“Surely Purvis and the hands can manage all that.”
“They do most of the heavy labor,” she admitted. “But I didn’t like to leave it entirely in their hands. With you gone, the Grange was my responsibility, and I didn’t want you to—I didn’t want to fail.”
“I would never accuse you of failing,” he said earnestly. “I got your reports, after all. I knew the farm was thriving.”
“You read them?” She’d rather suspected he tossed them aside unopened.
“Of course I did. Did you read mine?”
“I did. They gave me something to say, at least for a few weeks, when people asked if I’d heard anything from you. And I did worry, after you were injured. I...I prayed for you.” Strange prayers those had been, and she hadn’t wanted to examine them too closely even as she directed them heavenward. She had prayed for his preservation at least in part because she didn’t want him to die before she got the chance to tell him what she thought of him.
“I wish I’d thought,” he said. “I know what gossip in a village can be. God knows I do, after what Mama went through, and what was said of Ned when he tried to court Clara Dryden. But I never imagined it directed against you.”
“You were angry with me,” she said shortly. “I—I’m not sure I could’ve written a different letter, on that day, but I wish...” She searched for the right words. “I wish I hadn’t known what I’d just found out, so I could’ve written what I would have even a single day earlier.”
“Well,” he said, “what’s past is past. I forgive you.” Then he spoiled the effect entirely by leaning forward, gazing at her across the table with round eyes that contrived to be both innocent and lascivious, and adding, “I hope you’ll forgive me, too.”
“It isn’t that easy!” she snapped. How like a man to think it could be!
He sighed and lowered his eyes. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”
They spoke but little during the rest of their breakfast. After Jack finished his last bite of bacon, he attempted another smile—still hopeful, but far more sincere. “It’s a fine morning,” he said. “Will you show me around the farm?”
“Of course,” she replied. It was his right, after all, to see how his lands fared—and she only meant to deny him one of his rights.
As they stood in the entrance, ready to venture out into the chill February morning, she donned her old scarlet cloak—she wasn’t going to wear her fine new pelisse into the stables—and Jack shrugged into a well-worn greatcoat.
As they crossed the lawn to the outbuildings, Elizabeth didn’t know what to feel. His old injury didn’t seem to slow him, but he still walked with a faint limp that put a hitch in the rhythm of his steps. “Does your leg pain you still?” she asked.
“A little, especially on cold days.”
Elizabeth glanced sidelong at her husband and noticed his jaw was clenched and his mouth set. “You’re in pain now, aren’t you? Perhaps we should go back inside.”
“No. If I rest too much it stiffens up. Besides—I’m too young to turn invalid, go on half pay for good and spend the rest of my life hobbling about the house with a cane. I’m no good in my profession if I can’t walk and ride.”
All her instincts told her she ought to nurse him, that he was pushing himself too hard on a day when he ought to rest after his long journey home. Yet surely he knew his own body’s limitations better than she did, and she didn’t quite trust her instincts where he was concerned—they were warmer than her rational mind could like. “Very well,” she said. “But you must let me know if you need to rest, or if there is anything that can be done to ease the pain.”
“Well...” His eyes crinkled with mischief.
“Well, what?”
“Never mind. I couldn’t ask it of you, not yet.”
I don’t want to know, she thought. But somehow what came out of her mouth was, “Oh? You must tell me what it is, at least.”
“If you insist. Have you never observed, that when one’s muscles ache, rubbing them eases the pain?” He ran a hand up his thigh to indicate just where his pains occurred.
She sniffed. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I wasn’t going to say it. You forced it out of me.”
“If your leg pains you, you can rub it yourself. It isn’t as though that’s a difficult place to reach.”
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t. But it’s more pleasant when someone else helps.”
They had reached the sheep cote. Elizabeth stood in the shed’s doorway, blocking Jack’s path. “If you truly want me ever to engage in any sort of intimate activity with you,” she said, “perhaps it would be wise of you to refrain from reminding me how often you’ve shared such activities with others in my absence.”
He colored. “Touché.” He looked at his feet, and Elizabeth thought he was honestly abashed. “Well. Show me these sheep of yours.”
“Properly speaking, they’re your sheep,” she pointed out.
“Our sheep, then.”
“They’re not in the cote at the moment,” Elizabeth said. “Jeremy Purvis has them out in the west field. We could ride out to see them, or he’ll be bringing them in by nightfall.”
“Isn’t it almost lambing time?”
“Not for another few weeks yet. In March and April it’s all we can do to keep up with the lambs and foals.”
His eyes brightened. “How many foals are you expecting this year?”
Elizabeth hid a smile. Jack was never going to be fascinated by sheep, and never mind that it was wool and mutton that had put a new roof on the Purvis cottage and added two new broodmares to the Grange stables. “Ten, if all goes well,” she said. “All the mares we bred caught. Shall we go to the stable now?”
“If you’re sure you don’t mind waiting to show me the sheep.”
“Not at all,” she assured him. “They’ll still be here in a few hours.”
As they entered the stable, Jack inhaled deeply and happily. “Horses smell better than sheep,” he said.
“Undeniably.”
He peered into the dim corridor lined with stalls. Several bay, chestnut and gray heads were visible. “Do you still have the horse you wrote me about the first year after we married?” he asked.
“Yes, but he’s merely a pony,” she replied, ducking her head in embarrassment. “I think I started too late to be much of a horsewoman.”
“I don’t require every horse to be a hunter or a charger,” he said mildly, and Elizabeth bit her lip. She’d been storing up her anger at Jack for so long that now she struggled to see even the most commonplace conversation as other than a matter for attack and defense.
She led the way to her gelding’s stall. At their approach, Coffee thrust his long bay head into the passage and regarded them with gentle, hopeful eyes. Elizabeth always came prepared for such pleas, so she offered the pony a lump of sugar. He ate it from her hand, delicately, then turned to Jack, ears pricked with anticipation.
Jack chuckled and stroked Coffee’s muzzle. “I’m sorry, you beggar. I have nothing for you.” He stepped back and peered into the shadowy stall. “Sturdy, and a good shoulder,” he commented. “A Dales pony, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He’s nimble on the hills, when I need to ride out with the sheep.”
“Surely Purvis and his sons—”
“They can’t be everywhere, and I felt I should understand every aspect of the task, having set my hand to it.”
He gave her a considering look. The thoughtful respect in his eyes unnerved her almost as much as his attempts at flirtation. “You’re strong,” he said. “I had no idea, when I married you.”
She shrugged, abashed. “We had so little time to grow to know each other, and you weren’t seeing me at my best.” Remembering the grief and confusion of those days, she turned away from this stranger who had been her husband for five years to pat Coffee again. The pony’s affection and the comfort he brought were so simple.
“I still miss Giles,” he said s
oftly, and she looked at him in surprise. “He was my first true friend, you know. Our mothers were friends, and he was the only boy near my age in Selyhaugh. And then when I started school, I was small for my age and didn’t know how to go on. It helped, more than I can say, to have someone like him to take my part. He had the gift of making friends.”
The last thing Elizabeth had expected from Jack was an acknowledgement of the shared grief that had bound them together, nor the admission that he had ever been a vulnerable, lonely boy in need of a friend. “Yes, he did.”
“I especially miss him, here.” Jack gestured around at the barn. “I taught him to ride on my old pony, since the Hamiltons didn’t keep a horse, and we used to play at reivers in the bastle barn. Even though this is my house, I always had to act the part of the reiver, since everyone knows the Armstrongs were notorious raiders in those days.”
Elizabeth hadn’t known any such thing, but she supposed if she’d grown up in the Border country she would have. “I don’t think you minded,” she guessed.
“No, not at all. The reiver had so many more chances to sneak and climb and shout than the defender did. I hated being still.”
He hated it to this day, as far as she could tell. “You would’ve run mad if you hadn’t regained the use of your leg, wouldn’t you? It’s not just about your profession.”
“You’re right,” he said soberly. “There were days, when the surgeons said I’d never be able to walk unaided or ride again, where I came close to it.”
She hesitated a moment, then reached out to touch his arm, very lightly. “I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”
He looked down at her hand, then met her eyes. Elizabeth jerked her hand away. For a moment, she hadn’t seen his betrayal and her pain, but his sufferings. Why was she so tempted to sympathy and forgiveness?
“So am I,” he said. “Only, I wish I could’ve managed to heal in time to not miss most of the war. I think I could’ve done better than Procter at the Thames or Prevost at Plattsburgh.” He huffed out an exasperated breath.
“I daresay you’ll have other chances.”
“But we’re at peace now.”
He sounded almost mournful about it, and Elizabeth felt torn between amusement and irritation. “Perhaps it won’t last. Our history is not that of a peaceable nation.”
“I think it will, this time. The world is grown weary of war.”
She leaned against the wooden stall partition and frowned up at him. “And you haven’t? Would you prefer to kill men, and perhaps be killed yourself, some more?”
He sighed. “I know how it sounds. I’m not against peace. I swear I’m not. Only I should like to prove myself worthy of the honors I’ve been granted.”
“But you’re a major-general and a knight. How much more honor do you need?”
“I was granted all that after I was wounded, and I haven’t fought since.”
“I thought you’d proven yourself by what you did before you were wounded, in taking command after Brock fell.”
“Perhaps—or perhaps it was because my uncle spoke for me. In any case, I was expected to take Brock’s place in the campaign itself, and I never got the chance. Had I not been wounded, I might have served out the war, gained a few victories and made a reputation.”
“Or you might’ve been killed,” she pointed out.
“Leaving you a widow with all this in your own name, free to marry someone of your own choosing, or to never wed again and live out your days as a woman of independent means.”
Inexplicably, Elizabeth felt her eyes sting. “But to wish for such a thing, at the price of your life? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Oh.” He smiled, crookedly. “I couldn’t either, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
He held out his hand and she took it, cautiously. “Even if you and I are a bad bargain, Elizabeth, I’d rather make the best of it than wish myself out of it.”
Both of them wore thick gloves against the chill day, but the pressure of his hand, the warm strength of his grip, still sent a jolt of awareness straight to her core. It was a solemn moment, and she almost told him that she would forgive him, eventually, and give him his heir—and then the absurdity of the situation struck home and she began to laugh.
“What,” he ground out, dropping her hand, “is so amusing?”
With difficulty she calmed herself enough to speak. “We’ve established we don’t wish each other dead. I suppose it’s a beginning.”
He stared at her, blinked, then laughed along with her. “An excellent beginning.”
She gave Coffee a parting pat, then stepped away from the stall. “Shall I show you the broodmares?”
Jack fell in beside her. “Certainly,” he said. “Did you get the chance to breed any of them to Lord Balkwell’s Dauntless?”
“Not this year. Purvis and I agreed his stud fees had grown too dear for his quality. I bred Eurycleia, Briseis and Hecuba back to Telemachus; Chryseis, Andromache and Deidamia to Odysseus; and Circe and Penelope to Sir Hugo Cresswell’s gray Arabian to see what that cross would bring.”
They had reached Penelope’s box stall. At eighteen she was the oldest of the broodmares and, Purvis had assured Elizabeth, the finest. She had been drowsing on her bed of straw, but she rose ponderously to her feet at their approach. Elizabeth didn’t need to be the kind of expert equestrian her husband was to appreciate the mare’s beauty, with her graceful head, kind eye and dapple-gray coat grown nearly snow white with age.
This time Jack stepped into the stall to greet Penelope, stroking her pale coat and murmuring to her.
“Purvis said she was your favorite,” Elizabeth remarked.
“Oh, indeed she is. We had many a fine run together, Penelope and I, when we were both young. I think I’ll keep her foal and not breed her again. She’s earned a quiet retirement.”
“I hope I did right to breed her this year.” Elizabeth gazed worriedly at the mare. She did look old, and so weary and uncomfortable—not that any mare precisely looked happy so close to foaling. “I know she’s getting old, but she had an easy time of it with her last colt, two years ago, and the Cresswell Arab is such a fine horse.”
“No, you did well.” He leaned against Penelope’s shoulder. “And you’ll do well, too, won’t you, girl?”
“You love horses so.” It was easy to like him here. He seemed wholly at home, in his element, with none of that fidgety energy, the constant effort to charm, that he had otherwise displayed since his homecoming.
“I always have.”
“Perhaps you’ll make a name for yourself as a horse breeder and a rider to hounds, rather than as a general.”
“It’s hardly the same.”
Elizabeth shook her head in exasperation. “I think you would’ve been happier to be an Armstrong of three centuries before, and get your living as a reiver—a life of action and glory.”
He chuckled. Giving Penelope a parting pat, he rejoined Elizabeth. “Perhaps I would have been. Then you would have been a reiver’s lady, and rejoiced when I brought home a fine string of cattle and horses.”
“I would’ve been nothing of the kind,” she said primly. “It would be like marrying a pirate. I would’ve been a proper farmer or villager, only trying to guard my own from the likes of you.”
“You and Giles. That’s exactly why he always wanted to play the farmer.”
She smiled, but sighed. She tried not to dwell on what might have been, but if Giles had lived, by now they would be leading a prosperous, settled life. The clerical living he’d been promised had become open less than a year after his death. Had he only had chicken pox as a child and got over it as everyone else did, they would be living there together now, with the beginnings of a fine brood of children growing up around them, all happy and affectionate together. She would have been so safe.
But there would have been no chance of going on a Grand Tour, a traitorous voice whispered in her mind. Giles would never have had f
unds enough for that. And, dear as he was, and as well as he understood you, he never cared about travel and seeing the world the way you do.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked. “I’m sorry—I should never have mentioned Giles.”
“No, don’t apologize. It wouldn’t seem right never to speak of him.”
He smiled and touched her arm gently, and they moved on to inspect the rest of the horses, more or less in charity with each other.
Chapter Nine
Jack had not ridden through Selyhaugh the day before, nor had he or Elizabeth sent word of his arrival, but the rest of the day was spent receiving a perfect barrage of callers.
“I daresay one of the Purvis lads called on his sweetheart this morning, or else Mrs. Pollard sent Ellen to do the marketing,” Elizabeth commented drily after the Ildertons left but before Mrs. Young arrived.
“The only place I’ve known news to travel faster than through village servants is in a regimental mess.” Jack smiled, trying to hide his weariness as he massaged his aching leg.
“Your leg,” his wife murmured.
He snatched his hand away and rested it casually on the arm of his chair. “A slight stiffness, nothing more. I suppose all that riding yesterday was too much for it.”
“Then it’s just as well we’re at peace and you can give it a proper rest at home. Are you truly fit for duty, should it come to that again?”
She sat opposite him, anxious concern in her eyes, and Jack knew he should have rejoiced at any sign of thawing toward him. Yet he couldn’t, not for this. He didn’t want her pity, but her admiration and desire. And he couldn’t allow himself weakness. He was a soldier, a warrior, who must be strong and enduring.
“I’ll make myself fit,” he said. “I’ve lain abed long enough.”
She gave him a secretive smile. “But I thought your whole purpose in coming home was to lie abed.”
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