A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

Jack joined Griggs and Percy in the estate office. Percy produced the list he’d extracted from Anthony; Jack read through the workmanlike effort, then commended Percy, who glowed.

Howlett appeared to announce luncheon. In the dining room, they found Anthony propped in a Bath chair, looking pale but grimly determined.

“If I can be forced to remember the entire family,” he said in response to Jack’s raised brow, “in all its glory, root and branch, I can sit up.”

Jack smiled and took his seat. “You’d better be sure not to damage anything, or Connimore will be unbearable.”

Anthony arched a brow. “Spoken from experience?”

“Just so,” Jack affirmed.

The meal passed comfortably. Jack, Griggs, and Percy discussed the farms Percy would see that afternoon. Anthony teased, but mostly simply listened. Despite his bravado, his broken bones were still painful.

At the end of the meal, they strolled into the front hall, Percy wheeling Anthony in the chair. Jack caught Anthony’s eyes. “If I were you, I’d get what rest you can. Clarice said she’d come by this afternoon to bear you company.”

Anthony’s face lit with delighted, almost childlike enthusiasm. “Excellent!”

Percy was less sure. “Perhaps she plays chess?”

Anthony raised his brows. Both he and Percy looked inquiringly at Jack.

What did they think? “I wouldn’t be surprised, but don’t feel too badly if she trounces you.”

Anthony chortled. Two footmen carried his chair upstairs; Anthony waved cheerily as they carted him along the gallery back to his room.

Jack repaired to the estate office with Griggs and Percy. After a final round of conferring, with Percy armed with a detailed map of the estate, Jack and Percy set out to do the rounds, Percy in the gig behind a calm and stately mare, Jack on Challenger.

Jack hadn’t had the gray gelding out for two days; Percy eyed Challenger’s consequent snorting and cavorting with overt distrust.

Jack grinned; tightening the reins, he brought Challenger to pace, aloof and unrepentant, beside the gig as Percy steered the mare down the drive. “How are your riding lessons going?”

Percy cast Challenger a look, then pointed at the mare. “Crawler had me out on Matilda here yesterday.”

“And?”

Percy shrugged. “It went well enough, but we didn’t get past a trot.” He glanced again at Challenger. “I’ll never be able to manage a horse like him.”

Jack smiled and looked ahead as they turned out of the drive. “You don’t have to. Being able to ride Matilda will get you around the estate well enough. You don’t need to ride like the wind.”

They rattled and clopped across the stone bridge. Scenting the open fields beyond, Challenger tugged at the bit, restless and not understanding why Jack didn’t want to gallop. “Speaking of which”—Jack ruthlessly held the gelding on a tight rein—“one of the consequences of riding horses like this is that they need to run.” He nodded ahead to the fields north of the road. “You know where we’re headed—the Delancey farm. If I leave you here, can you find your way there? I’ll let Challenger stretch his legs and meet you in the lane outside the farm gate.”

Percy nodded. “I won’t get lost. I’ve got the map, and Griggs said it was accurate.”

Jack saluted and wheeled away.

Two minutes later, he was streaking across a field not yet planted with its summer crop. Challenger crushed the stubble of winter wheat beneath his pounding hooves; the scent of the dried stalks and the smell of bare earth warming in the sunshine rose and flowed over them.

Jack gave himself up to the moment, to the race that was not a competition but simply a private joy, that sent a rush of exhilaration down his veins unclouded by any risk, any consequence. He and Challenger flew across his lands purely because they could, and wanted to.

Perhaps needed to.

The sun shone down; the breeze was a mere wisp of sensation. For one finite moment he understood what it meant to feel his heart was singing.

In the same moment, he realized what it truly meant to be home.

It was odd how, sometimes, different things connected, or more accurately made a connection in the mind. While riding free on Challenger’s back, thundering across his lands, his fields, Jack had felt a sense of rightness, of home and all that meant to him—not before, but now—click like a jigsaw about him. As if him being there was the final necessary piece to make his life whole…bar one.