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Scattering feed to the chickens the following morning, Kate allowed her eyes to travel across the fields to the horizon. The town of Kelding lay beyond, the closest to the farm.
She sighed. There was nothing calling her to Kelding. She had no friends she wished to see—she was on pleasant terms with many of the people in the area but considered none of themfriends.She felt no kinship with anyone. No true kinship, in any case.
Is there anywhere in the world I might truly belong?
Aunt Mary would give her an earful if she could hear Kate’s thoughts. Still, what could she do? She could not empty her own mind. The thoughts were there, whether Aunt Mary approved or not.
Movement drew her gaze. Someone was walking up the road, leading a laden mule.
After a moment she recognized him and smiled.
‘Well-met, Edmund!’ she called, and jogged to intercept him.
Edmund raised his face and tipped back his hat, squinting a bit and then smiling. He was a few years older than Kate, and they had known each other all of their lives. ’Twas why she called him by his Christian name, and not ‘Mr. Suggitt.’
As she neared him, Kate took in his dusty work clothes, his dull brown hair, and somewhat small blue eyes.
How different he looked from Lord Thorburn, who had managed to seem dashing, even when covered in mud, his arched eyebrows giving him an almost wicked air.
You shan’t do Edmund any favors, comparing him to Lord Thorburn, Kate. Tisn’t kind in the least.
Kate tried to put the marquess out of her mind and gave Edmund a smile.
‘Where are you bound?’ she asked him cheerfully.
‘I’ve two baskets of wool for Mr. Carman to sell for me at the Swindon market next week.’
‘Only two?’
‘Oh, we did most of the sheering weeks ago, you know. Only we left some, what weren’t quite ready, least in my da’s opinion. So this is the last of it.’
Katherine nodded and maintained her smile with effort. Sheep. Wool. Markets. Such were the matters which occupied the minds of most of those in her acquaintance. If it wasn’t wool, it was milk, or apples, or bushels of wheat. None of it held any interest for her in the least.
‘Do you think they might have a ball soon, in Kelding?’ she asked brightly.
Edmund shrugged. ‘’Twill be summer in two months. At the full moon I expect they’ll have one.’
‘If they do, I shan’t let my uncle and aunt rest until they say we shall go,’ Kate asserted. ‘And you must promise to dance with me.’
Edmund smiled and gave her a nod. ‘You may depend on me.’
‘Shall I walk with you for a spell?’
‘Haven’t you duties to attend to?’
‘Nothing that cannot wait a half an hour.’
‘Very well, then, I should enjoy the company.’
James
‘Why on earth were you inWiltshire, of all places?’
This question was posed by Lieutenant Frederick Alden, as he rode alongside James in Hyde Park, taking the air that morning.
That James had thought to visit Stonehenge was not something he wished to share. He had never encountered anyone who missed the opportunity to mock him for his interest in ancient ruins. ’Twas such a bother that he had almost given up his study of them. In this case, he had made an exception, for he had more practical reasons to be in the area.
‘I’ve an interest in the canal,’ he said.
