Page 406 of From Rakes to Riches

When they reached the stables, some strange emotion passed over her face as she looked up at the wooden building, wiping out all the laughter. Worry? Sadness?

David went into the dim stables to saddle his horse Apollo, knowing that Victoria followed him. Several horses leaned out their stalls to look at her.

He opened the gate to Apollo’s stall, and the large horse tried to push past him.

“He wants you to pet him,” David said over his shoulder.

She reached and ran her fingers down the white strip that bisected Apollo’s face.

“He’s beautiful,” she breathed, smiling.

“Do you want me to teach you to ride?”

It was like the sun bursting through the dawn, the way her face lit up. He felt almost embarrassed to be seeing such emotion—unworthy of it. He turned back to his horse.

“I’ve always wanted to try again,” she said. “Thank you so much—David.”

Outwardly, he ignored the way she’d used his Christian name, as if he expected no less. But inside he couldn’t hide fromhis feeling of relief. If she could use his name, maybe she was on her way to forgiving him the mistakes of his childhood.

13

David.

Victoria had said his name quite deliberately, listening to the sound of it on her tongue. It was a good name, solid and steady as he seemed to be.

Now if only she could overcome the wave of sadness that had swept over her when she entered the stables, which so closely resembled her own. Though she tried to forget the image, she still thought she could see a dark body in the shadows, swinging overhead. Her stomach roiled with a twist of nausea, and she put her hand there as if she could press it all back inside her. She would learn to ride for her husband and banish from this place the memory of her secret.

She countered that terrible memory with the thought of her husband’s laughter. She’d never heard so wonderful a sound. Had he ever been so relaxed with her, without the railways or their families between them?

“Can we begin the riding lessons today?” she asked. “I know I don’t have a riding habit but there is no one here to see me.”

“I have some time before I must be at the Member’s Lobby. I’ll saddle a gentler horse for you.”

Somehow she had equated “gentle” with “small,” and that wasn’t true. She remained outside the stall while David saddled a mare who kept nudging his shoulder as he did so. She saw him smile and nudge the animal back.

He was a good man, to relate to a horse so. Then he led the mare past her, and she stepped back as that great head turned to look at her.

David was a patient teacher, discussing a horse’s temperament and the way to approach a strange animal. She did her best to concentrate on everything he said, because she wanted to prove worthy of his time. And because it made her forget her sorrows. Soon it was so difficult to look at his hands and not remember how he’d touched her face last night, gentling her as if she were a wild animal who might flee. And sometimes she felt like that. Did he know it?

He showed her to the mounting block and how to get into a lady’s sidesaddle, once used by his mother. He ended up helping her because she was too short. His hands at her waist made her feel delicate, light, as he lifted her easily into the saddle. The ground looked very far away, and she held his hands for a moment, keeping them at her waist.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She certainly didn’t want to inspire his impatience, so she nodded and let go, and tried to remember climbing into the willow tree in her father’s garden, and how high she’d once gone. She’d been a child then, and she was an adult now. A horse’s back was not so very far above the earth.

He took the horse’s reins and began to lead her about the yard, while she held the pommel and tried to get used to the rhythm.

She was finally beginning to relax, to look about her and feel a bit more confident, when she noticed that David was leading her dangerously near to a water trough.

Her grip tightened on the pommel.

He glanced up at her and smiled. “I won’t let you fall, Victoria. I’ll catch you.”

“Oh no, I’m far too heavy. If you could just lead us over that way—” She pointed in the opposite direction.

“Heavy?” he said, his tone full of disbelief.

And then he scooped her right off the horse, as if she weighed nothing at all. His arms were behind her back and beneath her knees, and it felt wonderful to be held so close to him.

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