She shook herself. The man was busy. He likely wasn’t sparing her a second thought.
Amelia kept busy, too. She interviewed each member of the staff and acquainted herself with every inch of Braxton Hall—the interior, at least. The gardens would have to wait for another day. As she moved through the rooms with the housekeeper at her side, she made careful note of any fixtures that needed replacing or improvement, any arrangement of furniture that struck her as less than pleasing or efficient. After fifteen years without a mistress, the house was still well maintained but beginning to lag where style was concerned. She limited herself to the public and common rooms, not wanting to encroach on Claudia or Spencer’s privacy.
The task took her all day, and well into evening—at which point she was glad that Spencer had not yet returned and Claudia remained cloistered with her tarts, for Amelia had no time to plan dinner. Instead, she and Mrs. Bodkin shared a cold supper as they discussed modernizing the kitchen. Afterward, they began an inventory of all the household silver. Hours later, the entire dining table was covered in gleaming rows of forks, spoons, knives, ladles, tongs …
All of which began to rattle in unison, just as the clock’s largest hand neared twelve.
Amelia grasped the table edge in alarm. Beneath the low clatter of silver, the thunder of hoofbeats swelled.
“That will be His Grace,” the housekeeper explained, the corners of her mouth creasing as she suppressed a yawn.
Spencer. Amelia’s heart kicked into a furious rhythm. Until this second, she hadn’t acknowledged how much she’d been anticipating his return. But she had. She’d been waiting for him all day, every second. Why else would she have spent the day working her fingers to nubs rather than allow herself a stray moment for thought? Why else would she be sitting up counting silver at midnight? And poor Mrs. Bodkin, forced to keep watch with her.
“You’re dismissed,” she told the housekeeper. “We’ll just lock this room overnight and finish in the morning. Thank you so much for your help.”
Amelia rushed from the room, smoothing her upswept hair and shaking the wrinkles from her skirts. How much time did she have before Spencer would enter the house? Surely he would just hand his horse off to a groom and come inside. Pausing in the corridor to check her reflection in the glass covering the clock face—not much to see, but at least the dim light confirmed her features had not suffered any dramatic rearrangement—she went to the entrance hall and waited.
And waited. Several minutes passed, and no sign of him. Could he have come in through another door? Perhaps by the kitchens … he would be hungry, after a long ride.
She walked toward the rear of the house, crossing into a narrow gallery that connected the main residence with the service wing. It was tiled in marble and lined with windows on both sides, which made it rather cold at night. Amelia hugged herself and quickened her pace. She supposed she might have simply gone up to her suite and awaited Spencer there. But that would mean choosing between her bedchamber and his, and she wanted to meet him on neutral territory. She was going to keep this calm and cool. As emotionless as possible.
Step one: A smoothly delivered, dispassionate declaration. Your Grace, I thank you for your patience. I’m now ready to consummate the marriage.
Step two: Lie back and think of Briarbank.
Through the blackened gallery windows, a flash of torchlight drew her eye. She halted and turned toward it, walking up to the window and cupping her hands around her eyes to peer into the darkness. Down a gravel-packed lane lined with intermittent lamps sat a low, ranging building with a sloped roof. Golden light emanating from the building’s interior outlined a wide, square door and men moving within. The coach house, she discerned, and stables. Perhaps Spencer had taken the horse in himself.
Eyes still straining out into the night, Amelia took slow paces sideways. She discovered that toward the far end of the gallery, one of the tall windows was not truly a window at all, but a door. She still had a set of house keys tied at her waist, and she tried each of them in turn until one slender finger of metal turned the tumblers of the lock. The door swung open with a creak, and she walked outside.
She didn’t follow the drive, but walked straight across the green, not caring to draw attention to herself. The grass was damp with nighttime dew, and it wanted clipping. The blades brushed her exposed ankles as she walked, ticklish and cool. Moths fluttered out of her path.
The stables drew her like a lodestone. She wanted to see this place that merited so much of Spencer’s effort and attention. It was certainly the largest horse barn she’d ever seen. In construction and outward appearance, it looked finer than most houses she’d ever seen.
A few grooms milled in the entryway, talking to one another. They didn’t notice her as she skirted the main entrance and plunged into the shadows at the side of the building. Barns always had more than one entrance. Before long, she came upon a human-sized door. She ducked inside and found herself in a dimly lit, meticulously kept tack room. The smells of leather and clean horse mingled in air heavy with the dust of hay. Amelia pressed her hands to her face and sneezed into them.
In the ensuing silence, she froze—waiting for someone to have heard her and come looking. No one did. However, she did hear a voice echoing from the rafters—a low, calming murmur much like the sound of rushing water, coming from somewhere nearby.
She moved through the tack room and into a wide aisle lined with stalls, taking care to make her steps light. A recumbent horse whickered softly as she stepped toward the low, mesmerizing voice and a flickering light at the far end of the aisle. She paused at the edge of the last stall, well out of the golden aura cast by a single hanging carriage lamp. Cautiously, she craned her neck around the post.
This was a larger, open area, designed for grooming. And in the center was Spencer, rubbing down a regal dark filly. Amelia observed the pair in silence, digging her fingers into the wooden post to keep her balance.The horse was freed of saddle and bridle, restrained only by a simple halter tied to a ring. Spencer was dressed in an open-necked shirt, knee boots, and breeches of tight-fitting buckskin. Both man and beast were damp in places. Perspiration shone a glossy black on the horse’s flanks, just as it matted the dark locks of hair at Spencer’s nape. The inseams of his breeches were dark with sweat, too. The sight did strange things to her, in analogous places.
The horse’s breathing was audible, and Spencer rubbed the filly’s withers and back with a towel, wiping the lather from her coat in a smooth, confident rhythm. And as he worked, he spoke. Crooned, really. Amelia could scarcely make out his words, but they were soft and tender. Affectionate.
“Softly, then,” he said, coming to stand before the horse and carefully wiping the animal’s nose and ears with a corner of the towel. “Hold just a moment, my sweet.” The horse snorted, and Spencer gave an easy, good-natured laugh that resonated in Amelia’s bones.
He kept up the steady stream of words as he hung the towel on a hook and bent to check each of the horse’s hooves. Each time he asked the horse to raise a hoof, he did so with more patience than Amelia had ever seen him ask a person for anything, with words like, “This one, if you please,” and “Thank you, my pet.”
Her heart ached. She was seeing an entirely new side of him—a gentle, caring, thoughtful side she would never have guessed he possessed. Having grown up with five brothers, she did understand that paradox about men. They found it easier to display emotions where animals were concerned. Laurent had been her rock at both Mother and Papa’s burials, but when his boyhood sheepdog slipped into permanent rest at the age of fourteen, Amelia had watched her brother weep like a child.
And seeing Spencer tend the horse with such patience and care, even when he believed himself to be alone—it confirmed what Amelia had known in her heart, from their wedding on: This man could never be capable of murder.
“Nearly done, my dear.”
He took a brush to the horse’s coat, gently brushing the dirt from her fetlocks and murmuring more tender words. As Amelia watched, a sick feeling gathered in her stomach. She’d known from the first that people came second to horses in the duke’s priorities. After all, that was the entire reason they’d met. He’d all but ruined Jack—and by extension, her own happiness—in pursuit of a stallion. But somehow viewing this scene recast that reality in a new, harsh light. There was no further denying that this man possessed the capacity for real tenderness and solicitude. He just couldn’t—or wouldn’t—reveal those things to her.
Oh, God. Ladies were supposed to become embittered wives when their husbands strayed to other women’s beds. Amelia was going to spend the rest of her life feeling envious of horses. The complete absurdity of it made her tremble.
She needed to leave, immediately. He would finish grooming his mount soon, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught out here and forced to explain not only her presence, but the tears burning her eyes. She began her slow retreat, feeling her way backward across the tiled brick floor rather than making too much rustle with a turn. But shadows clung to the ground, obscuring her steps, and her slippers were still wet with dew. She slipped.
Drat, drat, drat.
Throwing her arms wide, she made a wild grab for the door of a nearby stall. Her fingers closed over the edge, and somehow she stopped her fall before she sprawled completely to the ground. She froze, her pulse pounding in her throat and her spine contorting in ways she’d surely rue tomorrow. At any second, she expected Spencer to round the corner and make her humiliation complete.
He didn’t. After several moments’ uneventful silence, Amelia struggled to unknot her limbs and regain her feet. For once, luck was on her side. Her wild scrambling had gone unnoticed.
By Spencer, at least. The same couldn’t be said for the horse whose door she’d borrowed for a crutch. An offended snort came from the darkened stall, and Amelia heard the horse coming to its feet.
She addressed the animal frantically, making as many mollifying clucks and shushes as her predicament would allow. She didn’t want Spencer to hear the horse, but she didn’t want him to hear her, either. Perhaps she should have simply turned and fled, but her instinct was to quiet the beast first, rather than rouse the whole barn.
Through the shadows, she could just make out the horse swinging its head from side to side, ears flat and nostrils flared. The beast’s breathing grew heavier. Noisier. Now the horse’s agitation was not only inconvenient, but threatening. This was why she’d never learned to ride. Horses always frightened her. All that intimidating strength, and they never heeded her wishes whatsoever. Just like now.
“Oh, please,” Amelia pleaded through her teeth. “Please hush, please.”
Boom.
The horse kicked at the bottom of the door, sending a bone-jarring vibration up the rails and through Amelia’s arms. With a startled cry, she released her grip and leapt back, only to collide with an unseen obstacle. She whirled in defense. Strong hands grasped her shoulders and she fought instinctively against them, struggling and lashing out with her fists until reason and the carriage lamp illuminated the obvious. These were Spencer’s hands holding her.
The ensuing wave of relief dissolved what remained of her strength.
“Oh, God.” She sucked in a lungful of air, trying to locate the courage to meet his eyes. “Spencer, I’m so sorry.”
“You should be. What the devil are you doing in here?” He looked her up and down, as he often did, but this time his gaze sought her angles instead of her curves.
“I’m unharmed,” she told him, hoping that’s what he meant to assess. Behind her, the horse gave another booming kick at its stall, and she jumped in her skin.
With a rough curse, Spencer released Amelia’s arms. Fairly shoving her out of the way, he went to the door and reached his hand toward the horse. The animal nosed his fingers roughly, as if in reprimand, and stamped the floor. Undeterred, Spencer murmured a steady stream of placating words. Eventually the mare—for Spencer’s soft endearments left no question the horse was female—tossed her head and offered her left side for his touch. He obliged the request, rubbing the horse behind the ear.