Chapter Ten

B y the time she reached Verwood, Cassie's hems were muddied, and her foot throbbed mercilessly, but she went directly to the stables. As she expected, Snell and John Coachman and the stable boys were at their Sunday meal. She closed her eyes a minute to take in the smells of the place and the sounds of horses stirring. She smelled the clover in the hay, the neatsfoot oil on the tack, the whiff of manure, and above all the sweet smell of horseflesh. When she opened her eyes again, she grabbed a handful of oats from the feed room and made her way down the aisle of stalls to Hermes.

Her passage through the stable raised a few nickers from the curious, and when she reached him, Hermes stood in the shadowy stall, ears up, alert, his nostrils aquiver.

"You're not a brute, are you, boy? No matter what people think."

He snorted and swished his tail, but did not come to her.

"We could try again, you and I. I brought you some oats." She held out her hand and opened her palm. It was a pitiful gesture. His trust was worth having and therefore not easily won. She waited, but he remained unmoving.

"The accident was not your fault." She watched his ears catch her voice. "The fault was mine. Snell warned me that you were too young to know your limits."

She pulled back her hand and spread the oats along the top of the stall door crosspiece. "I'll come again," she told him.

She was almost to the end of the aisle when she heard the distinctive low rumble of his nicker, a sound that came from deep in his belly.

*

Cassie's attempt to enter the house unnoticed failed. Cook, catching sight of her as she crept through the kitchen, muddy shoes in hand, offered a quick scold, but set water warming and told Cassie a bath would be ready in no time.

Cassie had a long soak and time to reflect on her situation in the glaring light cast on it by the remarks of Sir Adrian and Mr. Kydd. Neither gentleman had the least suspicion of saying anything to shake her, but that had been the result.

After her bath she dressed in one of the old gowns she had been content to wear forever, but now she heard Mr. Kydd's teasing voice describing her clothes as castoffs. She had made no push to change her situation until the numbers in the Verwood ledgers had gone so against her. A tenant had seemed the perfect way to make Verwood pay for itself, and Sir Adrian seemed, if not the perfect tenant, the richest. Now she saw that his staying at Verwood very much depended on the affections of Lord Ramsbury's daughter. Cassie had been idle too long.

As she pulled a stocking over her misshapen foot, she resolved to speak to her grandmother no matter how unbending Grandmama could be. The silk snagged as it always did, and she gently pulled it past the scar. Over the years, she had invented a dozen ways of describing the lump on the top of her foot. Doctor Ormond had put names to her broken bones. The cuneiforms and the metatarsals , he called them. Whatever their names, what Cassie saw was a mound, like the dirt pushed up by a mad vole as it tunneled through the garden. The low ridge of fused bone angled across her foot, and the shortened foot cocked inward.

It wasn't pretty, but the point was that the bones had healed. Neither she nor Hermes needed to be perfect to carry on. She slipped her foot into one of the loose slippers she wore at home and descended for evening tea.

Her grandmama's sharp stare met her as she entered the sitting room, freshly painted in deep gold, a reminder of their dependence on Sir Adrian's rent.

"And where did you get to, my headstrong girl?" Grandmama sat stiffly upright in a slightly thread-worn, crimson velvet armchair, a relic from the big house.

"I walked home." Cassie crossed to the tea table and took her seat. The fire in the limestone fireplace gave a glow to the deep gold walls. A hint of fading light in the sky caught the silver of the teapot. A glance from Honoria warned Cassie that her grandmother was in a mood. She could no more rush a conversation about Hermes than she could hurry the tea. She lifted the lid on the pot. Nearly ready. Thankfully, Cook had prepared Grandmama's favorite orange-water rout cakes.

"Sir Adrian didn't take you up?" Grandmama began.

"He did not."

"But you and he were speaking when we pulled away." Cassie heard the aggrieved tone, but didn't understand the reason for it, except that Grandmama apparently wanted to provoke a quarrel.

"Only briefly. His new neighbors claimed him."

"He should have made his excuses and taken you up."

"Did you ask him to bring me home, Grandmama?" Cassie frowned. Her grandmother had as much as admitted that she had left Cassie behind deliberately.

"I should not have to ask." Her grandmother looked away. "Sir Adrian should know what is fitting, what is due to me as his landlady."

"I should think that civility to his neighbors was fitting behavior for the tenant of Verwood," Cassie said.

"Hah," said her grandmother. "He may be civil to 'em, but trust me, a man like that will not marry one of their daughters, no matter how many courses and removes those hopeful mama's put before him. He's got ambitions."

Cassie concealed a smile. Her grandmama, who gave the impression of finding ordinary mortals quite beneath her notice, rarely missed anything. Grandmama was right that Sir Adrian's ambitious marriage plans did not include their neighbors' daughters, but she did not guess that he desired to marry Lady Amabel Haydon. Nor would Grandmama imagine that Sir Adrian felt the besotted sort of love that could get one's heart broken. That was the worry. If he did get his heart broken, Cassie was sure he would leave Verwood without a backward glance. That unsettling possibility had occupied her thoughts throughout her bath. Without the income from his rent, they would once again have to rely on Grandmama's jointure and the allowance from Cassie's trust. They would be strapped, wearing old gowns, and making no trips to London. If Hermes could run, maybe they would not need a tenant who had given his heart away.

Cassie poured a cup of tea and took it to her grandmother.

"What else is his leasing of Verwood?" her grandmother asked. "It's his grand scheme to rise in the world. What does his family make? Mustard?"

"That's the Colman family, Lottie," Honoria commented. "Sir Adrian is a Cole . They make fire engines and plate glass."

"Colman, Cole, neither name has an ounce of distinction. He depends upon being a tenant of Verwood to make his mark in society."

Cassie raised a brow. The sharpness of her grandmother's displeasure surprised her. "The Lavenham's once had undistinguished name, until our ancestors found royal favor."

Honoria gave a gleeful chortle and drew a glare from Grandmama.

"I'm sorry Sir Adrian disappointed you, Grandmama," Cassie said, trying to head off a full blown quarrel. "I'm sure he had no idea that he was expected to offer me a place in his carriage. I didn't think to ask him. You know how I like my walks."

Cassie passed a cup of tea to Honoria and rose to hand round the plate of Cook's fragrant rout cakes. It was true that her grandmother's favoring Sir Adrian did him no harm in their neighbors' eyes, but it was unlike Grandmama to insist on Cassie's accepting a ride from him. The affront to Grandmama's pride at Sir Adrian for not offering the ride seemed at odds with her usual condemnation of his presumption. Clearly, Sir Adrian could not win.

For a few minutes the ladies enjoyed their tea and cakes. Cassie imagined that in other households Sir Adrian's would-be hostesses were planning their menus and their guest lists, thinking up ways to distinguish their offerings from those of their rivals. Mrs. Montford, the vicar's wife, who was to take the lead was probably wondering whether Sir Adrian was fond of an oyster-stuffed roast leg of mutton, or whether he would prefer braised turkey. Cassie smiled at the challenge of it, how to please Sir Adrian and still remain memorable after all the other ladies had their turn at entertaining their new wealthy neighbor.

"May we speak of something else?" Cassie asked.

"Oh yes, let's," Honoria pleaded.

"Very well," said Grandmama. "What would you speak of?"

Cassie set down her cup. There was no easy way to begin. "Hermes."

Grandmama frowned. Honoria froze, her hands caught in the fringe of her shawl. Silence prevailed while the last daylight faded from the sky, and shadows bloomed in the corners of the room. The teacup in Cassie's hand cooled.

"Well, have your say, girl," her grandmother said at last.

Cassie took a steadying breath. "Hasn't Hermes been punished enough for an accident that was not his fault?"

"Punished? Is that what you think? He lives very well, mind you. It's all green pastures and freedom for him."

"But he was born to run, wasn't he? He's young yet. If you began training him, Grandmama, he could run again."

"Foolish girl. What do you know about preparing a horse to run?"

"I know Hermes was meant to win races. Meant to establish the Verwood stud."

"You've not been speaking to that Crockett woman, have you? Or Snell? He knows my thinking. He would never go against my wishes."

"I don't need Snell to tell me that if Hermes won a few purses, gentlemen would bring their mares to Verwood, hoping to breed a champion, and the stud could pay for itself again."

For a moment her grandmother said nothing. Cassie held her breath.

Her grandmother stood, and let her gaze sweep the small sitting room. "Leasing Verwood was your idea, Cassandra. Do not blame me or my horses for finding yourself confined to these narrow walls."

"I don't, Grandmama. I blame only myself. The accident was my fault, not the fault of Hermes. And I have let my situation hold us all back far too long."

"Oh Cassie, no." Honoria twisted the ends of her shawl. "You mustn't say so. You mustn't go back to that dark time."

Cassie turned to Honoria. "Don't worry, Aunt. I see clearly now what happened that night."

"You do?" Honoria asked.

Cassie nodded. She had no recollection of hitting her head that night, but she knew perfectly how her foot had come to be broken. "What happened then matters less than what we do now." She turned back to meet her grandmother's fierce gaze. "Neither Hermes, nor I, are what we once were. If he proves manageable enough for me to ride, will you train him, Grandmama? I know you would like to see him run again."

Honoria gasped.

Grandmama gave Honoria a withering glance, and turned toward the door. Her hand on the knob, she paused and glanced back at Cassie. "You are dreaming, girl. I forbid you to endanger yourself on that horse again."