Page 19 of The Cornish Bride

She bent and planted a kiss on Morvoren’s thin cheek. “Until tomorrow, Sister.”

Back out in the corridor, Ysella skipped her way down to the nursery on feet as light as air. Morvoren was getting better, and the sun was at last shining through windows where the shutters had been drawn back. Everything was fine in the world. The right way up again at last. She would confide in Morvoren about Oliver tomorrow, if Loveday and Mama could be got rid of. The thought left a warm coil in her stomach. Nothing would be better than telling Morvoren how handsome Oliver was and how he’d declared his passion for her and how she cherished the hope that he would soon ask for her hand in marriage. She could even dismiss the nagging doubt that he wouldn’t come down to Marlborough as he’d promised, and that right now he was still enjoying the season by dancing attendance on some other young lady. No, that could not happen.

But what to do now? Mama was busy with Morvoren, Kit had retired to his old room to take some much-needed sleep, and no one else was about. Her whole body itched for action. What about a ride? With the sun shining down on the damp world, she was in the mood for a helter-skelter gallop.

She repaired to her own room and summoned Martha.

Half an hour later, she emerged from the servants’ hall corridor into the stableyard in her dark-green riding habit. All was quiet. The stable staff must be eating their midday meal. Good. Since she’d first learned from Morvoren, she’d become adept at saddling her own horse, Lochinvar. And she fancied a ride out all by herself, not with some groom trailing after her. She wasn’t planning on leaving the estate, after all, so what harm could there be?

She went into the large tack room, the aroma of well-cared for leather and horse assaulting her nostrils. A smell she’d liked from being the smallest of girls with the first tiny pony Papa had presented her with. She inhaled deeply—what a heady perfume. With a longing glance at the regular saddles used for riding astride, she lifted down her own side-saddle with some difficulty as it was heavy, and Lochinvar’s bridle, then took the side door into the stable building.

Bypassing the first looseboxes, she headed for Lochinvar’s stable, and, seeing her coming, he let out a low whicker. Setting down her load, she put her finger to her lips. “Sshh! I don’t want them hearing us.”

It took her only a moment to slip a headstall on and tie him up. His gleaming chestnut coat required no grooming, but she picked the loose straw out of his long tail. Not being a tall girl, she had to fetch a bucket to stand on for saddling up, but he stood patiently while she worked. With a heave, she managed to get the side-saddle onto his back, then fastened his girth. The bridle went on more easily, because he’d been trained from colthood to lower his head for the bit. She tightened the girth a second time, something Morvoren had taught her, and led him out into the yard, his shod hooves making far too much noise on the cobbles. Ysella sent a wary glance towards the servants’ door, but no one came.

Luckily, a high mounting block stood to one side, otherwise she would have found mounting up impossible. Positioning Lochinvar with care, she climbed up the steps and slipped onto the saddle. Her right leg hooked around the pommel, and her left foot slid into her one stirrup. She gathered up her reins and with a click of her tongue, trotted Lochinvar out of the courtyard, certain no one had seen her go, or a groom would have been dispatched to accompany her.

As Lochinvar had been standing idle in his loose box, what she should have done, and what had been hammered home to her by Mama from her earliest childhood, was walk to begin with. But that would have involved staying within sight of the Abbey’s many windows for far too long. So, instead, she urged her eager horse into a canter until she reached the track that ran through the woods, where she let him slow to a walk. “Sorry, Lochy,” she muttered, almost to herself.

The Ormonde Abbey estate covered over five thousand acres in a shape a little like a crescent moon, but the majority of those acres were farms let out to tenants. Some large, some small. The estate woodland, used for pheasant rearing and shooting, wasn’t in a block, but stretched out between the farms with tracks through it linking them together. A few handy jumps littered the woods, built by the gardeners at Kit’s request. A request that had ultimately come from Ysella, who loved to hunt and therefore to jump.

The amount of pocking in the mud around the jumps suggested to Ysella that Kit had been out here jumping them himself not too long ago, but it didn’t deter her from popping over them with Lochinvar. He loved to jump as well, and, as they landed, snatched at his bit in an effort to get his head. Ysella reined him in. Too many low branches in the woods for a flat-out gallop, which was what both she and her horse were longing for. But, if she rode down towards the village, an inviting long track ran back towards home. It curved around to the west with an uphill incline that would be perfect for a gallop. She set off through the woods in that direction.

The thatched rooftops of the village came into view down in the hollow, woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys to hang in the air, the smell of it a sharp tang on the breeze. As she drew closer, she spotted the bent figures of some of the women at work in their stone-walled gardens. They must be digging their vegetable patches ready for planting. Ysella, who knew next to nothing about vegetable gardening, tipped her hat to them in greeting. They straightened up, most of them bobbing wobbly curtsies.

One of the oldest, who Ysella recognized as the Widow Elkins, set her hands on her hips and called out. “The young Lady Ormonde. Be she all righty, Miss Ysella?”

So even down here they’d heard. Ysella drew rein in front of her, and the other women approached, wiping dirty hands on aprons, all agog to hear the news. “The fever has broken,” Ysella announced, proud of being able to bring them good news about Morvoren. “Doctor Busick expects her to recover.”

The Widow Elkins’ lined face creased even further in a toothless smile. “Mind’n tell her we was askin’ after her, if’n you don’t mind, Miss Ysella.” The other women nodded, echoing her words in a muttered chorus. “Tell her she been missed.”

A little cheer went up, and, with a nod and a smile, Morvoren turned Lochinvar between the houses towards the entrance to the long track home. The sound of trotting hooves interrupted her. She turned her head. A handsome bay was approaching down the dirt road, astride it a gentleman, whose identity, even though no longer clad in scarlet regimentals, she could not mistake.

“Oliver!” She tightened her hold on Lochinvar who had been anticipating his gallop as much as she had, and Oliver brought his sweating horse up beside her, his face wreathed in smiles.

“Ysella! I could hardly dare to hope that if I rode this way I might find you also out on a horse. This is wonderful. Meant. Fate must be smiling on us.”

She gazed at him in awe. Even without his regimentals and with his wavy hair concealed by a dashing top hat, he was a vision to behold. Even more handsome than her memory had allowed her to recall. And he’d kept his promise. Her doubts had been unfounded. He’d followed her down from London to Wiltshire and come looking for her. Her stomach did a delightful leap, and her cheeks flushed with heat.

“I’m so pleased to see you, and I have good news. My sister-in-law is recovering and is on the mend. I only found out this morning. It felt as though a great load had been lifted from my soul, so I decided that what I needed was a gallop in the fresh air. So here I am. And the sun is smiling on me.”

Oliver peered up the track, which was narrow and ran between two thorny hedges. “Is that your intended galloping track?”

She nodded. “Absolutely.” Her lips curved into a smile she couldn’t hold in. “Do you fancy a gallop as well?”

Oliver’s eyes twinkled in a way that set Ysella’s heart to pounding. “A race,” he said, grinning. “But a race is nothing without a wager.”

He was going to have a hard job beating Lochinvar, so why not? Mama would be horrified at her making a wager like this with a gentleman, but then, Mama would be horrified that she was out without a groom, as well. And that she was all alone with said gentleman. But what Mama couldn’t see, Mama couldn’t rail at, and besides, she was probably far too busy with Morvoren to notice anything Ysella got up to. She nodded, lifting her chin, her dander up. “A wager indeed, then. What are the stakes?”

Oliver’s eyes smoldered. “A kiss.”

More heat rushed to Ysella’s cheeks. Far more than she would have liked. How forward of any young man to demand a kiss in return for a race victory. Well, how forward of him to suggest the race in the first place. Oliver seemed intent on proving himself an altogether very forward young man indeed. But wasn’t that rather nice? At least she had an idea what he wanted, and if it happened to coincide with something she wanted… like a kiss… which of course she did want. Although, of course, he’d not yet mentioned marriage even once, only, rather deliciously, that he had to have her. But that didn’t matter. Wasn’t marriage what all young admirers came to in the end?

“Very well,” she said, heart hammering at her own daring. She’d raced Kit and Morvoren countless times, and usually won as she had Lochinvar, but this was different. “For a kiss.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you win, you may steal your kiss. If I win, you will go away empty-handed.”

He nodded. “May the best man win.”

“Woman,” Ysella retorted, and leaning forward on Lochinvar, set her heel and whip to his sides. He leapt forward like a coiled spring unleashed, and by her side Oliver applied heels and whip to his own bay’s flanks. The horses thundered up the narrow track, Lochinvar just in front of the bay, his neck stretched out, just like one of the hunting pictures in the hall at Ormonde.