Milo, still appearing unperturbed and, indeed, mostly disinterested in the whole matter, had gone off to the stables to see to his horses. A keen equestrian, when he wasn’t darting off to London or the Continent, he was often gone to livestock auctions or horse shows or out riding for long stretches.
Not that I minded. Truth be told, I was rather glad at the moment not to have him underfoot. Though I truly believed that he was blameless in the whole matter, I still felt unaccountably irritated with him in the way one does when one dreams a spouse has done something untoward and one can’t quite shake the feeling of annoyance upon waking.
I considered going out walking in the direction of the village to see if I could encounter Imogen casually in the streets or shops near the inn, but I didn’t feel quite up to a strenuous jaunt this morning. Besides, there was no reason to rush.
I supposed I was just feeling a bit out of sorts. Pregnancy had forced me to slow my usual pace, and I wasn’t used to being at such loose ends.
Looking around the sitting room, I spotted several items that could use tidying. I had finished knitting a blanket and bonnet for the baby, and there was also a stack of children’s books with colorful illustrations that Milo had purchased in London.
I had just put everything into my knitting basket to carry to the nursery when Winnelda, my maid, appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, madam, let me do that for you!” she said, rushing toward me and taking the basket from my hands before I could protest. “You shouldn’t be carrying things, you know. Not at this delicate stage.”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing it,” I said. I submitted rather than argue, though I didn’t feel at all delicate and was perfectly capable of managing a basket of that size. I was very much looking forward to the baby’s arrival, for it seemed that I couldn’t do anything without being fussed over.
“Are you feeling all right, madam?” Winnelda asked, eyeing me as she prepared to take the basket from the room. Ever since discovering I was going to have a baby, she had watched me with all the care the proprietor of a china shop might exhibit when dealing with a piece of Royal Worcester bone china. As she was the eldest of six sisters, I thought she ought to know I wasn’t in danger of breaking into pieces at the slightest provocation just because I was with child.
“I’m feeling very well, Winnelda,” I said, for what was surely the thousandth time in the last five months.
“Would you like something more to eat?”
“No, thank you. I’ve just had a very large breakfast.”
She looked at me a bit skeptically. Her mother, she had informed me, had gained a good deal of weight when pregnant with each of Winnelda’s sisters, and I was not living up to the standard. Though I was fairly tall and naturally slim, Winnelda seemed to think it unusual that I had not grown more rotund.
I turned, prepared to leave the room.
“From the back you still can’t tell…” she said sadly. “Maybe if you eat more eggs. And put some extra butter on your toast.”
I had been eating quite enough for an entire family, so I wasn’t at all concerned. Nor was my doctor, who felt that I was in excellent health.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. I escaped the room then, deciding that a walk would do me good after all.
I collected a jacket and made my way out the French doors in the morning room. The air was cool but refreshing, and I drew in a deep breath as I walked across the grass, which was still damp with morning dew. Spring had begun to make its first marks upon the landscape, and green was sprouting all around me: the verdant lawns, the leaves on the trees, the last of the snowdrops giving way to the daffodils. It was always lovely to see the first signs of new life emerging in the countryside.
Fitting, too, I supposed, that new life would be joining my household as well.
Without thinking too much about it, I wandered in the direction of the stables.
Milo didn’t enter his horses in the Springtide Festival races. He didn’t think it sporting to pit his Thoroughbreds and show horses against the local animals. It was a snobbish sentiment, perhaps, but I had to agree that it would be difficult for anyone in the county to defeat Milo’s horses.
I reached the stable door and stepped inside. Things were quiet and neat, everything in its place. In contrast to his nonchalant approach to most things in life, Milo, like the stern captain of a Royal Navy vessel, ran a tight ship in his stables. He had no patience for shoddy or incompetent work, and his somewhat tyrannical approach to the matter had left more than one browbeaten stable hand in his wake.
I walked alongside the stalls, looking at the horses. The smell of fresh hay hung in the air, and there were the soft sounds of horses rustling and nickering. The biggest stall belonged to Xerxes, the prize of Milo’s stables. He was a coal-black Arabian with the devil’s own temper, notorious for biting and kicking stable hands, and no one but Milo had ever been able to ride him.
He snorted when he saw me, tossing his jet-colored mane in a show of ill temper. “You needn’t worry, Xerxes,” I said. “I haven’t the faintest intention of bothering you.”
He stamped a foot in response, but I ignored him and moved on to the next stall. This was where my horse, Paloma, was housed. She was a sleek chestnut mare with white forelegs and face.
“Hello, old girl,” I said as she came to greet me. I rubbed a hand down her nose and wished that I had thought to bring an apple or carrot with me. For obvious reasons, I had not been able to ride in some time, and I missed our jaunts across the fields together.
I heard Xerxes snort again, loudly, but paid little attention until a voice sounded behind me. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Ames.”
I turned to see Bertie Phipps, Marena Hodges’s young man. I hadn’t heard him approaching. He was a tall, handsomely built boy with a shock of darkish blond hair that he was constantly sweeping back from his forehead. He was dressed in shirtsleeves and grass-stained, mud-flecked trousers and holding a harness in one of his hands.
“Good morning, Bertie,” I said. “How are you?”
“Very well, Mrs. Ames. And yourself?” He flushed a little as he said this, his eyes landing on my stomach and flittering guiltily away.
“I’m quite well, thank you,” I replied, ignoring this reaction. “You’re helping Mr. Ames with the horses, I see.”
“Yes, ma’am. A good day to exercise them, he says. I’m always glad to give them a turn about the pasture.”
I looked at the specks of mud on his trousers. “Don’t tell me you attempted to ride Xerxes.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But one day. It was Hades that threw me. Went over a hedge when I wasn’t expecting it.”
“You weren’t harmed?”
“Oh, no. I know the right way to fall. Lady Alma says each fall is a horseman’s badge of honor.”
Bertie also spent a good deal of time at Lady Alma’s stables. Lady Alma often gave him odd jobs to do, just as Milo did. It had been a dream of Bertie’s to own a horse of his own, and he had saved every penny he could toward that end. Only recently, he had accomplished his goal and purchased a horse he called Molly. Milo had told me Bertie was very much looking forward to riding her in the Springtide Festival race.
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right,” I said.