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Memory returned in a vivid flash: mounting a horse so fresh he fought the bit, coaxing him to accept Dom’s weight, moving him forward. And then the sheer soul-filling wonder of leaning low over the beast’s head while the countryside flashed by him, the exhilaration as the horse gathered himself and threw heart and body over fence or pond or fallen log, the possibility of a rough landing or a fall ever present, adding a spice of danger.
Wonder, exhilaration, and excitement he’d never experience again.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered frankly. ‘By the time I went up to Oxford, I knew I wanted to spend my life breeding and training horses that were the strongest, fastest, most fearless jumpers in England, both to follow the hounds and to race cross-country.’
‘Like Diablo.’
‘Like Diablo,’ he said. ‘Horses which, as you know, I can no longer ride. With the endeavour that was the focus of my life since I outgrew short coats no longer feasible, I’ve come back full circle, to Bildenstone, looking for something to replace it. Thus far, singularly bereft of inspiration, I’ve been drifting along, unable to force myself to sever those ties with the past, unable to see a future I want to pursue.’
She nodded, offering him no empty platitudes, for which he was grateful. But as she sat regarding him thoughtfully, Dom wondered what had possessed him to confess his failings to her. Just because they’d shared the same experiences and challenges in the army—just because a potent sensuality pulled them together—didn’t mean she was interested in his inability to redefine his life. A difficulty, incidentally, about which he’d said nothing to Max or Alastair, and admitted only to Will, who’d tended him with a mother’s care after his injuries.
‘So many never made it off the killing fields of Waterloo,’ she said softly, startling him out of his reverie. ‘For you to be so severely wounded and survive, yet be ill equipped to continue your previous pursuits, it seems to me that you must have been spared for a purpose. To become a new man, meant to pursue something that lies in an altogether different direction. Your challenge is to resist looking back, regretting what you’ve lost, and discover instead what is meant for you now.’
‘As you have?’ he asked, well aware that his wasn’t the only life whose course had been shattered by the case shot of Waterloo.
She gave him a brave smile. ‘Easy for me to offer advice. I already know what I’m to do.’
‘Taking care of soldier’s orphans. Are you so sure that’s your destiny?’ he asked, wishing he could find such a clear sense of his own.
‘Despite Aunt Amelia trying to dissuade me, I believe it is.’
A new man with a new purpose. Maybe that’s why it seemed so easy to confide in her, he thought. Because, rightly or wrongly, he felt Max and Alastair and even Will would always be comparing him to what he’d been, whereas she knew only who he was now.
She saw him and his future as a blank slate, and she expected him to pick up the chalk.
Right before him loomed at least one worthwhile endeavour. And she was right; it was past time for him to start moving forward.
‘Is that why you broke your engagement—because you felt your future would be completely different from your past, and you didn’t think the lady would want to go there with you?’
The question startled him, but by now he should expect Theo Branwell to boldly ask what no one else would dare enquire about. ‘Yes. I didn’t feel it was fair to hold her to her promise when I was no longer the sportsman whose suit she’d accepted. When I no longer could, nor wanted, to move in the same circles, doing the things I’d done before.’
‘So she didn’t pass the test.’
He frowned, not sure what she meant. ‘Test?’
She nodded. ‘If she’d really loved you, she wouldn’t have let you walk away.’
‘That’s a little unfair!’ he protested. ‘I didn’t give her a choice.’
‘That may be, but if Marshall had been wounded and sent me away, I wouldn’t have gone. I’ve have stayed and tended him, and if he wouldn’t permit that, I’d have sat at his doorstep until he relented.’
‘Like you sat on my wall?’ he said, bemused.
‘Yes. And if he had me evicted, I would have written him every day, telling him how much I loved him and wanted to be with him. I would never have given up.’
Dom sat silently, pondering. Had he, on some level, meant his insistence on breaking the engagement as a test—for them both?
If so, he had to admit, he had failed it, too. Since coming to Bildenstone, he’d hardly thought of Elizabeth.
‘Well, in any event, look at me! I’m not the gallant cavalier who had the gall to persuade a duke’s daughter to marry him.’
She stared at him, her eyes narrowed. ‘Maybe that was part of it—the audacity of carrying off the prize on your part, the thrill of flouting convention on hers. Of course, it’s not my place to speculate.’
He chuckled. ‘But you did anyway.’
‘What I see when I look at you is a man as audacious as he ever was. Brave, powerful, immensely attractive, and full of potential. He may be a bit nicked up on the exterior—’ she motioned to his eye patch and missing arm ‘—but the outside isn’t important. It’s the essence of the man within that matters.’
‘I’m not sure what my essence is,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose, before this, I could always rely on what was outside, so I never had to look. I’m looking now, and I’m not sure I like what I’m seeing.’
‘What did you do before?’
‘Oh, followed the seasons as a sportsman. Buying, training and hunting horses in the autumn and winter; balls, entertainments, cards at my club, visits to the tailor in London during the Season, house parties and more horse training in the summer...’
His voice trailed off at the look of incredulity on her face. ‘Pretty useless stuff, actually,’ he allowed, ‘when compared to fighting Boney—or caring for orphans.’
‘Maybe what happened, happened, so you’d have to confront your life and choose to do something different. Something more...important.’
‘Had this not happened, I probably never would have examined it,’ he said, realising that fact for the first time. ‘Nor am I sure what that “something more important” should be.’
‘While you ponder it, do something for the tenants here.’
‘Like hiring an estate manager who knows what he’s doing,’ he said acerbically.
‘Yes. And hopefully,’ she added with a grin, ‘one willing to take on some junior apprentices.’
‘Ever watching out for your orphans! Maybe I should become an estate manager. Fattening up little boys like Georgie would be an aim worth striving for. My cousin Alastair is master of his own profitable estate—I’ll write and seek his advice. I also remember him nattering on about the spring shearing at Holkham Hall in Norfolk; where a group of agriculturalists gather to discuss new techniques. Maybe that will ensure I no longer let my tenants down,’ he added, his ire resurfacing.
‘You didn’t know they’d been let down. What matters now is what you do to correct the deficiencies.’
They set off again, Dom still angry and unsettled. How he wished he had Alastair’s expertise, so he would know immediately how to rectify all the problems he’d seen!
As they reached the next farm, Dom noted a man in the field, ploughing behind a heavy-set draught horse. Pulling up his mount, he said, ‘If you don’t mind, Miss Branwell, I’d like to speak with that farmer. I can at least assure him that I intend to begin at once to correct some of the problems he will doubtless want to point out.’
‘Please, go speak with him as long as you like. I even promise not to gift you with my opinions on his suggestions.’
He smiled slightly, appreciative of her efforts to make him feel better. Though nothing but a transformation of the cottages and fields he’d just seen would do that.
‘I won’t be long.’ At that, he slid from the saddle and set off, leaving his mount to graze at the roadside.
Seeing him approach, the man pulled up his horse, watching him warily.
‘I’m Ransleigh,’ Dom said as he approached. ‘And you are...?’
A flash of emotion—resentment, probably—briefly coloured the man’s expression before he nodded a greeting. ‘Willie Jeffers. Heard you’d come back to Bildenstone, Mr Ransleigh.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Jeffers. That’s a fine horse and plough you have. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen others like it on my inspection today.’
‘I reckon not,’ Jeffers said with a short laugh.
‘Your fields look to be in prime shape as well. As you know, I’ve not been to Bildenstone for years, and am shocked by the condition of the farms. Can you tell me what has happened here? Please, speak frankly. Anything you say will be held in confidence. I give you my word.’
