“Now that looks rather dangerous,” Gwen said, nodding in the direction of the land below them.
Three riders were moving like toy figures across the landscape. They were not following any road or lane but were riding a more or less straight course across the fields. They were moving at speed, galloping neck or nothing, in fact. If they encountered a stone or a rabbit hole in the uneven ground that was common to most fields they would be down in a moment, injured and very possibly killed. Even as they watched, the riders made straight for a hedge and soared over it. Gwen sucked in her breath, but they landed safely on the other side and galloped onward.
“One of them is a woman,” Gwendoline said.
With long, fair hair streaming out behind her.
“Lady Freyja Bedwyn,” Lauren said. “With Lord Rannulf and Lord Alleyne, if I am not mistaken. They are riding in this direction. They must be intending to call at Alvesley.”
“The lady Lord Redfield intended for Lord Ravensberg?” Gwendoline asked, shading her eyes with one hand and squinting more intently at the riders. “Gracious, Lauren, she is not wearing a hat, and her hair is down. Will she call on the countess looking like that?”
“I believe so.” She was riding sidesaddle, but she was doing so with consummate skill. Lauren felt unwilling admiration.
“Is she beautiful?” Gwen asked.
“No, not beautiful,” Lauren said. Indeed her first impression had been that Lady Freyja was remarkably ugly. “She has a bold, dark-complexioned face with a prominent nose and dark eyebrows quite at variance with the color of her hair. She is . . . handsome.” That was not quite the right word, either. There was something about her, some charisma that Lauren knew she herself could never acquire even if she lived for a million years.
“And so are her brothers, if my guess is correct,” Gwen said. “Are they really going to Alvesley? If so, Lord Ravensberg’s insistence upon calling in person at Lindsey Hall yesterday and yours upon accompanying him seem to have brought about the desired results.”
“I am glad, then,” Lauren said. “Neighbors ought not to be at variance with one another.”
She could picture Lady Freyja and Kit riding side by side. Galloping stride for stride, soaring over hedgerows together, laughing, careless of danger. They were surely perfect for each other. And surely must still love each other. Certainly Lauren felt no doubt that the lady’s behavior yesterday had been occasioned by severely disappointed hopes.
But perhaps not disappointed forever, she thought, watching the riders disappear around a bend in the hill in the direction of the Palladian bridge. Once the summer was over, they would be free to rekindle their love without the direct interference of either the Earl of Redfield or the Duke of Bewcastle. By Christmas they would probably be married. He would be happy. He would have made up his quarrel with his father and would have overcome the awkwardness with his brother. He would have recovered the love of his heart.
By Christmas she would be established in Bath.
The thick band of clouds, which had been drifting closer for an hour or more, finally obscured the sun. Lauren shivered in the sudden chill.
The Earl of Redfield had decided to take his son, not just to the hay field, as planned, but on a general tour of the home farm. He talked determinedly and impersonally for most of the morning about crops and drainage and cattle and wages and a dozen other related topics. They stopped occasionally to talk to workers. Kit had the distinct impression that his father was uncomfortable with him and did not know how to deal with him on any personal level.
But he understood. He felt the same way.
He had been a cavalry officer for ten years. He knew, of course, how to take orders. Even as a lieutenant-colonel for the last year and a half of his service there had always been superior officers. But in the main he had been the one in charge, the one who issued orders, the one who bore all the responsibility of seeing them executed. That had been particularly true of his numerous missions as a reconnaissance officer, when he frequently had to make his own difficult and momentous decisions. He had made a name for himself in that capacity. He had been daring and ruthless, but utterly practical and trustworthy. He had been the one chosen for all the most seemingly impossible tasks. He had always found a way to do what had to be done. He had felt like a man very much in command of his own life.
It was only with his family that he had ever felt gauche and worthless. With his family he had been a massive failure—beginning with Sydnam’s intrusion upon his other life. But only beginning there. It had culminated, he supposed, in the year he had just wasted in London, behaving more like a callow youth than the Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ravensberg known to his colleagues in the army. Almost as if he had felt compelled to prove to the whole of the fashionable world just how worthless he really was. Almost as if he had wanted word to get back to Alvesley so that his father and the rest of his family would be confirmed in their opinion of him.
He had never even tried to think this all out before. Was he really so immature?
“Does Syd always ride out with you on business?” he asked abruptly when they were finally on their way home. Except this morning.
“Usually,” his father said.
“I am surprised he is able to ride,” Kit said, broaching a topic he had no wish to pursue, except that it could not be avoided forever. Syd had no right arm.
“He has always been stubborn,” the earl said. “He was out of his sickbed long before the doctor advised any movement at all. He kept walking, even though he had to grit his teeth against the pain, until he could do it without limping. And he bruised himself over and over—and caused your mother many a bitter tear—until he could ride without losing his seat and falling off. He practiced for long hours until he could write legibly with his left hand. And he started spending whole days together with Parkin, learning the duties of a steward. When Parkin retired at the end of last year, Sydnam asked me if he could have his position.”
“But Syd was not cut out to be a steward,” Kit protested.
“He has made a life for himself,” his father said firmly. “He will accept no salary from me, of course, but he has been talking to Bewcastle about employment on one of the numerous Bedwyn estates. It seems that an opening is to be expected in the autumn—a salaried position even though Sydnam has independent means and does not need it. He is determined to be his own man. He does not wish to stand in your way here.”
But Alvesley would need a steward. Why not Sydnam if he was already doing the job? It was at least something he could do at home, where he had family to care for his needs. But of course that family now included Kit. That was explanation enough for Syd’s determination to leave.
“Why did he not come with you this morning?” Kit asked, though the answer was, of course, obvious. Because I am with you.
“The account books needed bringing up to date,” his father said.
They were riding past a neat row of freshly thatched cottages, and the earl pointed them out as some of the laborers’ homes, which had been leaking during the spring. He hailed and exchanged pleasantries with a woman who was outside sweeping the threshold of her home while three young children played in the grass nearby.
“Your mother and I would like to have the first banns for your nuptials read on Sunday,” his father said abruptly as they rode on. “Our family members and Miss Edgeworth’s can be persuaded to stay on here for a month, I daresay, to attend the wedding. I suppose that after what happened at Newbury last year, she will not wish to be married there. There is no reason for delay, is there? We approve of her. She is a true lady. The embarrassment over Lady Freyja is an unfortunate one, but there is no point in dwelling upon what cannot be helped. What do you say?”