Love's Fortress Page 10

  “What did Mr. Howard mean when he asked how the experiment was going?” Sarah asked. She’d been burning with curiosity ever since she’d overheard the remark.

  “We’re trying to create a new breed of horse,” Charles answered as if it were common to do such a thing.

  “A new breed? Why that’s amazing! But why? Can it be done?” Sarah’s head was spinning. She’d had no idea they were doing that sort of thing. It sounded complicated and time-consuming.

  “Yes, it can be done,” Charles answered. He sounded amused but not condescending. “Gideon thinks that carriage travel on the new roads requires a new breed of horse, and I think he’s right. He wants to breed one of the faster horses with a heavier, stronger breed. The combination of speed, strength, endurance and intelligence should make an excellent carriage horse.”

  “I had no idea.” Sarah felt utterly foolish. She had not asked them about the horses. She hadn’t made the effort to find out what her new husband’s interests were, what his goals for the farm were. She’d seen the horses and thought they were beautiful and she hadn’t thought beyond that. Even Mrs. Duncan had known. She’d asked whether he had “made his horse”.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask about the horses and the farm. I should have. No wonder…” She broke off before she revealed her fears over the two men not returning to her bed.

  “No wonder what?” Charles pounced on her hesitation.

  Sarah just shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t worry, Sarah. You’ll learn all about the farm as you go along. It’s too soon to castigate yourself for not knowing everything.” Sarah smiled at him, letting him believe he’d placated her. Charles let it drop after one more searching look at her.

  A few minutes later she broke the silence again. “What exactly is your work, Charles? Are you in charge of the breeding?”

  Charles started to shake his head but stopped. “Yes and no. I’m in charge of the day-to-day care of the horses and the management of the farm. But Gideon is the mind behind the breeding program. He is in communication with breeders around the world, decides which horses to buy, which horses to breed with each other. The horses are Gideon’s dream.”

  “Which you are helping him to realize.” Sarah spoke without thinking. Charles glanced at her nervously and she could see he was blushing.

  “Anyone would need help. What we do is too much for one man to undertake.” He tried to minimize his role on the farm, but it was too late. Sarah knew all that he did, and now she knew what his goal was—their goal, really. To create something lasting, something unique and wonderful. Something they could only do together.

  Sarah had wondered today if she was underestimating Charles’ role on the farm. She understood that Charles was more than just the estate manager. He was Gideon’s dearest friend, even if they did exchange cross words frequently. Gideon trusted Charles more than he trusted anyone else, including her. But they were almost strangers still, it seemed, she and Gideon. Most of the villagers had directed their questions about Gideon and the farm to Charles today, not to her. Charles may deny being a gentleman, but he was treated like one in the village. A gentleman of property, as if the farm were as much his as Gideon’s. If she had underestimated his role on the farm, perhaps she was underestimating his role in Gideon’s life as well. Perhaps that was the real reason they had not been back to see her.

  Chapter Nine

  He was leaning on the rail of the gazebo, one hand resting on the whitewashed wood, a crutch clutched in the other hand. Sarah walked slowly toward the small, delicate building on the lawn facing the fenced horse paddocks. He looked upset. Well, as upset as Gideon got. His face appeared closed off, forced into blankness, which she was learning meant inside he was wrestling strong emotions. As she got closer she could see his knuckles were white, he was clutching the rail so tightly. His jaw was tense, his permanent frown even more pronounced. It was astounding the little building could contain him, he seemed so much larger than life there, a dark, angry beast among the flowers.

  And yet she dared approach him. Gideon’s gruff fierceness hid many things, but not cruelty. He was never hurtful or callous to her. He was kindness itself, solicitous of her welfare at every turn. But it was the dark beast that drew her today. The fiercer he became the more she wanted to be with him. Who was this man she had married? What did he want from her?

  She’d observed him and Charles for the last several days, ever since her visit to the village. Still they did not come to her. It had been a week now. The wedding night had faded to a dream. She saw them rarely, spoke to them sparingly. Yet they were never to be found far from each other. She could see that even now he was watching Charles with the horses. Was it the horses that held his attention, or the man?

  “Are you going to stand there peeking around the bushes all day, or do you wish to speak to me?” Gideon turned his head sharply and speared Sarah with his bright gaze.

  Sarah hid a flash of trepidation, standing straighter and squaring her shoulders as she walked sedately up the steps to the interior of the gazebo. “I was not peeking. I was merely standing, on the path mind you, observing. If you can stand here and spy on Charles, why can I not stand openly on the path and observe you?”

  Gideon raised his eyebrow. “I thought you would be more biddable.”

  Sarah raised a brow as well. “Did you? Pity, that.” Gideon laughed outright at her imitation of Charles’ favorite phrase.

  “I am not spying,” he said. “I am watching him train a horse.” He turned and hopped over to a chair, settling his weight on it with a sigh. He laid the crutch on the floor beside his chair and waved Sarah into the seat next to him.

  “Did you teach him how to train the horses?” Gideon appeared surprised by Sarah’s question. “He told me that you are the thinking half of this partnership.” Sarah chose her words deliberately.

  “Did he?” Gideon said. He sounded more intrigued than anything else. “What else did he say?”

  “He said that the two of you are trying to create a new breed of carriage horse. That you are in charge of the correspondence and research and breeding decisions, and he is in charge of the day-to-day affairs on the farm.”

  “He said rather a lot, then, didn’t he?” Gideon said pensively. “I assume this was on your trip to the village?”

  Sarah nodded. “We did not discuss the breeding in detail.”

  Gideon’s lip quirked. She was used to his smiles now, few and far between as they were. “No, I don’t suppose you did.” Sarah blushed at his double meaning and looked away. “What would you like to know?” he asked pleasantly. “I may not be in charge, but I do know something of the day-to-day.”

  His answer confirmed what Charles had told her, and convinced her that Gideon harbored no resentment over the situation. He had not corrected her when she had called their relationship a partnership. It was apparent that was how he saw it too.

  “Is the horse there with Mr. Borden one of your new breed?” Sarah asked.

  Gideon shook his head. “No. That’s a Cleveland Bay. It’s a carriage horse already. Or will be after Charles is done with it. We are trying to create a new breed, but we also raise and train breeds that are in demand right now, such as the Bay.” Gideon pointed to the field beside the paddock. “Do you see the smaller, black horse there? That is a Dartmoor. I’m hoping that cross-breeding with the Bay will create a strong, intelligent, tractable horse.” He turned to Sarah and grinned like a schoolboy. “And then I shall introduce the Arabian.” He rubbed his hands together. “With the thoroughbred’s speed and high spirits tempered by the Bay and Dartmoor’s sweet temper and strength, I think we shall have an excellent, heavy-carriage horse.”

  His enthusiasm was a delight to watch. Sarah had never seen him so animated. “Why carriage horses? Why not thoroughbreds, racehorses?”

  Gideon shook his head dismissively. “Because it’s not about what they do in one moment, it’s abou
t what they are capable of day in and day out. A carriage horse is an investment in time, an integral part of a gentlemen’s life. A racehorse is merely an investment to be disposed of if it does not deliver.”

  He pointed at various horses in the paddocks and the field. “We also have some trotters, Yorkshire and Norfolk both. I’m planning to crossbreed them as well. The result should be a lighter, elegant horse with good stamina.” He took a breath as if to say more, but then grimaced and looked at Sarah. “I’m sorry. I get carried away.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, it’s fascinating, truly.” She wrinkled her nose. “I must confess that I’ve never thought much about the breeding of horses for specific tasks. A horse is a horse to me.”

  Gideon frowned in mock ferocity. “You blaspheme, my dear.”

  Sarah laughed. “Gideon,” she chided halfheartedly. She turned to watch Charles with the horse. “I shall learn as I go, as Charles told me the other day.”

  “Yes,” Gideon said quietly, “you will. Particularly if Charles has decreed it.”

  Sarah turned to him, but she could detect no malice in his remark, just amusement. “I will learn because I choose to, not because Charles has decreed it.”

  “Bravo, my dear Mrs. North,” Gideon said with a wry bow of his head. “I am put in my place.”

  Sarah sighed. “I do not wish to place you anywhere you do not wish to go,” she said in exasperation. “I am trying to learn, Gideon. I am trying to learn about you.”

  She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d stripped naked and danced on the lawn. “Why?” The question burst out unbidden, but he did not want to take it back.

  Sarah sighed again and shook her head as she smoothed her skirts. He‘d noticed she did that when she was nervous or thinking. She was always thinking. Gideon could almost hear the wheels turning in her head sometimes. But he never knew what she was thinking. She was quiet as a mouse, watching. If she’d only say something, anything to let him know how she felt about this marriage of theirs. About what they’d done on the wedding night. He closed his eyes and turned away, as if cutting off the sight of the sun glinting off her shining hair would stop the memories of how that hair felt against his face, how it smelled, how it shimmered in the candlelight around her shoulders and hips like a cape of honey as she rode him. He opened his eyes and saw Charles watching them. And he remembered how Charles had watched them then too.

  “How can I be your wife if I don’t know you, Gideon?” Sarah asked quietly beside him. He had almost forgotten his question.

  Gideon took a deep breath. Her answer did not reassure him. “You are my wife now,” he drawled, “whether you know me or not.”

  Sarah made a noise that may have been frustration, but when Gideon looked at her she was serenely watching Charles in the paddock. She spent as much time watching Charles as she did watching Gideon, though she tried to be surreptitious about it. Gideon supposed that was natural. She had shared her body with Charles as much as she had with Gideon, intercourse be damned. His one regret was that he had not let Charles have her. But he had not spoken of it. Neither had Charles, nor had Sarah. Blakely Farm had become a house of unspoken thoughts in the last week.

  “If you were to know me better, madam, you might find that you do not wish to be my wife.”

  Sarah scoffed. She must think he was joking. But he wasn’t. Surely she knew what kind of man he was by now. The kind of man who could not bed his wife alone. The kind of man who would share a beautiful, innocent girl with another man. The kind of man who enjoyed it, had enjoyed watching his friend touch her, kiss her, fondle her. The kind of man who wanted to do it again.

  “Gideon, you say the most outrageous things. You do not know me either. Perhaps you are finding that the more you know the more you regret the poor choice you made for a wife?”

  Gideon glared at her. “Do not ever say that again, Sarah. You are the one who must now have regrets. I am sure I am not what you hoped for.”

  He couldn’t decipher her look. Why must his wife be so enigmatic? He was not adept in these emotional minefields. What had he been thinking to believe he could handle a wife?

  “Why were you here watching Charles?” she asked quietly. He could tell that the question had an underlying meaning, but he had no idea what it was. Another attempt to “know” him?

  “I like to watch him train the horses. To see the fruition of my work. I also keep an eye on how he trains them.”

  “Did you teach him?” She had asked him that when she first entered.

  He shook his head. “No. Charles’ father was a well-to-do farmer. I understand breeding and lineage, he knows training. But I have learned from him.”

  “He said he was not a gentleman.”

  Gideon felt the familiar irritation whenever he heard Charles say the same thing to him. “That’s rubbish. He is as much a gentleman as I.”

  “I do not know your background, Gideon.” Sarah sounded surprised. “I should have asked before now. You said you had no family and I did not pursue it. I assumed because you were an officer you were well connected.”

  Gideon waved it off. “Well, of course I had a family. But they are dead now. My father was a merchant in Bath. I was the youngest of three children. He bought me a commission, and while I was away he lost his business and all but my oldest brother died of a fever. He died several years ago. I am not a gentleman by birth either.” He stared off in the distance. “But I earned that commission and my pension in the war.” He raised his left hand and looked at it, flexing his fingers as best as he could. “This made me a gentleman farmer, my dear.”

  “Are you telling Mrs. North I am too rough with the horses, Gideon?” Charles called from the path outside the gazebo. Gideon refocused on the paddock and saw a groom leading the Bay to the barn. He hadn’t noticed Charles leaving. He turned and saw Charles just rounding the bend in the path, and then he was there, jumping over the steps, too impatient to take the time to climb them.

  “He does not take the lead well,” Gideon replied smoothly. “You bully him when you should praise.”

  Sarah seemed to melt into her chair at Charles’ arrival. It wasn’t that she shrank, but rather that she went very still and quiet, the better to observe them, he supposed. Charles bowed briefly and Sarah nodded. So stiff and formal today, yet they had been bosom beaux on their trip to the village, apparently. Gideon took a deep breath again. He couldn’t decide which annoyed him more. Yes, he could. He did not like to see them this way. He wanted to be privy to the two when they were sharing their secrets with each other. His jealousy had less to do with their growing friendship and more to do with being left out of it.

  “If you want to train the horses, then get off your arse and get down there and do it.”

  That certainly got Sarah to sit up. “Mr. Borden,” she gasped.

  Gideon smiled sarcastically. “Yes, that would be amusing. Dragging me around the paddock by the lead should help train them to pull dead weight in no time.”

  “You could ride a horse to train. You know you can take the lead from atop a horse. And they need to be trained to work with other horses eventually. You could do that.”

  “I do not ride.” Gideon’s jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth. They had had this argument innumerable times. He did not wish to have it again in front of Sarah.

  “You could ride,” Charles said, anger coloring his voice. “We have the saddle for you. I’ve seen you use it. You choose not to ride.”

  “It is uncomfortable and awkward,” Gideon ground out, “as I have told you before.”

  “Then get a prosthesis.” Charles was relentless. “You have the name of a maker in London. With the proper prosthesis you could work in the paddock.”

  “Enough.” Gideon grabbed his crutches from the floor and stood up. “Simply because you cannot train a horse properly does not excuse your boorish behavior in front of my wife.”

  Charles looked at Sarah and his mouth thinned to a razor sharp line.
“My apologies, madam.” He turned back to Gideon. “But do not hide behind her skirts, Gideon. You are afraid to ride, afraid the cavalry officer cannot ride as well as he used to.”

  Gideon’s anger exploded. “You know nothing about why I do or do not choose to ride, Charles, so kindly do not presume that you do. I am well aware that cavalry officer no longer exists. I will not pretend otherwise by getting up on a horse again. Now act the gentleman if you can and give Sarah a proper apology, and then go and wash the dirt off. You should have cleaned up before coming here.”

  “You will not pretend to be something you are not, but I am supposed to? I am no gentleman, Gideon, just as you are no officer.” On those words Charles turned and jumped down the stairs as easily as he had jumped up a few minutes before. He angrily stalked toward the house.

  Gideon stomped over to the rail and grabbed it with one hand. Only Charles could make him so angry. But then again, only Charles had the nerve to confront him like that. Damn him. Why now, in front of Sarah?

  “Gideon.” Sarah said his name quietly and he flinched, anticipating her questions. She rose from her chair and walked over to stand next to him. He could feel her skirt brush his leg, smell the subtle flowery scent she wore. “This is probably not the right time to say this. No, actually, I know this is not the right time.”

  She placed her hand over his on the rail and Gideon felt her touch everywhere. It was a small, tentative touch, and yet more powerful than a kiss. She had not touched him since the morning after the wedding.

  “I want my marital rights.”

  Gideon shook his head, sure he had heard her incorrectly. He turned to her and saw her cheeks were so bright he could hardly discern her birthmark. She refused to look at him. “Excuse me?” he asked inanely.

  Sarah licked her lips and he noticed she was breathing rather erratically. “I wish to enjoy the physical intimacies of marriage again.” Her hand tightened on his. “With you.” She suddenly whirled away and began to pace the gazebo, her arms wrapped around her waist. “I have been…distraught this past week that you have not come to my room. I was worried that I did something wrong.”