common folk.
Cordelia claimed that she had been cooped up far too long with dusty footmen and tired sermons.
Louisa was certainly ready for a diversion.
It had been three days since Winston had agreed to attend, during which she had diligently learned the lessons that Adeline set for her, always with her eye on the fete to come.
Cordelia walked ahead, escorted by her footman and playing the role of the Queen of the Fair to the hilt. She was dressed as though for a ball and clearly reveled in the attention she got. Adeline weaved through the crowd with Louisa at one side and Winston at the other.
He had offered his arm to his daughter, but Louisa’s path was too erratic.
Her desire to see and experience everything led her to set her own pace.
Adeline was left walking beside Winston, their shoulders perilously near as the crowd pressed them together.
He smelled faintly of tobacco and leather, scents that clung stubbornly to him and made her pulse jump against her will.
Tobacco is bitter and leather musty. They are not pleasant aromas, and I would not linger in a room that smelled of them. So why should I be attracted to such scents when they are stuck to a man?
“Do you always frown so ferociously at merriment?” she asked, tilting her chin to glance up at him.
“I am not frowning,” he replied without looking at her.
“You are. Children are fleeing your path as if you were an executioner coming to fetch them.”
That earned her a sideways look, his mouth twitching.
“And you, Lady Adeline, are smiling at them like a governess desperate to win affection.”
She laughed softly, though the sound wavered when a passerby jostled her, pressing her shoulder against Winston’s arm. He stiffened, then shifted slightly, but not enough to break the contact.
“I suppose,” she murmured, “we are both failing at disguise today.”
His eyes lingered on her face for a beat too long. “Some more than others.”
The words sent a current of heat down her spine, though she forced herself to turn away, pretending sudden interest in a stall of ribbons. She sifted through the silks, her fingers trembling faintly, while inside her chest a storm gathered.
This is maddening. When I am in his company, my mouth speaks words I do not wish to utter, and my mind thinks thoughts I do not wish to entertain. Attachment is not something I am seeking and especially not to this…this bramble bush.
“Do you prefer the blue or the green?” she asked, only to cover the silence.
“Neither. They would be wasted on you.”
She turned sharply, offended, until she caught the gleam in his eyes. He was teasing her. It was unbearable, how rare that was.
“You are insufferable,” she muttered, though her cheeks betrayed her.
“Entirely,” he agreed.
They moved on, the crowd growing denser near the musicians’ square.
Fiddlers scraped a reel while young couples whirled, skirts flashing.
A boy bumped into Adeline, nearly knocking her off balance, but Winston’s hand shot out, steadying her waist. The touch was nothing, a simple, practical gesture but it lingered a heartbeat too long.
His palm felt warm against her through the fabric of her light, summer dress.
Her breath caught. She dared not meet his eyes.
“You should watch your step,” he said, voice pitched low. “This is no place for…”
“For what?” she challenged, though her pulse was a drum in her ears.
“For innocence,” he said simply, his thumb brushing her side before he released her.
Heat flared across her skin, leaving her shaken.
She wanted, foolishly, audaciously to step back into the shelter of his hand.
But there were too many eyes. Suddenly, the music surged, and a laughing couple bumped into them, forcing her against him.
His chest was solid beneath her hands, his breath stirring her hair.
For an instant, the world narrowed to that single point of contact, his body pressed to hers, the hunger in his eyes, the reckless temptation she felt to lift her face to his.
But then a voice shouted nearby and a horse reared.
Mayhem erupted as a cart was kicked over by the panicked animal.
People scattered except for the horse’s owner and his men, who tried to reach its bridle as it kicked and stamped.
Winston pulled her tight against him, shielding her as the animal thrashed.
His arms locked around her, his body an unyielding barrier.
She clung to him, heart racing, every nerve alive.
The men closed on the panic-stricken animal but then scurried away when lashed out with its hooves, eyes rolling in terror. Winston growled in his throat.
“The oafs are just scaring the animal. Such a highly strung beast should not have been brought into this environment. Stay here.”
He firmly positioned Adeline behind a stall selling pies, almost picking her up to deposit her somewhere safe. Then he strode into the melee.
“Get back all of you!” he snapped at the owner and his hapless helpers. “Bloody fools, you’ll get yourself brained or worse. The animal’s leg broke in its panic.”
They did not ask who he was, whether they recognized him or not.
They retreated from his tone of command without question.
Winston was suddenly alone with the maddened horse.
Adeline watched breathlessly as he calmly walked towards it.
He spoke softly and kept his hands raised at his sides, letting it see that he held nothing.
It reared, pawing the air and Winston stood calmly before it as its hooves slammed down into the ground inches from him.
He reached up and laid a hand on the horse’s nose, running it down in a slow, smooth motion. Again. Again. He moved to the side, stroking its neck and then its flank. His hand stopped.
“You bloody idiots. It's got a splinter a foot long from the fence you kept it too closely tethered to. If you don’t know the proper care, you’ve no business owning such a magnificent animal!”
He plucked the splinter with one quick motion, discarding it.
The animal shied but quickly calmed again with the source of its pain eliminated.
It turned its head to study Winston, registering him as the one who had ended its suffering.
The horse nudged him with its nose. Adeline watched the smile spread across Winston’s face as he took the animal’s head between his hands and pressed his forehead against it.
I do believe this is the first time I have seen a genuine smile of pleasure on his face.
“This wound needs to be dressed. Take him up to Greystone and my stable manager will see him looked after,” Winston instructed.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace but I know the care of…” the owner began, whipping his cap from his head as he approached.
“You don’t,” Winston said coldly. “Name your price, and I’ll take the animal off your hands.”
“Well, as to that now…I…” the man stammered.
“Take it up with my stable manager. His name is Hannay,” Winston said dismissively, walking towards Adeline.
The smile had gone. His face was a thundercloud once more. He left the farmer he had reprimanded in his wake, scratching his head and consulting his fellows on the subject of how much they should ask for. Adeline emerged from behind the stall.
“That was…magnificent!” she said, in simple awe. “I have never seen the like.”
“A gentleman should always know horses,” Winston said, offering his arm.
Adeline followed, every step trembling with the memory of his arms around her.
Of the sight of his calm authority. An authority over her, over the people of the village.
Over wild, uncontrollable nature itself.
The fair began to reassert itself, the people filling the street once more.
But now there were whispers in Winston’s wake.
Eyes watched him when they thought he was not looking. Watched Adeline.
How far will that story travel, I wonder? The Duke who tamed a maddened horse and then bought it from the owner to spare it any more incompetent treatment.
A cold sensation in her stomach accompanied the thought that it might reach her father.
Might travel that far and through the gin that addled his senses.
Might prompt him to reach out for her. Would Winston protect her as he had protected her from the horse?
Would he put himself between her and danger?
The idea made her weak at the knees. She tried to put it from her mind, but Winston’s proximity made it difficult. Louisa appeared, holding a toffee apple and Cordelia’s arm.
“What was that commotion?” Cordelia asked.
“Nothing. A horse got loose,” Winston said, flatly.
“His Grace calmed a maddened animal that was about to run amuck,” Adeline fleshed out his bare bones account.
Winston glared at her and she smiled back.
“Gosh, how exciting! I am sorry I missed it. Will you tell me what happened, Papa?” Louisa said.
“There really is nothing to tell. It was an everyday sort of occurrence,” Winston insisted, resuming his walk through the fair.
“Your Papa was very heroic,” Adeline told Louisa. “He took control when the animal’s owner was floundering and saved a great deal of injury and possibly loss of life simply by showing kindness and compassion to the poor creature.”
Winston growled. “It is easy to show kindness to an animal as magnificent as that. And to show contempt for the idiots who had mistreated it. I care about animals. Not people.”
“Yet, the story will go out from here of the heroic Duke who saved his people,” Adeline pointed out.
“Spread by gossip and more idiots.”
“I will gladly repeat it.”
“As I said,” Winston said, quite deliberately.
Now Adeline glared at him.
Prickly is not the word. It is as though he realizes he has given something away and tries even harder to push me…to push everyone away. Dash him and his thorns. And his walls.
“Now, now, children. Play nicely,” Cordelia said. “Come along, Louisa. Let us find a stall selling corn dollies. I learned how to make them when I was younger than you. It infuriated my governess.”
“If you dislike me, then simply say so,” Adeline said once Cordelia and Louisa were out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Winston walked on.
“I did not ask to come to your house. I was quite happy with my role at Briarwood. Circumstances dictated that…”
“So, you did not set the fire in order to relocate to Greystone and be close to a Duke?” Winston demanded insolently.
Adeline gaped and almost stamped her foot.
“How dare you?” she exclaimed, then glanced about her and lowered her voice.
“How dare you, Your Grace,” Winston corrected.
He is trying to push me away. Trying to keep me outside his walls. I will gladly stay there. I never wanted to be close to him.
“Very well. I will go and be with my charge. I thank you for protecting me earlier,” Adeline said.