A Husband for Hire (The Heirs & Spares Series Book 1) Page 9

  He studied her erect back for a long moment and said gently, “Eleanor, I highly recommend that you don’t live the rest of your life clutching wounded pride to your breast. From personal experience, I can testify that it makes for a cold existence.”

  “How would you know? I should think you devoid of pride, as you openly live off the charity of lonely women like some bloodsucking leech.”

  He stiffened and inhaled deeply at the insult—and tried not to allow her words to wound, a more or less unsuccessful effort. He reminded himself that she felt he’d rejected her and was striking out in hurt more than anything else, but the verity in her statement could not be denied. Regardless of the mitigating circumstances, despite the truth of her accusation, he did retain enough self-respect to deny her the opportunity to abuse him further.

  He reached into his riding coat, pulled out a slim silver card case and extracted a thick embossed card. Holding the card between his fore and middle fingers, he placed it on a small table by the door. “Should you ever require anything from me, this is my direction. I am not returning to London.” He bowed. “I will take my leave of you, my lady. I wish you only the best. Please offer my regrets to your parents that I will be unable to join them for dinner.”

  She never once turned around as he left.

  As soon as the door closed behind Miles, Eleanor fell on her bed, hugged her pillow to her breasts and dissolved into a deluge of sobbing. The emptiness of being unwanted as a woman was a pain she didn’t think she would ever overcome—which made her even angrier, as she never, never, never did anything so missish as shed tears over a man. She didn’t indulge for long. With shuddering gasps and many swipes at her eyes and cheeks, she shoved herself off the bed and jerked the pull for Sally. She would not be unraveled by the events of the past two days.

  When all was said and done, she had accomplished what she could to secure Rutledge and hopefully, her days would continue as they had for the last ten years. She had a good life, surrounded by people who cared for her, and the supreme satisfaction of watching horses she had bred and trained perform most credibly on the race courses of England. So what if an elegant younger man with sparkling grey eyes who had made her feel young and vital and desirable for two memorable weeks had proved to be just as faithless as the rest of his misbegotten gender.

  A knock sounded at her door. “Ma’am, do you wish help dressing for dinner?”

  “Enter, Sally. Yes, help me out of this carriage dress and ring below for some hot water.”

  “Um…my lady?”

  “Yes?”

  “Was that Lord Miles I saw departing the house?”

  “I don’t wish to speak of it, Sally, and you are never to mention his name to me again.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” she muttered. “T’is a dreadful shame. He seemed ever so nice a gentleman, and I thought perhaps you liked him, too.

  “Not one word more, Sally. I allow you far too much liberty, and you overstep.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

  Tears threatened, and she blinked them back rapidly as something bleak twisted in the region of her heart. Sally was right. She had liked Miles—more than liked him—but after such an affront, such a humiliation … well, the hurt was out of all proportion to the act.

  “Please put out my rose damask with the French lace overdress, and I’ll have the rose quartz ear drops and matching necklace.”

  Now she must give some thought as to what to say to her parents about the sudden absence of her handsome husband. Her father would look at her with his wise eyes and know she was bamming them, but perhaps she could come up with some reason that would soothe the tender heart of her mother. As much as Eleanor had suffered during her failed debut, her dearest Mamma had suffered more, and Eleanor would do almost anything to spare her additional disappointment.

  She’d been a late-in-life child, a miracle born long after her parents had given up hoping and upon her birth, her mother’s world had revolved around Eleanor. Her father had treated her in equal portions like the son he’d never have and a cherished daughter to be protected and cosseted. He’d educated Eleanor in the management of Rutledge, in its horse farms and breeding barns, in the rotation of crops for best yield and what surfaces made the best roads in the villages surrounding the great estate house—the benefits of thatch versus slate for roofing—in short, in all the minutiae attendant with the excellent management of a great estate.

  The transition of power from the Earl to his daughter had been one of seamless efficiency, and more and more often, it was Eleanor that the agents and managers and tradesmen sought out for decisions. It was her word that shaped policy on the vast estate and in the villages surrounding Rutledge.

  As she made her way down the grand staircase to the family dining room, not the opulent room where fifty guests could be fed at one time, but the intimate room that seated eight, Walters stopped her.

  “My lady, the excitement of your joyous news overcame the Earl and Lady Rutledge, and they have ordered supper in their rooms. They convey their apologies and hope you’ll understand if they wish you and Lord Miles a good night.”

  “Of course. Please tell Cook to send a tray to my room as well.”

  “Yes, your ladyship. I’ll have two trays sent up.”

  She cleared her throat. “No. Just one. Lord Miles has been called away.” She smoothed the front of her gown. “I don’t expect his return in the foreseeable future.”

  Walters’ visage remained expressionless. “Yes, my lady. I will tell Cook to prepare a single tray.”

  He bowed and walked off in his unperturbed, purposeful manner, and Eleanor let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held. God bless Walters. She wondered if even the second coming of Christ would provoke the man into some display of emotion. She turned and retreated to her room with a huff of amusement at the mental image of Walters’ flat tones announcing, “My Lords and Ladies, Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Only Son of God.”

  Her amusement was short-lived, washed away by a sense of immense sadness and regret. In hindsight, she wished she hadn’t acted so impulsively and had at least heard what Lord Miles had to say in his defense—even if it had been utter nonsense. She beat back another attack of tears and muttered an admonition to herself about becoming a watering pot.

  Chapter Eight

  T

  he next morning, she rose at her usual hour of 5:00 a.m. and consumed the hot chocolate and toast left on the small table just inside the door to her apartments. Lord Miles’ calling card, still where he left it from the evening before, caught her eye.

  M. W. Everleigh

  The Fairwood Stud

  Wodditton Road, Newmarket

  She paused for a moment, made a quick decision, and threw the card into the top drawer of her dressing table.

  She completed a brief toilette and pulled on a man’s linen shirt, navy wool waistcoat, buckskin breeches, and a tall pair of black and tan riding boots. She twisted her hair up under a tweed pork-pie cap and donned a knee-length riding coat and tan gloves. Suitably dressed for a day in the fields—as a man, she trooped downstairs to the front entrance.

  “Lady Eleanor.” The night doorman closed his book and sprang up from his chair to open the front door for her.

  “Morning, Jeffers, and it’s Lady Miles now. I have married. What are you reading?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Lady of the Lake, your ladyship.”

  “And is it a good book?”

  “Not as much as Ivanhoe, ma’am. It’s poetry… but it passes the time.”

  She smiled at his mournful face. “Well, please tell Walters to advise Mamma I’ll see her and Father at dinner. I’ve only been away three weeks, but I’m chafing to make the rounds with Mr. Bitters. I’ll stop for a meal at the Spotted Hare in Stelton.”

  “Yes, my lady. Nice to have you back, your ladyship, and felicitations on your marriage.”

  “Oh…yes. Thank you.” She nodded at the young man and
hustled across the dark cobblestone courtyard to the stable block and the office of the manager of the stud, Mr. Bitters. A golden glow spilled from the window. Well versed in her habits, he’d anticipated her.

  She inhaled deeply when entering the immaculate stables where, through the brass grills of the loose boxes, the gaslight revealed shapes of tall equines in their warm rugs. The sound of contented munching and the sweet smell of hay and horse met her senses and the weight of the world—or at least the events of the last couple of weeks—slipped from her shoulders. She stood motionless, closed her eyes and simply drank in the beloved sounds and smells of home.

  “Toby’s saddling Mouse for you, madam. Thought we’d start with the broodmares and foals just as soon as it gets light enough; meanwhile, we can have a look at the stallions. We will join Fedder when the mob gets ready to go to morning workouts.”

  She turned with a brilliant smile. “Mr. Bitters.” The fifty-something gentleman had been with Rutledge since boyhood, first as an exercise boy, then when he grew too heavy for the young horses, as an under groom, then a groom, and now as the manager of the stud. It was under his tutelage, as much as that of her father, that Eleanor had gained her love and knowledge of the Thoroughbred horse. Give Bitters the name of any notable animal, home-bred or not, and he could recite back sire and dam for several generations with all their wins and losses, and even the tracks where they had raced. The “mob” to which he referred were the two and three-year-olds in race training, and “Fedder” was Rutledge’s long-suffering resident trainer—long-suffering because he patiently endured Eleanor’s frequent and opinionated disruptions of his carefully plotted development of their young prospects.

  “That will be lovely. How’s Dare? How’s my boy?”

  Laughter greeted her question. “As full of himself as ever. He’s at grass in the southwest paddock with the Oldham mare and Red Molly for company.” Her manager cleared his throat and looked elsewhere. “Thought it best to have him separated from the older gents as they went about their business.” A bright flush of red painted his cheeks.

  “Of course. Very sensible.” It never failed to delight her that Bitters blushed scarlet every time he had to discuss with her an issue involving breeding and stallion management.

  As they walked down the stable row, Eleanor looking into the stalls that housed the two senior stallions of Rutledge, she and Bitters chatted about the happenings while she’d been in London. Exercise boys slipped quietly down the stairs from their quarters above the stables, and with soft murmurs to their charges, began preparing their assigned mounts for the morning’s first workouts. At the clip-clop of shod hooves on the brick aisle and a light clearing of a male’s throat, Eleanor turned. The head groom, a man in his late fifties, stood holding both her horse, a tall, flea-bitten grey, and Bitters’ rangy brown.

  “My lady.” The older man bobbed his head in a gesture of respect.

  “Thanks, Toby.” With a smile, she led her gelding into the yard, tossed the reins over his head and with Toby holding her offside stirrup, slipped her foot into the irons and swung up. She sighed in contentment as she settled her seat into the saddle. Turning to Bitters, she complained, “It was such an inconvenience to be restricted to riding sidesaddle. Every time I am in London, I swear it will be my last, but I always seem to return.”

  Turmoil roiled her belly. Eleanor would give anything to never again speak of her marriage, but if anyone deserved to hear of it from her own mouth, it was Julian Bitters. She spent the majority of her days with him in the normal course of affairs, and over the years, in addition to his professional management, Bitters had become her friend and closest confidant. He knew things about her she could never share with her parents.

  It was the stables that she’d run to when any storm upset her childhood world, and it seemed she always wound up in Bitters’ office, tucked into his worn couch, drinking a hot cup of tea and munching on a digestive biscuit, while pouring out her sorrows. He’d listen patiently, dry her tears, offer a bracing comment and the perfect distraction of a new puppy or kitten or foal. In later years when she’d returned, beaten down and sore of heart from her seasons in London, he’d greet her with a gentle hug and an offer to let her breeze their latest promising colt. How could one stay in the doldrums on the back of a glorious Thoroughbred as they stretched out in flight across the turf? No woman on earth had ever gone faster. She was sure of it. Plus, she trusted Julian Bitters’ discretion. She hemmed and hawed and finally blurted. “I got married in London.”

  Silence settled in while they set their horses to a walk and pointed their noses down the main carriage drive.

  “Yes, your ladyship. I’d heard.”

  She slid a glance at him. His gaze remained fixed between his horse’s ears without any discernible expression.

  “His Grace the Duke of Chelsony’s second brother, Lord Miles Everleigh. He’s not going to be living here… I mean, he won’t interfere… I mean there will be no change…” She collapsed a little in exasperation. “I don’t know what I mean.” The clop of hooves competed with the early morning birdsong for a long moment. “Bitters, I paid him to marry me—and then go away and stay away.”

  “I understand, ma’am.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bitters offered her a faint smile. “You did what was necessary to protect yourself. I’ll not sit in judgment.”

  “Father and Mamma think it’s a love match, for Lord Miles told them as much last night. I don’t know what to say—how to explain his absence. Surely they will think it peculiar.”

  Bitters coughed into his hand. “Your father’s a downy one, my lady. If I were you, I’d just go along as you’ve been doing.”

  “Do you really think that will serve? Simply say nothing and just…carry on?”

  “I should think so, my lady.” Bitters picked up a trot, and that was the last of their conversation until they reached the far pastures of the home farm where she spent two joyful hours among her broodmares and their latest creations.

  “I believe I see Fedder waving at us, ma’am. We can join him on the crest of the hill and watch the workouts from there.”

  Eleanor stroked the satin coat of a protective mother and laughed at the antics of her young foal as it peeked at her from under its mother’s round belly. “Yes, I’m very interested to see the progress Cinsyr has made since I’ve been gone.”

  “He’s going to be a prime ‘un, ma’am, for a fact. Not many two-year-old colts as I know can give him a run. Shame he’s not a year older. We’d have the Newmarket 2,000 Guineas winner for certain.

  “And our three-year-olds? Anyone showing promise?” She frowned as she remounted and they turned toward a substantial rise beyond which lay the flat swaths of manicured grass where the young racers were trained. “I was crushed when you wrote about Henley’s bowed tendon. I held such strong hopes for her in the Epsom Oaks and perhaps the St. Leger.”

  “A heartbreaker for sure, ma’am. It was a bad bow. She’s on stall rest for the next six months, and then I think we should consider breeding her. She’ll not race again.” Bitters shook his head. “Cerki’s not up to any distance much past six furlongs. She’s strictly a sprinter. Adornica has shown us nothing. I’m afraid she’s best sent to Fred Hastener to be trained up as a lady’s mount. She should do well in that job as she’s quiet and very pretty.” He shrugged. That’s the fillies.” His expression lightened. “I do have one bit of news you’ll enjoy.”

  She eyed him in inquiry.

  “Remember that Old Codger mare that a certain dolt of a broodmare manager sold off in ignorance? One of the first we exposed to Dare?”

  “Yes! Lord Marlburl never would sell her filly back to us—the provoking man.”

  “Well, I do have news of her. Seems ‘Day Dreamer,’ for that is how she is registered in The General Stud, broke her maiden in a spectacular style. She won the 1,000 Guineas Stakes at Newmarket by a length and a half and pulling away at that
. Effortless speed. I was told she wasn’t even tested.” Bitters grinned broadly and chuckled when he saw Eleanor’s reaction.

  Her jaw dropped in open-mouthed joy, and she danced in the saddle. Her steady gelding ignored the off-balanced bouncing occurring on his back and stoically walked along. “Truly? How fabulous. I must drop Lord Marlburl a line to congratulate him and offer him a re-breeding on Dare.”

  Bitters voice sobered. “The farm’s been sold, you know—house, lands and racing stock.”

  “No… I didn’t know. Who bought it? Perhaps we could renew our offer to buy the filly, though with her recent win, why would they sell? With a new owner though, perhaps?” Eleanor bit her lip to contain her excitement. “What if the new owners aren’t keen on racing?” She laughed. “Maybe they raise sheep! Oh, Bitters… what do you think? Is there a possibility?”

  Their horses crested the top of the hill, and they both waved at Fedder who turned his own mount to join them.

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am.” Bitters response was subdued. “You’d have to write and make inquiry.”

  “I will, as soon as I return to the house.” She all but clapped her hands. “To whom shall I direct my correspondence? Who is the new owner?”

  Bitters’ voice turned flat. “The owner of the newly renamed Fairwood Stud is The Lord Miles Wrotham Everleigh.”

  Chapter Nine

  M

  iles had no more ridden into the courtyard of Fairwood when his new employees, women, and men, poured out of the manor house and outbuildings, led by Mr. Weldon, voicing cheers and congratulations. A champagne cork made a loud popping and foam poured out of the mouth of the green bottle handed to him before Miles had even dismounted. He held the frothing bottle away from him with a laugh.

  A ring of well-wishers surrounded Miles and added to the feeling of celebration with a chorus of, “Huzzah! Huzzah!” and “Welcome home, my lord!”