Page 63 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

“I shouldn’t think His Grace learned it there,” laughed the groom, having known Louisa since he was a child and speaking easily in her presence.

“No, I shouldn’t think so either,” Louisa agreed thoughtfully, realizing quite how much she still didn’t know about the man who was to be her husband.

How does the Duke of Northwick know how to ride bareback, and to perform such stunts as that?!

Within the half hour, Seraphine and Damien were at the stables and four horses were saddled and ready to ride. While the ladies and Damien made use of the mounting block, Benedict swung himself easily into the saddle from the ground with an echo of the same ease and grace that Louisa had witnessed in his leaping from the fence onto the back of frightened and fast-moving horse.

Her curiosity piqued, Louisa took the first opportunity to ride alongside him as the Duke and Duchess of Wexford fell back together, flirting and teasing one another like newlyweds, despite their six years of marriage.

“Thank you for what you did with Thunder earlier,” Louisa said. “It was amazing, but where did you learn to ride like that?”

“I learned as a child,” answered Benedict, laconically at first, although with an easy smile.

“But how?” she pressed, sensing how much more there could be to this story below the surface. “I have never seen anyone do what you did. If I had not witnessed it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it was possible.”

Who had taught him? Why? How had he become so good? Louisa saw some tension in Benedict’s handsome smile as he considered her second question with more thought, and then gave another answer that only deepened the mystery.

“When I was young, I often had to ride quickly to bring the physician to my mother. There was no time to saddle a horse.”

“Was she very ill?” enquired Louisa, envisioning a tragic scene where a beautiful ailing woman swooned on a bed as her husband clutched her hand, the servants wept, and their young son rushed valiantly off into the night to summon help. “Did your father have to stay with her? Why couldn’t the servants ride out, or at least saddle a horse for you?”

What had afflicted the duchess, she wondered? What had Benedict said of his mother before? Only that she was sweet-natured, fond of society and well-liked. Would it be crass to ask how his mother had died, and his father too?

Louisa remembered how the duke had spoken of his mother at the dressmaker, with great love and great sorrow in equal measure. The last Duchess of Northwick had Benedict’s dark hair and blue eyes, she recalled him saying, these details now entering the touching sick-bed scene in her imagination.

“Ha! They wouldn’t have dared,” Benedict told Louisa through gritted teeth. “The servants were too frightened of my father. If I hadn’t gone, likely my mother would have died…well, eventually she did die.”

“I’m…so sorry,” responded Louisa uncertainly, confused by both his words and their delivery, his answers obviously taking him much effort. “I didn’t mean to bring up difficult memories. You ride so well, and with such…unusual skills that I was intrigued.”

“I ride as I do because I had no choice except to learn,” Benedict added slowly, still speaking with difficulty and casting little light on the questions in Louisa’s head. “I had to move fast and act quickly enough that no one could stop me, and to follow my own conscience.”

By now, something wasn’t right with the scene in her imagination and Louisa felt a cold touch of dread, of the same kind as the moment when she had realized that she was not alone in the orchard that awful afternoon.

What had Benedict meant by his comment about the servants fearing his father so much? Had the former Duke of Northwick had some grudge against the physician, perhaps? Or had he been an over-religious man with an unshakeable faith in prayer? But still, if his wife was so very sick, surely he would have relented?

“What ailed your mother?” Louisa asked.

“My father,” replied Benedict, his voice catching strangely in his throat and his face turning away.

Abruptly, the Duke of Northwick urged his horse into a gallop, streaking ahead along the path and leaving Louisa blinking after him in confusion.

What did I say?!

Chapter Twenty-Six

Bewildered, Louisa stared after the Duke of Northwick for a few seconds. What could he mean about his mother and father? She had the sense of standing on the edge of a possible precipice in poor weather, not knowing whether there was a sheer drop on the other side, or only a gentle slope.

Louisa gathered that something very, very bad had happened once on this metaphorical mountain drop. While frightened to look over the edge and see what lay beyond, Louisa was conscious that it was something that caused Benedict pain. If she was to be his wife then she had a duty to look, didn’t she? Was her duty not also to comfort him?

Leaning low over Moonlight’s neck, Louisa urged her horse forward in Benedict’s wake. A highly competent rider in her own careful way, she caught up with Benedict as soon as he slowed Thunder's gait. They had reached the top of a sloping path and then followed it around to the side, the Duke and Duchess of Wexford still dallying and temporarily out of sight.

“I am sorry if I said anything to upset you, Benedict,” she called to him, half-thinking that he might race off again on finding her beside him. “Your feats of riding intrigued me, and I know so little of your family. Forgive me if I intruded.”

The duke looked keenly at Louisa with his singular blue and green eyes, their expression serious but not angry.

“You need not apologize for what is not your fault, Louisa,” Benedict replied as they rode close alongside one another. “Certain memories will never… lie easy with me. You should know that before we marry.”

“If you ever wish to talk to me of your memories, I should wish to listen,” Louisa told him sincerely, stopping her horse. “Talking can sometimes ease problems that hurt the soul…Oh!”