Joan Wolf - His Lordship's Desire

The following morning Diana rose early and dressed in her riding habit, which consisted of a brown divided skirt and an old brown jacket. She fastened her hair at the nape of her neck and set off for Standish on foot. It was only a little under two miles and she walked it in good time. When she reached the stable yard Alex was just coming in riding a solid-looking chestnut gelding. Diana’s face fell.

“I thought you said we would go riding together today!” she accused him.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“I walked.”

He looked at her feet. “In your boots?”

“Yes.”

He looked her up and down, taking in her divided skirt. “Do you ride astride?”

“Yes. The squire’s groom who taught me said it would be safer for me to learn that way.”

“All right,” he said briskly. “We’ll give you a chance.” He turned to one of the grooms. “Danny, bring out Lady Sarah’s pony. And don’t put a sidesaddle on him.”

Diana could feel her heart begin to beat harder. She had to impress this boy so he would allow her to ride his horses. Her heart fell when a very small, thick-bodied pony was led out of the stable. “He’s so little,” she said involuntarily.

“Sally is little,” Alex said.

Diana bit her lip and didn’t say anything else. She didn’t think it was going to be much fun riding Sally’s pony.

“His name is Moses,” Alex said. “Come along over to the riding ring so I can judge your riding style.”

Diana followed him beyond the stable to an enclosed ring with a smooth dirt surface. Alex opened the gate and led the pony in. Diana followed.

“Do you need help getting into the saddle?” he asked.

She cast him a scornful look. “No.” She put her foot in the stirrup and swung up. There wasn’t very far to go. The squire’s pony had been a full hand taller than Moses.

“Just ride him around the rail and let me see how you do,” Alex said. She cast him a disgusted look. How was she supposed to show her riding skills on a pony that was much too small for her?

She put the pony on the rail and closed her legs to send him forward. He ambled off. Diana frowned and pressed her legs harder. He went from an amble into a walk. They went around the enclosure once and Diana said to Alex, “I need a whip.”

He got her one. She squeezed her legs again and applied the whip smartly behind her leg. The pony broke into a trot. She pushed him some more. After two more rounds she had him trotting forward. In another round she had him going before her leg.

“Stop!” Alex called.

Obediently, she halted, then walked over to where he was standing outside the fence. He was grinning. “I’ve never seen that pony move so fast.”

“He certainly doesn’t want to move,” Diana returned. “The squire’s pony was a speed demon compared with this one.”

“Sally likes him. He’s a good beginner pony. He will just follow along when we go out on the trails and she never has to worry about him doing something stupid.”

“Doing something stupid would take too much energy,” Diana said scornfully.

“You’re a good rider,” Alex said. “But you’re too small to ride our horses. You’d be like a fly on top of them. You have no body or legs to hold them.”

Diana’s heart sank. She wasn’t going to be able to ride. She looked at him, her eyes tragic.

“There’s my old pony,” he offered. “I talked Papa into keeping him for Sally to grow into, but he’s been doing nothing ever since I got my new horse. He might be a bit of a handful.”

Her eyes sparkled. “I won’t mind that. I’ll straighten him out.”

“Let me ride him for a few days, to get the kinks out of him. Then we’ll try you on him.”

“What’s his name?” Diana asked eagerly.

“Jonathan. He’s a grand pony. I was sorry when I outgrew him.”

Diana smiled. “Thank you, Alex. If I couldn’t ride I think I would just wither away and die.”

He looked back at her. “It means that much to you?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “You’re a great girl, Diana. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

Diana flung her arm off her forehead and rolled over on her side. What was the point of going over old times? The past was the past. It was true that she and Alex had become companions, riding out together every morning. He had friends in the neighborhood, but he didn’t despise her company when he had nothing else to do.

She had adored him. He was two years older than she, and a boy. She’d looked up to him and admired him and felt honored whenever he sought out her company. Sally, at five, was too young for her. She’d dreaded the day when he would be going back to school.

I fell in love with him when I was seven years old, she thought now as she lay restless in her bed. It wasn’t fair. He was the only friend I had. I didn’t have a chance.

Well my eyes are opened now. I might have loved him, but he didn’t love me. Not really. If he had truly loved me he never would have left me to go into the army.

She curled up into a ball and finally she fell asleep.

The next two weeks were busy as Lady Standish made ready to move her household to London. True to his word, Alex retired William, who was not at all adverse to the idea of being the master of his own time in a snug little cottage close to a good fishing stream, and Alex found a younger replacement, an ex-soldier who had been wounded and retired from the Peninsula army. Thomas lacked the smooth, finished manners of their old coachman, but he was an excellent driver.

The butler, Henrys, would be coming with them to London, as would the cook, Lady Standish’s personal maid, the young maid who helped to look after Sally, and Alex’s valet, who had come back from the Peninsula with him. As Alex was bringing three riding horses as well as the carriage horses, several grooms would be accompanying them as well. Margaret and Maria were staying at home with their governess, Lady Standish not wanting the children underfoot while she was so preoccupied.

The Sherwoods had far fewer encumbrances than did the Devizes. In fact, they had only one trunk that was filled with all their clothes.

On the morning that they started out for London, there were five carriages—two for the family plus three hired vehicles to carry the servants and the luggage. Alex drove his father’s phaeton, an open, high-wheeled carriage with room for two or three people on the front seat. He had asked Diana if she would like to ride with him, but she had told him to take Sally.

“She gets sick if she travels for too long inside a carriage. She will do better in the phaeton,” she said. “I, on the other hand, prefer to ride in the comfort of the carriage.”

He had acquiesced and so had the chance to spend several hours in the sole company of his sister. She had written to him faithfully during the three years that he was in the Peninsula and had been his chief source of information about Diana. He thought he would use this chance to pump her for as much information as he could get about her best friend.

“Is Mama footing the bill for Dee’s come-out?” he asked bluntly after they had finished driving through the village.

“Of course,” Sally said. “There is no way Cousin Louisa could afford such a thing herself. Papa wouldn’t have done it. He liked Diana, but he felt he was doing enough by housing her and her mother. But Mama and Cousin Louisa are very close—and have become even closer since Papa died.”

“So it was Mama’s idea to bring Diana out with you.”

“Actually it was my idea,” Sally said. She tied her bonnet a little more tightly against the wind. “It will be much more fun for me if Diana is with me—she has a way of making the world around her seem brighter, more exciting. And she’s not a bit shy—like I am.”