Bronwyn Scott - Unbefitting a Lady

Bram nodded. He’d heard stories about horses that could sense their masters’ distress. He’d never heard of anything quite as drastic as Anderson’s tale. So, Lady Phaedra talked to horses and read their minds. Well, he’d see about that for himself, but it was clear Tom Anderson believed it in full.

They passed a companionable evening discussing the horses and their workout needs. There was the spirited mare the eldest daughter, Kate, had left behind when she’d gone to America not long ago. There were the general horses kept for guests, not that there’d been many guests outside of family in recent months. There was Giles Montague’s black beast of a stallion, Genghis, nearly as dark as Warbourne. And there was the elegant chestnut thoroughbred, Merlin, Lord Jamie’s horse.

‘Lord Jamie?’ He quirked his eyebrow in question. Yet another younger brother, perhaps? How big was this family? Bram was beginning to wonder.

‘Lord Jamie is the eldest. But he went to war too, and didn’t come home. Only Lord Giles and Lord Harry returned.’ Anderson shook his head. ‘It’s been a bad business all around for the family. Lord Giles wanted to be a career military man. He never wanted to be the heir, never was jealous of Lord Jamie. But it wasn’t to be.’

‘He died too?’ Bram asked quietly. He knew several families in London who’d lost loved ones thanks to Napoleon. Families both rich and poor alike had lost sons.

Anderson shrugged, a light twinkling in his old blue eyes. ‘Don’t know. That’s a whole other kettle of fish brewing up at the house these days. Lord Giles is pretty closemouthed about it, as he should be. But there was no body ever recovered and then last fall this woman shows up with a little ‘un just about the right age claiming she’s Lord Jamie’s wife. She’s living at the Dower House. The family is trying to do right by her, although the whole thing seems off to me.’

‘Why?’

Anderson jerked his head the general direction of the horse stalls. ‘Merlin’s still alive. He and Lord Jamie were as close as a horse and human can be, just like Edward and Troubadour,’ Tom Anderson answered matter-of-factly, as if everyone bought into folklore without question.

Bram refrained from comment. He supposed stranger things had happened. When he’d driven through the gates of Castonbury today, it had looked normal enough—the manicured grounds, the outbuildings in decent repair, the stables immaculate. It had looked better than normal. From the outside, one would never guess the turmoil that simmered beneath the surface. What exactly had he let himself in for? Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t ‘boring.’ All fears of ennui had been effectively banished.

Phaedra rose early and dressed quickly in breeches and a loose shirt. Rising early was imperative if she wanted to escape the eagle eye of Aunt Wilhelmina. She did not approve of Phaedra roaming the estate in breeches nor did the redoubtable lady approve of rising before ten in the morning. Neither of which was surprising. Aunt Wilhelmina spent most of her life disapproving. Still, Phaedra preferred not to be on the receiving end of her aunt’s disapproval and there seemed to be a lot more of it headed her direction since Kate had left after Christmas with her new husband.

In the breakfast room, Giles was already present with his coffee and newspapers. He looked up as she entered and uttered a brief good-morning. She nodded. This had become their ritual. Both of them enjoyed rising early but early rising was not synonymous with a desire to engage in conversation. They wanted to eat first, let their minds sift through the agenda of their days.

Phaedra piled her plate with eggs and hot toast. Chances were she wouldn’t be back to the house for luncheon. Her mind was already sorting through the things that needed doing at the stables: check on the gelding with the sore leg, make sure the hay delivery had arrived from the home farm, do a general walk-through to check on the stalls and horses. There was Warbourne to see to and horses to exercise.

The activity would fill her day until sunset. The busyness was a blessed relief from the empty house. She’d grown up in a large family, used to being surrounded by brothers and a sister, but war and the passing of years had brought an end to that. The boys had gone to battle. Only Giles had come home and then only because duty demanded it. Harry had come home and left again. Kate had married. Really, Kate’s marriage was the last blow, the last desertion. The two of them had lived here together during the years the boys were at war. It had brought them close in spite of the difference in their ages. Now Kate was gone, choosing Virgil and a new life in Boston over Castonbury and the familiar. And her.

Now it was just her and Giles, the oldest and the youngest, nine years separating them. She hoped it wasn’t disloyal to Jamie to think of Giles as the oldest. But Jamie was dead now, whether there was a body or not, and Giles had done his best to pick up the reins of duty in the wake of great tragedy.

Phaedra sighed and bit into her toast. Since Kate had left, mornings were hardest of all, the time when she was most acutely aware she’d been left behind. The once merry and heavily populated breakfast room was empty. Giles was here but he had Lily and in the summer they would marry. They would fill Castonbury with a new generation of Montagues. Time would move on. Would she? What would happen to her? What would become of her? Anything could happen. She told herself she had Warbourne now. He was her chance.

Phaedra pushed back from the table, her appetite overruled by the need to see Warbourne, to get to the stables where worries and thoughts wouldn’t plague her.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Giles looked up from his paper. ‘Anxious to see your colt?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t suppose we’ll see you before dinner?’ Giles arched a dark brow in query.

‘There’s a lot to be done. I was gone for two days,’ Phaedra said.

‘That’s what Basingstoke is for. Let him do the job he’s been hired for.’ Giles gave her a patient, brotherly smile. ‘You need time to be yourself, to do things you enjoy, Phae. You’ve been working too hard. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’ Giles folded the newspaper and set it aside.

‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this spring, Phae. I know now isn’t the best time, but perhaps after dinner tonight?’ It was a token of how much Giles had softened this year that he was asking at all. Last year Giles would simply have issued his edict and considered it done.

‘Perhaps,’ Phaedra offered noncommittally. Giles could talk all he wanted. She wasn’t going to London for a Season. She had the Derby to think about. She couldn’t be spending her days on Bond Street trying on dresses to impress men she wasn’t going to marry, not when Warbourne needed her here. Phaedra grabbed up an apple from a bowl on the sideboard and made a hasty retreat before Giles decided to have the discussion right then.

Unlike the quiet house, the stables were a hive of activity. Horses and grooms rose early. Phaedra went straight to an old, unused tack room she’d converted into an office during the winter and began going through paperwork that had arrived while she was gone. There wasn’t much of it, but the ritual was soothing and it centred her thoughts. Here, sitting at the scarred desk she’d found in the stable storage loft, she felt at home. This was her place. A rough desk, a rough chair, the worn breeding ledgers lined on a shelf that detailed every foal born at Castonbury—all of it defined her world.

Phaedra pulled down a book that catalogued the horses at Castonbury. She flipped through until she found a blank page towards the back. She reached for the quill and inkstand on her desk and carefully wrote Warbourne , followed by his lineage, the price paid and date of purchase. She blew on the ink to dry it and surveyed the entry with a deep sense of pride. It was time to see the colt.