“Which horse would you suggest then, m’lady?” Lawrence asked. He could see the smirk on Anne’s lips and winced; perhaps he ought not to have asked the delightfully impish woman to make that decision for him.
“Bertold,” she spoke to the stable hand, who looked to her dutifully. “Strap up a saddle for the duke, won’t you? I think he would do well upon Old Burnie, don’t you?” she commented, her words clearly laced with sly intention.
“Old Burnie?” the lord lofted his brow.
“I think Old Burnie would do quite well, indeed, m’lady,” the scoundrel of a stable boy responded as he hurried to the rear of the building.
“What have you got planned for me, then?” Lawrence probed - he smiled and laughed, though he held more fear for her devious decision than he perhaps offered to let on.
“Oh, nothing at all, m’lord, only the finest steed upon the Roxborough estate,” she said with a smile.
Chapter Eight
Fast - air rushing, breeze blowing, trees swaying; their colors a stunning, vibrant array of blazing autumn oranges, browns, and rich, sunny yellows. Clouds gathered dark at the edges of a pristine sky as Midnight’s hooves clamped and smashed and clobbered cobblestones and fallen leaves, until Anne, laughing at the freedom and the joy of being atop her horse’s back once again, with all the world before her to traipse upon as she saw fit, drew her horse’s reigns off-road and into the muddied mires and swaying grasses beyond the far forest.
Nothing in the world felt quite like the freedom of riding - Anne had always treasured the feeling of freedom, whether it be freedom from the frippery of common company or the silliness of domestic boredom; but riding, well... to Anne, even the flight of birds had little on the one thing that made her feel freer than she could anywhere else. The joy of riding across fields, cutting through forests, leaping over streams, with the worries of the world behind her and nothing but her dreams to contain her - the freedom, which she had enjoyed since her childhood, had helped shape that need for exploration; for pushing the limits. She laughed away the worry; she laughed away thoughts of her father, thoughts of the estate; the caging burdens of life that’d fallen onto her shoulder as father wasted away and expectation loomed as dark as the clouds on the horizon. To all of it she simply laughed and drove Midnight along, swerving through weeds; the jet-black steed pursued the wind heedlessly, trampling past an abandoned farmhouse, its thatched roof having rotted away and its stone foundation crumbling like some manner of ancient Grecian ruin, the sort a studious scholar would find in a history book.
Only after so joyously trotting upon Midnight for so long, longer than she could care to remember, well into the waning moments of the afternoon, did Anne of Roxborough remember that she had not galloped alone out onto the moors; worse yet she remembered that the curious man to whom she’d found herself oddly attracted was not, in fact, any good at all with horses, by his own dizzying and embarrassing admission. She looked back in worry from where she’d come and - not surprisingly - saw no sign at all of the charming duke, whom she had tricked quite coyly into mounting the ancient, deep-brown horse, famous Old Burnie, who had run far too many races to spend its twilight years running for quite anyone, much less an inexperienced rider like Lawrence. The smile washed from her expression, replaced with brief worry; she could hear little across the fields save for the soft sway of grass and leaves, tussled about by a worsening breeze. She searched the autumn-tinted trees and their bouncing leaves; she searched the dead farm field, and saw nor heard a single sign of the poor man. She bit her lip, sudden worry shocking her, and she began to scold herself for so thoughtlessly abandoning the duke. Is he okay, she wondered? Worse yet, has he turned from me for my impetuousness? As clouds drew in closer, her worry deepened; she had not noticed that storm clouds had begun to blot out the sun, muting its color and bringing fear to her spine, should she fail to find the duke amid this mire.
Suddenly, a faint gallop came to Anne’s ear, and like an alerted hawk her senses shot towards the edge of the trees. There, what she saw tilted her worrisome frown into a slow, warm smile; trotting pensively between muddied pile and swaying waves of grass, Lawrence emerged from a line of orange-brown autumn trees, gripping onto Old Burnie’s reigns with all the terrified strength he could manage. She stifled another chuckle, as the horse stumbled and jaunted at a pace that could only be described as embarrassing. He looked up, his eyes crossed with an expression not unlike that of a child balancing precariously upon a tightrope, his gaze stricken with awed fear at the pace of the beast beneath him.
“It’s been such a pleasant ride, hasn’t it? Old Burnie never disappoints his prideful riders,” Anne called sarcastically across the field to Lord Strauss; the sound startled the poor man, whose grip on the horse’s reins tightened. Old Burnie responded to Anne’s voice, perhaps taking the words as a challenge. The horse picked up speed and began bounding towards the woman, and Lawrence’s gaze shifted from terrified to... well, to even more terrified, as the horse threatened to throw the poor lord off of his back with each awkwardly bucking burst of speed.
“This blasted creature—” the duke howled, bouncing with a bare grip on Old Burnie’s reins as the beast trotted across the dead field. “How do you tell it to slow down?!”
“Slow down? You could walk faster than Pierre is carrying you!” Anne laughed.
“Perhaps I sh-should!” Lawrence responded, squeezing the reins tightly as his horse finally began to slow, the sudden burst of tepid speed having drained its stamina. With a quiet yip Anne led Midnight along the field to meet the duke; she skillfully led Midnight to a quick, light-hoof trot in a wide circle around poor Burnie, and the even more unfortunate man upon the creature’s back; the beast snorted and trotted while Anne paced curious circles.
“Perhaps you might think to take lessons?” Lady Havenshire grinned.
“I’m beginning to see just why your father feels you utterly unmarriageable, m’lady,” Lawrence teased. Old Burnie stepped to a stop in the middle of the field and rather unceremoniously plopped onto the mud, laying down with a yawn, leaving the duke’s boots scuffed, splashes of muddied water across his pant legs. Anne laughed, petting her hand along Midnight’s bridle.
“Is that so? Do you think me utterly unmarriageable, then, m’lord? Must a woman stand before you in fear of sundering her beauty, pleading with you to teach her the ways of the beasts of wild, before you find her agreeable to a marriage, m’lord?” Anne’s voice grew thick with derisive sarcasm as she trotted closer, her circle around the lazy, aged steed and its muddied rider narrowing. The duke pulled himself from the lazy animal’s back, dusting away the dirt and the leaves clung to his jacket from the slow trip through the autumn forest, exhaling deeply. She could see the humble smile forming on the charming gentleman’s lips and she bit her own, her cheeks reddening as she teased him. He liked it, she thought... and so did she.
“For me, a woman’s skill upon the back of a steed means comparatively little, though perhaps I should temper my expectations when it comes said skilled rider’s coy wit,” the duke chided her in a deadpan, joking manner; she feigned offense.
“Have you now taken up with the likes of the Earl of Carteret in your philosophies of the woman, then? Perhaps we next shall see you with your hand upon the thighs of every able-bodied young woman in all of England,” she joked. “Then you could take my hand in marriage, with the riding crop in the other to keep me in line.”
“And what, pray tell, have you gotten into your head, m’lady, to convince you I have any interest in taking your hand, then?” the duke retorted amiably. Anne’s cheeks erupted in a blush.
“Call it a certain intuition, or perhaps the fact that you keep arriving on my doorstep,” Anne stated cheekily, before the memory of Lawrence’s sister again cast clouds across their exchange. She tried to brighten the mood, offering the duke a hand to hoist him up out of the mud. He regarded her suspiciously, and instead squished his way free of the mire, dusting off his
boots with a hmph.
“Trees are... a fair bit sparser, on my land, and there are certainly fewer forests to be found,” Lawrence mentioned, glancing at the thick tree line they had both precariously trotted their way through.
“My estate has long had some of the finest forests and hunting grounds in all of England,” Anne chimed proudly. “Father had little interest in attracting hunters, and tore down many of the cabins and hunting lodges my grandfather and his fathers had used to draw renters and trappers out this way. I always appreciated the forests more for days like today... when the autumn comes, and the colors sweep across the leaves, and the breezes kick them around... as a child, I also enjoyed the trees for climbing, and playing,” she recalled with an evil little grin. “Poor mother, she’d go searching the moors, always winding up ruining one of her finest dresses, trudging through the mud and the branches looking for me.”
“You would have gotten along rather terrifically with my sister, then,” Lord Strauss laughed. He tried various calls and cries and snorts and sounds to lure Pierre out of the muddy morass he’d decided to lay in, but the stubborn old horse had little interest in the man or his antics.
“Did she too enjoy leading your mother wildly about the estate?” Anne chuckled, leading Midnight into the muddy field and with a few deft motions and noises, she’d managed to coax Burnie, whinnying, to his hooves. She beamed at the duke, who shrugged in defeat.
“I tried,” he said with a frown. “I suppose you’re quite right. I’m not much a gentleman, am I?”
“Are you perhaps throwing out a line in hopes of finding a compliment on the other end? That’s certainly a pitiable thing for a gentleman to do,” the lady chided.
“Considering my current predicament, I think I’ve made myself look quite pitiable already,” he quipped back, looking down at the mud now staining his breeches.
“Pitiable? Perhaps, though poor Burnie’s the one who laid down in the stuff,” Anne snickered. “You didn’t answer me... about your sister,” Anne’s voice fell to a curious murmur; the duke sighed, glancing away, and Anne’s own expression grew worrisome. “I hope I don’t... conjure, poor thoughts, with such a subject.”
“Thoughts of her are rarely poor, m’lady, as she’s one of the most capable and amazing people I’ve met - woman or man,” Lawrence said resoundingly. “I have... a lot to make up for, in life, for the way she was... treated.”
“I regret mentioning the problem, m’lord, but...” her breath caught in her throat as a soft rumble whizzed through the air. The horses whinnied, and darkness began to creep over the sky. Suddenly a loud thunderclap shattered their moment together; startled, the two nobles looked to the sky, only noticing all too late that a thunderstorm had darkened the moors and forests of the Roxborough estate. Anne hastily glanced across the fields - they had spent all morning riding, into the afternoon, and had ranged too far for the two of them to make it back safe to the manor in time.
“The storm doesn’t seem interested in waiting for us to complete this particular conversation,” Lawrence said, his voice once again strong, alluring; and now, full of duty, as he searched for a resolution to their particular situation. A slow panic set into Anne’s mind; she hadn’t realized just how far they had ranged, nor had she been paying attention to the weather, and she quietly cursed herself.
“I’m... sorry, I’m not certain that this old beast can make it terribly far in heavy rains,” she said, voice warbling as she led Old Burnie with a grasp on his reins. Lord Strauss comforted Anne’s fear, stroking her tied-back tail of flowing hair as he quickly thought on a decision; another thunderclap echoed overhead.
“Your father mentioned a cabin - a place he said you often enjoyed retreating to,” the lord recalled.
“Y-yes!” Nadia exclaimed. “If we can make—” a loud crash of thunder, a flash of lightning, and a light, dewy misting of rain fell down upon them all at once, and with each movement intent, Lawrence grasped Burnie’s bridle; the horse whinnied, and he set Anne upon her steed with great, effusive strength.
“We must be hasty, ride ahead of the storm as best we can,” he insisted. Anne blinked at the sudden strength shown by the man, but she had little time to contemplate now, driving Shadow back into the darkness of the forest as the lightning and thunder nipped at the horse’s hooves.
Chapter Nine
“Cold! C... c-cold,” rang a shrill squeak of a voice through the cabin as the door swung open, gushing and rolling rain pattering hard across its rooftop. The shuddering, shivering woman, clad in a cool and breezy autumn dress of white and blue, struggled to take stilted strides across the wooden footboards, which creaked with age beneath each gentle and measured step she took. Her teeth chattering, she tried to put together another few words to explain just how much like hell she felt in that particular moment, but instead all that came out was a series of half-formed vowels and lip-shaking sibilants.
“Of course you’re cold, that shower was not particularly warm, m’lady,” the duke announced with a confident smile as he placed his hands strong upon her shoulders, leading her gently across the quaint cottage. Spartan in its accoutrements, it certainly didn’t seem particularly fitting for a hovel placed upon the wealth Roxborough estate - a dust-covered, single-colored rug ran along the floor, leading to a sitting area sparsely populated with crudely-carved wooden furniture and one single sofa, set before the fireplace. Anne recalled the nights she had spent set fireside in the waning moments of each day - she spent much of her youth secreting away here, to read the books left by the cabin’s previous owners, a pair of hunters who had worked for her father, in the days before she’d been born. A dozen or so such cottages dotted the estate, but none housed the library that this did. Two beds set in each corner, flanking the fireplace, the far wall of the small hovel housed books - books, books and only books, vast shelves full of them, shelves set upon more shelves to house more volumes. She had read grand adventures and tales of excitement; histories of war and tales of the purest love.
And it was those she always secretly treasured. For even with her slighting statements and sense of disdain for the manner in which society functioned, even she longed for a true love - a pure love, a heart to come and rescue her and to understand her and to appreciate her for precisely who she was. Not a man who wanted to transform her into desirability - but a man who saw her desirability. Alas, she had begun to fear those sorts of loves existed only in storybooks and not upon the cold hills and scattered, opulent estates of England.
The duke led Anne to the couch near the fire; her shoulders shook as she felt the chill run down her spine and grip her intensely. She tried to still the jitter of her teeth but she could not; her reflexes worked against her, trying to generate some sense of energy and warmth to keep her cooled heart beating.
“I’m c... cold, Lawrence,” she managed to put a sentence together, as her companion moved with a sense of urgency and duty; he moved quickly, to the fireplace, opening the flue with a tug on a metal bar. He looked back at her, and she could see caring determination in his eyes, and in the rugged smile smoldering beneath his deep gray eyes.
“I’ll have that fixed quite quickly, m’lady,” he insisted, searching along the front wall for the tools needed to light the fireplace. She watched him through her cold-glazed eyes, her breathing heavier as she felt the rain-drenched dress stick tightly to her skin.
“You’re... q-q-quite ha... handy,” she commented, watching him as he grasped at the pile of wood near the fireplace. Having found no usable flint and tinder he began to press the wood together, carving away an exposed area from the bark to try to pull a spark from the logs.
“I had a talented teacher in the means of survival, m’lady,” he replied.
“Y-you mean your sister?” Anne warbled.
“She taught me quite a lot,” he confirmed with a nod. “We’d start campfires, scrounge together whatever we could, build a shelter of out sticks and live like savages upon the estate land when w
e were children,” he mused. “I’ve not a taste for riding horses because sister and I spent most of our time ranging like steeds, ourselves,” he chuckled as he tried with muffled condemnations to light a spark on the lumber.
“I wish I h... h-had had a chance to meet her,” Anne chattered out, the rain running in rivulets down her back, dripping from her soaked strands of hair. “Sh-she se-seems like...”
“Blast it!” the duke exclaimed. “The wood, it’s soaked through, waterlogged,” he declared, his expression wincing in the sting of failure. “I’m... damn it all,” he growled, before he began to scan the cabin for another solution. Anne watched him closely, or at least as closely as her shaking body could.
“I-I’m sure I’ll be f-fine,” she quaked. “I’m—”
“M’lady, you’re soaked through and freezing,” he insisted. “You need some manner of warmth. Here,” he looked along the walls to the books. “Paper, bindings - another potent source of fuel for the fire. I can just—”
“What? No!” Anne exclaimed as he moved to the shelves and grasped the first tome that he could - a thick volume bound in red leather, flowery figures of gold filigreed onto its spine. “You can’t commit such base vandalism,” she exclaimed.
“M’lady, I’ve no interest in seeing you shake and chatter yourself to the grave, and I doubt your father would be all too pleased with me should I let that happen,” Lawrence laughed. “These books have been here for how long? Have you not already read each of them thoroughly?” he asked with a churlish smile.
“It’s not... y-yes, I’ve read a great many of them,” she said sheepishly. “That’s... that’s scarcely the point, though, Lawrence. These books, they represent knowledge, they represent... art, beauty, there’s poetry, and even some of Shakespeare’s works here, and—”
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