“Ready, My Lady?”
“As I will ever be,” Adelaine replied and grasping the voluminous skirts descended the stairs one-by-one.
Islington who was lingering at the foot, looked more than delighted to see her. Of course, he would, my breasts are on a shelf! His all-black outfit, coat, breeches, and high-quality leather riding boots that extended to the knees, gave him a little menacing look but his bright smile mollified it. The lord then bowed. “My Lady, you are more beautiful than ever.”
“What have I told you about flattery?” Adelaine said dryly. “Where will it lead you?”
“Nowhere,” he said.
“Exactly,” she said while taking out her gloves. “Has my horse been sent for?”
“Yes, My Lady,” a footman said. “She is saddled and is waiting outside.”
While the mounting block was set aside her horse, and a footman helped her up into the sidesaddle, Lord Islington easily mounted his steed, a large chestnut stallion that looked over sixteen hands in height. Her gentle mare Rhea looked insignificant beside it.
She shifted in her seat, slipping easily into the sidesaddle riding position. “So, where do you propose we go, My Lord?”
“You mentioned the places you and your brother would go play in when you were children,” Islington said as he directed his horse near her. “Would you mind showing me them?”
“Not at all,” Adelaine said while bracing herself for some heartache. Seeing the places she and Peter had played in was bound to evoke grief. Adelaine was mindful of Martha and the footman riding behind them but she focused more on where she was taking Islington toward.
They had to canter to the back pastures but when they got there slowed to a walk. This large stretch of land held so many dear memories for her.
Dutifully she pointed the places out once their horses slowed to a gentle walk. She pointed to a hillock where Peter had attempted to do a logroll. He had almost made it to the end when his footing slipped, only to have him pitch backward and fall on his bum. She showed him another place where Peter had allowed her to beat him in their footraces and another where they played hide and seek.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy…being with him?” Adelaine asked as her eyes ran over the snow-covered vale. “Yes, I did. Sometimes I had to wait for him to get out of his studies to come and play. If it got too late, he’d promise to make it up the next day. I remember the series of lessons he absolutely hated.”
“What were the lessons?” Islington asked.
“You might not believe it but, history and religion,” Adelaine replied. “He hated that both history and religion maligned women into vessels of evil. He had a special tenderness for the gentler sex, and was inconsolable when mother died.”
She spurred her mount over to the stump of the oak tree and could only manage a wan smile. “This is the remains of the tree Peter and I used to climb. It became infested with pests and had to be cut down.”
Islington took a wide circle of the stump. He then looked up and grinned. “I can see you, a wisp of a thing climbing up this tree. Was it about fifty-feet tall?”
“About that,” Adelaine said as she glanced down. A section of the ground between the arching roots looked dug up. The snow was displaced and the ground under it was a dark mound on the snow around it. Adelaine dismissed it; perhaps it was just a mole making a new home. “How did you know that?”
“The size of the width of the stump and some geometry calculations, My Lady,” Islington said briefly. He then looked around. “Care to take a run?”
“In this dress, I don’t think it prudent to—” his daring look made her pause. “I suppose I can give it a go.”
They lined their horse up and Adelaine, knowing it was foolhardy to gallop in a dress but she was not going to let him have all the fun.
“I can give you a head start,” Islington said.
She ground her teeth. She knew Islington was trying to look generous and his words could be taken as such, if he had not said them in such an arrogant tone. “No, no, let’s ride together.”
“If you insist,” Islington said, and with that, a nudge of his heels and hers, they were off.
As the horses moved from a canter to a gallop forward, the clopping of hooves drummed in her ears and her mind churned. They barely knew each other. What she did know of him, besides the fact that he had a good lineage and education, he’d shown her in deeds. He was a bit arrogant, entitled and was probably a lothario. But he was mindful, witty and attentive. Could she marry him?
They turned and came back the other way. She loved the wind on her face. It was at the end of the race—which she lost—she realized there was no air in her lungs. The corset was restricting her chest so much that her heaving chest had no space to expand. She tried to measure her breathing but failed.
“I must say, My Lady, you ride— by Jove! You’re blue in the face!” Islington was off his horse in seconds and lifted her off too. She was rested on his chest while he tugged her coat off and unlaced her bodice so she could breathe. His undoing of her bodice’s laces was a bit too practiced but she would reflect on that later.
When the bodice eased, she gasped in deep breaths of cold air but ignored the burn in her throat while the fire in the chest cooled. “Better?”