“Stop!” Alex called.
Obediently, she halted, then walked over to where he was standing outside the fence. He was grinning. “I’ve never seen that pony move so fast.”
“He certainly doesn’t want to move,” Diana returned. “The squire’s pony was a speed demon compared with this one.”
“Sally likes him. He’s a good beginner pony. He will just follow along when we go out on the trails and she never has to worry about him doing something stupid.”
“Doing something stupid would take too much energy,” Diana said scornfully.
“You’re a good rider,” Alex said. “But you’re too small to ride our horses. You’d be like a fly on top of them. You have no body or legs to hold them.”
Diana’s heart sank. She wasn’t going to be able to ride. She looked at him, her eyes tragic.
“There’s my old pony,” he offered. “I talked Papa into keeping him for Sally to grow into, but he’s been doing nothing ever since I got my new horse. He might be a bit of a handful.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I won’t mind that. I’ll straighten him out.”
“Let me ride him for a few days, to get the kinks out of him. Then we’ll try you on him.”
“What’s his name?” Diana asked eagerly.
“Jonathan. He’s a grand pony. I was sorry when I outgrew him.”
Diana smiled. “Thank you, Alex. If I couldn’t ride I think I would just wither away and die.”
He looked back at her. “It means that much to you?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “You’re a great girl, Diana. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
Diana flung her arm off her forehead and rolled over on her side. What was the point of going over old times? The past was the past. It was true that she and Alex had become companions, riding out together every morning. He had friends in the neighborhood, but he didn’t despise her company when he had nothing else to do.
She had adored him. He was two years older than she, and a boy. She’d looked up to him and admired him and felt honored whenever he sought out her company. Sally, at five, was too young for her. She’d dreaded the day when he would be going back to school.
I fell in love with him when I was seven years old, she thought now as she lay restless in her bed. It wasn’t fair. He was the only friend I had. I didn’t have a chance.
Well my eyes are opened now. I might have loved him, but he didn’t love me. Not really. If he had truly loved me he never would have left me to go into the army.
She curled up into a ball and finally she fell asleep.
The next two weeks were busy as Lady Standish made ready to move her household to London. True to his word, Alex retired William, who was not at all adverse to the idea of being the master of his own time in a snug little cottage close to a good fishing stream, and Alex found a younger replacement, an ex-soldier who had been wounded and retired from the Peninsula army. Thomas lacked the smooth, finished manners of their old coachman, but he was an excellent driver.
The butler, Henrys, would be coming with them to London, as would the cook, Lady Standish’s personal maid, the young maid who helped to look after Sally, and Alex’s valet, who had come back from the Peninsula with him. As Alex was bringing three riding horses as well as the carriage horses, several grooms would be accompanying them as well. Margaret and Maria were staying at home with their governess, Lady Standish not wanting the children underfoot while she was so preoccupied.
The Sherwoods had far fewer encumbrances than did the Devizes. In fact, they had only one trunk that was filled with all their clothes.
On the morning that they started out for London, there were five carriages—two for the family plus three hired vehicles to carry the servants and the luggage. Alex drove his father’s phaeton, an open, high-wheeled carriage with room for two or three people on the front seat. He had asked Diana if she would like to ride with him, but she had told him to take Sally.
“She gets sick if she travels for too long inside a carriage. She will do better in the phaeton,” she said. “I, on the other hand, prefer to ride in the comfort of the carriage.”
He had acquiesced and so had the chance to spend several hours in the sole company of his sister. She had written to him faithfully during the three years that he was in the Peninsula and had been his chief source of information about Diana. He thought he would use this chance to pump her for as much information as he could get about her best friend.
“Is Mama footing the bill for Dee’s come-out?” he asked bluntly after they had finished driving through the village.
“Of course,” Sally said. “There is no way Cousin Louisa could afford such a thing herself. Papa wouldn’t have done it. He liked Diana, but he felt he was doing enough by housing her and her mother. But Mama and Cousin Louisa are very close—and have become even closer since Papa died.”
“So it was Mama’s idea to bring Diana out with you.”
“Actually it was my idea,” Sally said. She tied her bonnet a little more tightly against the wind. “It will be much more fun for me if Diana is with me—she has a way of making the world around her seem brighter, more exciting. And she’s not a bit shy—like I am.”
“It was nice of you, Sal,” he said soberly. “Not every girl would want to be compared to Diana.” He turned his head and smiled at her. “But you have turned into a very beautiful girl, yourself.”
Sally blushed. “Thank you, Alex. My only real worry is that Mama said that Diana’s lack of money would limit the number of men who would ask for her.”
Alex felt a little relieved by this assessment. The fewer rivals he had, the better.
Sally shook her head. “I don’t agree with Mama, though. I think Diana has a very good chance of catching a rich man who won’t need her money. She is so very beautiful, you know. And besides that, she’s fun.”
Alex frowned.
“You used to be such good friends,” Sally continued. “Then you went off to war and she hardly mentioned your name the whole time you were gone. And now that you’re home, you still don’t talk.”
“She was angry with me for joining the army,” Alex said stiffly. He was staring straight ahead, over his horses’ backs. “I hardly think I should be punished for serving my country.”
“I think it’s because of her father,” Sally mused. “She never forgave him for going away and leaving her and her mother. Life hasn’t been easy for them, Alex. If it wasn’t for Mama, I don’t know what would have become of them.”
“He was a soldier,” Alex said. “He had to follow orders.”
“Yes. That’s precisely why Diana doesn’t like soldiers.” She put a brief hand on his knee. “Give her time, Alex. She’ll get over her anger once she gets used to having you around again.”
“Hmmph,” Alex said.
“I have to confess that I’m a little nervous about this come-out business,” Sally said.
They were crossing over a wooden bridge and the horses’ hooves thudded hollowly on the boards. “Why?” he said with surprise. “You’ll be one of the belles of the season, Sal. You’re so pretty and you’re the daughter—well, I suppose you’re now the sister—of the Earl of Standish. The Devizes are one of the best families in the country. Men will be lining up to marry you.”
“But what if I don’t love anybody, Alex? I don’t want to get married just for the sake of getting married. I want to marry a man I love!”
He