by Donna Hatch
“Then maybe I’d get a better horse to ride.” A grin formed across Sherborne’s freckled face. “I should definitely say that.”
“I’ll tell your father you’re lying.”
“Why should he believe a common farm boy over his son? Why are you still here, anyway? You’re not sick anymore.”
“Maybe I like it here.” Eli looked away, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation and ruing the day, several months past, when he’d mentioned his private quest to Sherborne. He might have found the answers he’d been searching for since then, as well as a comfortable enough situation, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be snatched from him if he didn’t keep his part of the bargain.
“You like digging fence holes?” Sherborne laughed out loud as he watched Eli struggle to lift the heavy post into the hole.
“Nothing wrong—with hard work,” Eli panted between breaths. Never be ashamed of who you are. Times like this it became hard to remember that and to keep the promise he’d made to his mother, that he wouldn’t be ashamed. Ever. “Bet you can’t lift one of these yourself,” he said.
“Course I can.” Sherborne took the bait easily, sticking out his chest, blond head held high as he strode toward a second post that lay on the ground.
Eli watched him struggle to right it for at least a full minute or two before walking over to help. “When you’re eleven you’ll be able to get it by yourself.”
“Right.” Sherborne nodded. “You’re older. That’s why you can lift these.”
Rather than picking up the post where it was, Eli rolled it closer to the hole, then lifted the far end, using leverage to tip it in. From there it was almost easy to push it upright. “Older and wiser.” He dusted his hands on the front of his trousers.
“Not that much older,” Sherborne grumbled. “You’re not thirteen yet.”
“Next month I am.” Eli picked up the spade and began shoveling dirt into the hole around the post. “But you’re not eleven until the fall.”
Sherborne shrugged. “So? The oldest doesn’t win anything.”
Not this time. “You’re right.” Eli forced a smile. He wasn’t going to allow this encounter—or any other—to upset him. Sherborne didn’t deserve that kind of power. “You’ll never be older.” I’ll never have a father the way you do. “But you might be stronger someday. If you want a chance at that, you ought to try working once in a while.” He pushed the handle of the spade toward Sherborne.
Sherborne caught it easily and began shoveling dirt into the posthole that would brace the new gate. “When I left for school after the holiday, I didn’t think I’d see you again. You seemed well.”
“I was.” Eli wondered uneasily if Sherborne would complain to his father about him. They’d gotten on well enough over the winter holiday, when the weather had been too wet for Sher to go outside much. He’d seemed to enjoy Eli’s company then, grateful for someone to play chess or read with to pass time on the long, dreary days.
“Your father allowed me to stay here.”
Sherborne frowned. “But weren’t you going to find your father? So you wouldn’t have to work anymore?”
Eli stooped to pack the dirt tight around the post. “That was foolish. My mum was right. Better to let well enough be.”
“I’m sorry,” Sherborne said, sounding like he meant it and perhaps even regretting his earlier taunts. “I would’ve liked to have you at school. We had a jolly time together over the holidays.”
“We did.” Eli’s mouth lifted in a smile once more. “We can enjoy your summer holiday as well. Once I’m done with my tasks for the day, I’m free to do as I please.”
“What pleases you? What do you do around here?” Sherborne had stopped working after only a few shovelfuls of dirt.
Eli moved to his hole and took over the task that was apparently below the Earl of Shrewbury’s heir. “I go swimming.” He turned toward the small pile of dirt as a distant flash of color caught his eye. Mid-scoop he stopped and looked up, following the bob of pale blue as it crossed the green meadow. “That pleases me.”
“Where do you go?” Sherborne asked.
“Same place nearly every day.” Eli continued following the blue rider, noting, as she grew closer, that today her rich brown hair—not dissimilar to the chestnuts he loved to collect and roast each fall—was unbound and bounced along with her, shimmering and pretty down her back and around her face. “She never rides on Sunday, of course. And not when her family is away. But the past month I’ve seen her almost every day, riding the same path around their property.”
“What?” Sherborne sounded perplexed. “What are you talking about?” He walked over to Eli and passed a hand in front of his face. “I was talking about swimming, but you’re talking about and looking at—a girl?”
“Not just any girl,” Eli said. “That’s Baron Montgomery’s youngest daughter. Emily.” He added the last softly, then lifted his hand at the exact second she raised hers, and each waved vigorously.
Sherborne squinted his eyes in the direction Eli was staring. “How can you be sure? Aren’t there a lot of Montgomery girls? All girls and no boys, I think Father said once.”
“There are two,” Eli said. He knew all about the Montgomerys, as well as the other families nearby. Eating with the servants below stairs had its benefits. “Emily rides more than her sister.” Eli sighed inwardly as Emily reached the point on the trail where it turned away from him and headed north. “I’m going to marry her someday.”
Sherborne choked out a laugh. “No, you’re not. You can’t.”
“Can too,” Eli said, horrified that he’d inadvertently spoken the thought he’d harbored for months. Once said, there was nothing to do but defend it. “I can marry who I want. My father did.”
Sherborne’s brows rose. “Fat lot of good that did you. He left you and your mum.”
Eli’s fingers clenched around the spade handle. “Never mind my father. I’m not him. I can marry who I want, and I’ll stay with her, too.”
Sherborne shook his head as he stepped in front of Eli so they were facing one another. “You can’t marry a Montgomery, because she’s a Montgomery. Her father’s a baron, so she’ll have to marry a gentleman—someone titled. Like me.” Sherborne glanced over his shoulder as he added the last, as if he wished to look at Emily himself now that the possibility of their eventual marriage had occurred to him.
“You’re not titled.” Eli gripped the handle harder.
“Someday I will be, and that’s all that matters.”
“You’re wrong,” Eli said. “Who a person is inside is more important than any title.” His mother had been telling him that since before he could walk. “I’m a good person. Emily will see that, and she’ll want to marry me.”
“I bet she doesn’t even know your name.” Sherborne stooped to pick up a rock. He tossed it into the mud puddle he’d landed in earlier.
“Not yet,” Eli admitted. “But she will.”
“Maybe.” Sherborne seemed inclined to let the matter drop. He walked to the old stone fence and leaned against it.
Eli breathed an inward sigh of relief, told himself to take more care with his words, and returned to the task of filling the hole.
“What say you to a wager about it?”
Oh no. Eli glanced at Sherborne—boots crossed, arms folded, smug expression.
Eli shook his head. “I don’t have anything to wager.”
“Not now.” Sherborne picked up another rock. “But when you’re older you will.”
Eli frowned. No good could come of this. Sherborne was nothing if not tricky. Eli had seen him in action over the winter holiday—always managing to come up with this or that item that had belonged to someone else. No doubt he’d been honing his swindling skills these past months at school.
“We’ll call it...the wedding wager.” Sherborne pushed himself onto the wall then swung his legs up and jumped to a standing position. “Be it known that Mr. Eli—” He paused, then
glanced down at Eli. “What is your surname?”
“Linfield.” Eli dumped the dirt in the hole, then leaned into the shovel for another scoop. “Eli Alex—Linfield.”
“We have almost the same middle name.” A grin spread across Sherborne’s face.
“Almost.”
“Mr. Eli Alex Linfield has proclaimed his intention to someday marry Miss Emily Montgomery, daughter of—”
“Quiet!” Eli threw down the spade and marched over to the wall. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
“I doubt Pegasus will tell.” Sherborne jumped down a second before Eli reached him.
“I shouldn’t have told you. Forget I said anything.” Eli followed Sherborne, half-expecting him to go running off, shouting his secret to the world.
Sherborne stopped suddenly and wheeled about, facing Eli. He stuck a hand out. “I, Sherborne Alexander Rowley, do hereby make a wedding wager with you, Eli Alex Linfield. If, when you are both grown up, you marry Miss Emily Montgomery I will give to you...” Sherborne’s mouth twisted. “What do you want? My flint-lock?”
Eli shook his head. “It’ll be old by then. There will be better rifles probably.”
“How about if I just say I’ll give you my best weapon?”
“No.” Eli saw the loophole in that right away. There was no qualifier for what was “best,” and no doubt Sherborne would judge that himself and in fact give the poorest of the lot to Eli. “I don’t want a rifle or any other weapon.”
“Suit yourself. Hard to hunt without them, though.”
As if I have time for hunting. He never would so long as he had to continue working like this. And Sherborne was right, though Eli hated to admit it. Emily would never marry him, not so long as he continued to be the boy who dug posts and shoveled horse dung and did every other menial and unpleasant task—all for very little pay. He needed what Sherborne had. Not his title, or even the grand income that would be left to him. I need an education—and property.
Claymere.
“Say that you’ll give me Claymere if I marry Emily, and I will wager.”
Sherborne’s hand dropped and he backed away. “You’re mad if you think I’d agree to that. That’s father’s favorite place in the world. I’ve heard him say so more than once—as must you have to know of it.”
Why is it his favorite? “Why doesn’t he ever go there?” Eli challenged.
“I don’t know. It’s far, I guess. And Mother doesn’t like the country.”
Eli laughed. “We’re in the country now.”
“I won’t wager that property.” Sherborne folded his arms across his chest. “What if you married Miss Montgomery and Father was still alive. What would I tell him?”
“I’d go with you to speak with him,” Eli promised. “We would tell him together.” He imagined the satisfaction such a conversation would bring.
“Perhaps it can’t be wagered at all—even if I wanted to offer it up.”
“I heard your father speaking to his steward. Claymere is freehold, and he wishes to keep it that way. It will be yours someday, so wager it if you want. Unless... you’re worried you’ll lose.”
“I’m not,” Sherborne said a little too quickly. “It’s impossible for you to marry a Montgomery, so I shouldn’t be worried at all.”
“Not at all.” Eli wiped his hands on his pants again, this time in preparation for the deal that was about to be struck.
“Still, if I’m going to offer something so valuable, you ought to do the same.”
Eli realized he hadn’t been as clever as he’d thought. He should have known better. Sherborne lived for winning, whether he really wanted what the other person had or not.
“But you don’t own any property.”
Of consequence. Eli didn’t say anything. He’d not be swindled out of the one home he might someday return to.
“What do you have?” Sherborne asked, sounding exasperated.
“Just myself.” Eli held out his hands. “No weapons. No horse. No money.” The last wasn’t entirely true. He had a bit. Enough to live on—barely—if it came to that.
“That’s our wager, then,” Sherborne said, smug as he stuck out his hand once more. “If you do not succeed in marrying Emily Montgomery, then you must work for me, with no income paid, for a period of ten years.”
“Ten! Now you think I’m mad.”
“Claymere has been in the Rowley family for generations. I’m not about to wager that against nothing.”
Ten years of my life. Eli swallowed uneasily. What were the odds that he would actually be able to marry Emily Montgomery? He had no doubt his feelings toward her would remain the same. They might never have spoken, but he knew that, like him, she loved horses and the out of doors. And she was friendly, the way she always waved to him each time she passed. He could tell, even from afar, that she was beautiful, too. Years from now he would still want to marry her, but would he actually be able to?
“I knew it,” Sherborne said. “You were just bluffing.”
“I wasn’t,” Eli said. “And I’m willing to bet ten years of my life on it.” Nearly as long as I’ve lived. He reached for Sherborne’s hand and clasped it firmly in his before either could change their mind.
Chapter Two
Fourteen Years Later
Sherborne leaned a shoulder against the timbers framing the entrance to the stable, eyes narrowing as he watched the approaching rider. The man sat tall and proud, cutting a fine figure. There was something familiar about his posture and bearing, almost suggesting he belonged on the grand horse—or felt he did. Sherborne frowned, his irritation growing. His steward had told him the man was a groom of the Montgomerys. Who’d no business taking out my horse.
“Want to tell me what the deuce you think you’re doing?” Sherborne demanded a minute later when man and beast came galloping into the yard.
“Exercising your horse, since you don’t.” The groom, who could best be described as broad shouldered and scruffy, with a beard of outrageous proportion covering much of his face, dismounted, then gave the mare an affectionate pat. “Good girl.” He began guiding the horse away just as Sherborne strode forward to take the reins.
“Stop this moment,” he ordered. “Who gave you leave to ride this animal? You don’t work for me.”
“Thank the heavens,” the insufferable bearded man said and continued on his way, the mare obediently following. “Sage may be your horse, but she needs to be ridden far more than the half dozen weeks a year you deign to be home. I’ve been riding her as a favor for your estate manager, who at present seems somewhat overburdened and understaffed.”
“He has plenty of staff,” Sherborne grumbled, recalling Hawkins’ incessant badgering of late, requesting additional funds for the management of affairs here.
He’ll have them soon enough. Sherborne glanced in the direction of Baron Montgomery’s estate.
The groom stopped at the watering trough, then released the reins so Sage could drink freely. “What brings you home this time, Sher? Slow season at the London gaming tables?”
Sher. Sherborne stiffened. Only one person had ever called him that. One friend, long ago. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see beyond the overgrowth of facial hair—a difficult feat, as the man was taller than he. If the man would but speak again, or turn and face him instead of continuing to lavish attention on the horse.
“You may go now,” Sherborne said authoritatively, deciding that even if the interloper was his old friend, it would not do to allow him to address a member of the peerage in such a manner.
“Not until she’s cooled down and I’ve groomed her—or did you want to do that? You know, actually take care of your own animal?” The man walked past a speechless Sherborne and entered the stables. Sherborne started to go after him, then decided he’d deal with the man later—perhaps he could bring this poor behavior up with Baron Montgomery this afternoon. In the meantime, he was already close to being late.
Sherborne reached Sage’
s side just as the groom returned, a curry comb and hoof pick in his outstretched hands.
Sherborne shook his head. “I ride. You groom.”
“I supposed as much.” The groom started to remove Sage’s bridle.
“Leave it,” Sherborne said. “I’ll be taking her.”
“Not now, you won’t,” the beard said. “She needs to cool off. She’s been out nearly two hours. Had I known you were coming, I would not have ridden her. No need to punish the horse for it, though.”
Sherborne opened his mouth to argue, but managed to hold his tongue. He didn’t care for this dressing down but realized it would be foolish to mistreat the animal. He could ill afford another right now. He swallowed his pride and sucked in a breath. “Eli?”
“Mmmhmm.” The bridle was off now, set aside as his old friend started to unfasten the saddle.
“It really is you.” Though the statement came out sounding more like a question, Sherborne wondered suddenly how he hadn’t noticed at once. The mere way Eli answered him, in clipped sentences and a tone suggesting he was an equal and not a servant, all the while he continued his work, should have identified him right away.
Anyone else of this station Sherborne would have taken to task for speaking to him so, but Eli was no longer his father’s servant, and he was—or had at one time been—a friend.
Sherborne turned from Eli and walked the few dozen steps to the stablehand himself. “Raymond, I’ll need the Golden saddled. Be quick about it. I’m already late.”
“The Golden has been gone since last fall,” Eli called. “I believe you authorized such—as payment for a debt.”
“Devil take it,” Sherborne muttered. He’d forgotten about that. His best stallion. “Another one then, Raymond,” Sherborne said, hoping he’d something left other than the old bone-setters his father kept.
This was not a good way to begin, being late and making a poor impression upon his hopefully, soon-to-be father-in-law. Baron Montgomery and his wife had invited Sherborne to stop by for tea, the perfect opportunity for him to become reacquainted with them and their daughter, Emily. Rumor had it that her dowry was substantial and her father was looking to improve their family’s status through her marriage.