“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 fire
place, 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.