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"And what manner of warning is that?" an exasperated Lord Beckham asked as he awkwardly mounted the smaller, more complacent horse.
"I tend to be very competitive!" Lady Havenshire exclaimed as she gave her horse a quiet whistle, the animal setting off from the stable doors with a sudden whinny and a loud flourish. "Try to keep up!" Lady Havenshire called back to him with a laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fast - air rushing, breeze blowing, trees swaying; their colors a stunning, vibrant array of blazing autumn oranges, browns, and rich, sunny yellows. Clouds gathered dark at the edges of a pristine sky as Shadow's hooves clamped and smashed and clobbered cobblestones and fallen leaves, until Lady Havenshire, laughing at the freedom and the joy of being atop her horse's back once again, with all the world before her to traipse upon as she saw fit, drew her horse's reigns off-road and into the tall, roiling grasses near the fringes of the Emerys estate.
Nothing in the world felt quite like the freedom of riding upon Shadow's back - she'd rode steeds in other countries, she'd rode boats upon the open ocean; but to Nadia, even the flight of birds had little on the one thing she loved her home for, the joy of riding across fields, cutting through forests, leaping over streams, with the worries of the world behind her and nothing but her dreams to contain her. She laughed away the worry; she laughed away thoughts of her father, thoughts of the estate; the caging burdens of life that'd fallen once more onto her shoulders when she'd returned to England. To all of it she simply laughed and drove Shadow along, swerving through weeds; hooves clopping through a dirt field, past an abandoned farmhouse, its thatched roof having rotted away and its stone foundation crumbling like some manner of ancient, collapsed Roman bathhouse.
Only after so joyously trotting upon Shadow for so long, longer than she could care to remember, well into the waning moments of the morning, did Lady Havenshire finally remember that she had not galloped alone out onto the moors; worse yet she remembered that the curious man to whom she'd found herself oddly attracted was not, in fact, any good at all with horses. She looked back in worry from where she'd come and - not surprisingly - saw no sign at all of Lord Beckham upon the aging, deep-brown horse, Pierre. The smile washed from her expression, replaced with momentary worry; she could hear little across the fields save for the soft sway of grass and leaves, tossled about by the gentle breeze. She searched the autumn-tinted trees and their bouncing leaves; she searched the dead farm field, and saw nor heard a single sign of the poor man. She bit her lip, sudden worry shocking her, and she began to scold herself for so thoughtlessly abandoning Lord Beckham. Is he okay, she wondered? Worse yet, has he turned from me for my impetuousness? Perhaps, she thought, she should have listened to Ms. Mulwray; perhaps, just this once, she had been right. Things would have gone so much better, simpler, had Nadia rode quaintly side-saddle while Lord Beckham took his time on Pierre. If only...
Suddenly, a faint gallop struck Nadia's ear, and like an alerted hawk her senses shot towards the edge of the trees. There, what she saw tilted her worrisome frown into a slow, warm smile; trotting like a mountain-man upon an overburdened ass, Lord Beckham emerged from one of Emerys's forests, gripping onto Pierre's reigns with all the strength and adroitness he could manage. She stifled another chuckle, as the horse stumbled and jaunted at a pace that could only be described as embarrassing. He looked up, his eyes crossed with an expression not unlike that of a child balancing precariously upon a tightrope, his gaze stricken with awed fear at the pace of the beast beneath him.
"The forest was that dangerous, was it?" Lady Havenshire called across the field to Lord Beckham; the sound startled the poor man, whose grip on the horse's reins tightened. Pierre appeared to respond to Lady Havenshire's voice, perhaps taking the words as a challenge. The horse picked up speed and began bounding towards Nadia and Shadow, and Lord Beckham's gaze shifted from terrified to... well, to even more terrified, as the horse threatened to quite summarily throw the poor lord off of his back with each bucking burst of speed.
"This blasted creature—" Lord Beckham howled, bouncing side-side on Pierre's back as the beast trotted across the dead field. "How do you tell it to slow down?!"
"Slow down? You could walk faster than Pierre is carrying you!" Nadia laughed uproariously.
"Perhaps I sh-should!" Lord Beckham responded, squeezing the reins tightly as Pierre finally began to slow, clearly exhausted by carrying the lord across the field. With a quiet yip Nadia led Shadow along the field to meet Lord Beckham; she skillfully led Shadow to a quick, light-hoof trot in a wide circle around Pierre, who snorted and trotted while Lady Havenshire rode in a circle around the man.
"Such a skilled rider you are," Lady Havenshire grinned.
"I'm beginning to see just why your father feels you utterly unmarriageable, m'lady," Lord Beckham teased. Pierre stepped to a stop in the middle of the field and rather unceremoniously plopped onto the mud, laying down with a yawn, leaving Lord Beckham's boots scuffed with layers of the mud. Lady Havenshire laughed, petting her hand along Shadow's bridle.
"Is that so? Do you think me utterly unmarriageable, then, m'lord? Must a woman stand before you in fear of sundering her beauty, pleading with you to teach her the ways of the beasts of wild, before you find her agreeable to a marriage, m'lord?" Lady Havenshire's voice grew thick with derisive sarcasm as she trotted closer, her circle around lazy Pierre narrowing. Lord Beckham pulled himself from the lazy animal's back, dusting away the dirt and the leaves clung to his jacket from the slow trip through the autumn forest, exhaling deeply. She could see the humble smile forming on the charming gentleman's lips and she bit her own, her cheeks reddening as she teased him. He liked it, she thought... and so did she.
"For me, a woman's skill upon the back of a steed means comparatively little, though I must say that the outfit you're wearing is itself rather... well, an interesting choice for an afternoon spent with a man of my status," Lord Beckham chided her in a deadpan, joking manner; she feigned offense.
"Ms. Mulwray said you would say just that very thing, so you've certainly won her vote of approval for taking my hand in marriage," she joked.
"And what, pray tell, have you gotten into your head, m'lady, to convince you I have any interest in taking your hand, then?" Lord Beckham retorted.
"It certainly couldn't be the manner in which you invited me into your domain, and made me smile once again, just as we had at that dreadful dinner, before... well, before, you know," Nadia stated cheekily, before the memory of Lord Beckham's sister again cast clouds across their exchange. She tried to brighten the mood, offering Lord Beckham a ha
nd to hoist him up out of the mud. He regarded her suspiciously, and instead squished his way free of the mire, dusting off his boots with a hmph.
"Trees are... a fair bit sparser, on my land, and there are certainly fewer forests to be found," Lord Beckham mentioned, glancing at the thick treeline they had both precariously trotted their way through.
"Emerys has long had some of the finest forests and hunting grounds in all of northern England," Nadia explained. "Father had little interest in attracting hunters, and tore down many of the cabins and hunting lodges my grandfather and his fathers had used to draw renters and trappers out this way. I always appreciated the forests more for days like today... when the autumn comes, and the colors sweep across the leaves, and the breezes kick them around... as a child, I also enjoyed the trees for climbing, and playing," she recalled with an evil little grin. "Poor mother, she'd go searching the moors for me, always winding up ruining one of her finest dresses, trudging through the mud and the branches looking for me."
"You would have gotten along rather terrifically with Leah," Lord Beckham laughed. He tried various calls and cries and snorts and sounds to lure Pierre out of the muddy morass he'd decided to lay in, but the stubborn old horse had little interest in the man or his antics.
"Did she too enjoy leading your mother wildly about the estate?" Nadia chuckled, leading Shadow into the muddy field and with a few deft motions and noises, she'd managed to coax Pierre whinnying to his hooves. She beamed at Lord Beckham, who shrugged in defeat.
"I tried," he said with a frown. "I suppose you're quite right. I'm not much a gentleman, am I?"
"Are you perhaps throwing out a line in hopes of finding a compliment on the other end? That's certainly a pitiable thing for a gentleman to do," Lady Havenshire chided.
"Considering my current predicament, I think I've made myself look quite pitiable already," he quipped back, looking down at the mud now staining his breeches. Nadia giggled, shaking her head.
"Pitiable? Perhaps, though poor Pierre's the one who laid down in the stuff," Nadia snickered. "You didn't answer me... about your sister," Nadia's voice fell to a curious murmur; Lord Beckham sighed, glancing away, and Nadia's own expression grew worrisome. "I hope I don't... conjure, poor thoughts, with such a subject."
"Thoughts of Leah are rarely poor, m'lady, as she's one of the most capable and amazing people I've met - woman or man," Lord Beckham said resoundingly. "I have... a lot to make up for, in life, for the way she was... treated."
"Have... you ever thought, of trying to find her? Sending her a letter? It appears you care for her deeply, Marshall, and... I think she may have cared deeply for you, too," Nadia said, leaping down from Shadow's back to stand close to the duke. He looked away, vexed again with doubt; that same doubt, creeping back, and Nadia tried to plead silently with him not to shut her out.
"I doubt very much Leah wants to hear from anyone, wherever she's gone, and I can't rightly blame her, m'lady. I've got a lot to repent for," Lord Beckham responded, and Lady Havenshire could see the storm brewing in his eyes as dark shadows fell across the both of them.
