‘They can all be ridden, no problem. Come into the warm, sir.’ He closed the door behind Giles and put down the harness he had been mending. Beside the stove Paul, the groom, got to his feet and nodded respectfully. ‘We train them so they can be ridden to the farrier. Not the smoothest ride you’ll ever have, but any of them will do you for a few miles. I’ll get some short reins on a bridle for you this evening. You’ll be bareback, though.’
‘I’m a cavalryman, Thomas. I’ll ride most things with or without a saddle.’ The room was warm and smelled not unpleasantly of horse, leather, tobacco and hard-working men. It was simple and reassuringly familiar from years spent in billets, in tumbledown cottages, in tents, all made into homes for professional soldiers.
‘Have you far to go, Captain? If you don’t mind me asking.’ Thomas nudged a chair forward and Paul produced a stone bottle that sloshed cheerfully.
‘Under a day, unless any bridges are down or roads blocked. Thanks.’ Giles took the bottle and tipped his head back to take a swallow, then lost the power to breathe. ‘Hell’s teeth,’ he managed after several seconds. ‘What is this?’
‘My old mother’s winter tonic.’ Thomas accepted the jug and took a hefty swig. ‘Secret recipe handed down for generations. Here you are, Paul, keep it moving, lad.’
Ah, well, there are worse ways to spend a snowbound afternoon than blind drunk, that time-honoured way to deal with the pain of a woman on your mind.
Chapter Six
‘Oh! Are you sickening for something?’
Giles came through the door into the dining room and stared at the food on the table as though he were not quite certain what it was for.
Julia stood up, took his arm and pushed him into the nearest chair. ‘You are the most ghastly colour. Let me feel your forehead. Have you a fever?’ No, his skin was cool. ‘I’ll see if Mrs Smithers has any tonics or medicines in stock.’ Under her hand she felt him shudder.
‘The last thing I need is a tonic. Thank you. Coffee. Please.’
‘No coffee, remember? It will have to be strong tea.’ Miri, smiling wickedly, lifted the pot.
‘Very strong. Sugar.’ He took the first cup, appeared to inhale it and took the second, which she had already pushed across to him. ‘More.’
Light dawned. ‘You are drunk.’
He finished the third cup. ‘Hungover.’
‘So that is where you were yesterday afternoon! Have you drunk the cellar dry?’
‘Some sort of tonic your coachman swears by. Probably one needs several years’ training to get the full benefit.’ Giles regarded the bacon with a jaundiced eye, carved two thick slices of bread off the loaf, buttered it liberally, slapped four rashers between them and began to demolish the resulting sandwich. ‘That’s better. I think,’ he remarked when all that was left were crumbs.
‘You should go back to bed and sleep it off.’
‘Bed is very tempting.’ The slightly bloodshot grey eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement and she felt herself blushing. ‘My dear Lady Julia, if every officer who woke up after a night spent with a bottle of dubious liqueur was unfit to function we would have been rolled up by Bonaparte within weeks.’
That wicked almost-smile convened layers of meaning about bed and his ability to function and the wretched man knew it. Julia pursed her lips rather than run her tongue along them. ‘I am delighted to hear it. I had been looking forward to the ride.’
‘You?’ The smile vanished. ‘There are no saddles. I don’t know how bad the roads will be or how long it will take. You should stay safely here.’
‘Captain Markham, I have ridden over Indian deserts, through jungles, across plains on just about everything there is to ride in the country—horses, mules, elephants and camels. I can assure you I did not do so side-saddle wearing a fashionable riding habit and only venturing out when it was entirely safe to do so.’ The look on Giles’s face as she stood and walked to the door, the divided skirt swishing against her tall leather boots, was worth braving any depths of snowdrift for.
‘And your husband permitted this?’
‘In India such travel is a matter of routine. If my husband wanted me to be about his business, he had no choice. I hope for your future wife’s sake that you will not be the kind of husband who keeps an English version of a zenana. I will be over at the stables when you have finished your breakfast and calmed your poor, aching head.’
‘You would say harem, I imagine, Captain.’ Miri’s earnest explanation followed Julia into the hall as she shrugged into a heavy greatcoat borrowed from Smithers. Her riding skirt had been made to withstand thorns and blown sand, but not an English winter, and beneath her outer clothes she was layered like an onion with silk undergarments.
Thomas was walking one of the carriage horses up and down, a rug over its back. ‘Morning, my lady.’
‘Good morning. I am riding, too, if you can shorten another set of reins for me.’ He stared at her, looking remarkably like Giles for a second. Man confused by woman, she thought with an inward grin and took the reins, led the horse to the mounting block and pushed back the rug over its rump before she swung a leg over the broad back. It was a stretch after her own little mare, but it was no more uncomfortable than a camel.
Thomas was muttering under his breath as she shook out her skirts on either side. Perfectly decent and perfectly practical whether one was on an elephant or a large carriage horse. ‘The Captain will be out directly.’ Once he has his head on the right way round.
Giles emerged a few moments later, buttoning his greatcoat as he stood on the threshold and looked at her. For a moment she wondered if he was going to be difficult, then he shook his head and walked across to Thomas, who was leading out another horse. He might not approve, but the Captain had the tact not to lecture her in front of her servants.
He vaulted on to the back of the big bay. Oh, my goodness. Yes, well, don’t stare. Just because he moves like a god, just because he looks like one sitting there as though he is part of the animal… She fussed with the reins, brought her own horse up alongside his and had her mouth firmly shut before she looked at him again.
He was a cavalry officer. Of course he can ride. There had been fine horsemen everywhere she travelled in India, but she had never seen a rider who took her breath as this man did, sitting relaxed bareback. She was aware of his body now, aware of what they both wanted, and that was decidedly uncomfortable.
Miri came out carrying saddlebags. ‘Food and drink,’ she said as she handed them up to Giles who slung them over his horse’s withers. ‘Don’t get lost.’
‘We won’t. Ready, Lady Julia?’ At her nod he moved his horse forward and she followed on a loose rein, letting the animal find its own footing in the snow.
They rode silently in single file, their breath forming clouds in front of them, their track stark and lonely in the white perfection. The sky was an exquisite pale blue, the sunlight sparkled on the snow-fringed branches, every twig encased in crystal.
After perhaps a mile Giles turned, one hand on his horse’s rump, and looked back. ‘All right? Come alongside if you want, the hedges are far apart, so there must be wide verges. We should be safe from ditches.’
He waited until she was almost knee to knee with him. ‘I offended you this morning, I apologise.’
‘And I was rude in return. I am sure you will make a