Anne reached up to touch the necklace lightly, as though confirming it was properly secured.
“I am.” She nodded. “I will be downstairs in a moment.”
Dorian glanced at her once more, then toward the door. There was the briefest pause, so small it might have been nothing at all, then he walked out of the room.
Although he did not make it two steps before he stopped to watch her again.
Anne remained standing in front of the mirror for a moment longer, her fingers still resting against the clasp at her neck, as though the touch had stayed with her as much as it had with him.
But he doubted that it had.
CHAPTER 9
The days leading up to the races had made the staff at Ashford Hall restless.
From dawn, the stable yard rarely quieted. Horses moved constantly between the paddocks and training grounds, stablehands hurried between instructions, and Dorian spent more hours than he cared to count buried beneath financial concerns he had once managed with far greater confidence.
But it was not all bad. Investors had begun returning now that rumors surrounding his marriage spread through Yorkshire, though their optimism remained cautious. A duke with a duchess appeared respectable, a respectable duke suggested stability, and stability suggested profit.
Still, even with the stables regaining attention, the pressure remained unbearable. Diamond’s performance in the upcoming race mattered more than anyone outside Ashford Hall understood. One failed showing would shatter weeks of renewed confidence, and though Dorian trusted his trainers,trust had become a complicated thing after so many recent disappointments.
Strangely, the one opinion he had begun relying on most was Anne’s.
At first, he had expected her involvement in the stables to remain temporary. A few afternoons beside Diamond, he thought, and she would leave it all be. Instead, she had inserted herself into the running of the stables so thoroughly that half his servants now deferred to her without hesitation.
More annoyingly, they were right to do so.
“You are pushing him too quickly.” The voice drifted across the stable yard one cold afternoon, calm but firm enough to halt movement almost immediately.
Dorian looked up from the ledger in his hands. Anne stood near one of the younger thoroughbreds, her gloves dark against the horse’s chestnut coat, while a visibly nervous stablehand hovered nearby.
“He has to strengthen before racing season, Your Grace.”
“He has to trust the rider first,” Anne corrected gently. “You cannot force confidence into a frightened animal. This is why he throws you all.”
The horse stamped once against the dirt. Anne rested a hand against his neck, and almost instantly the tension in him eased.
“You are asking him to obey you before he feels safe,” she continued, her voice softening slightly. “That never ends well.”
The stablehand nodded quickly. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Dorian closed the ledger slowly, unable to stop watching. His wife moved differently there than she did inside the house. She was more certain of herself, more alive.
Ashford Hall still overwhelmed her in certain ways, particularly during formal meals or endless visits from neighboring families who suddenly seemed desperate to congratulate him on his unexpected marriage, yet the stables belonged to her. He found himself watching for those moments far too often.
“You are staring again.” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
She had approached without him noticing, her horse following behind her with startling obedience.
“I amobserving,” he corrected.
She gave him a look that made it painfully obvious she had already grown tired of that answer. “If that is what you wish to call it.”
“And what would you say it is?”
“Suspicious, for one.”
“Suspicious?” He raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Anne, I am wounded.”
