Read Chapter 34: All in Line

The morning light came pale gold over the downs, soft as mare’s milk, and Helena found herself standing at the bedroom window before she had even thought to dress. Behind her, the sheets were still warm, still tangled, and she could hear Julian’s slow, easy breathing shift as he woke.

“You’re staring at grass,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “We are married not a full day, and already you prefer the pasture to me.”

She smiled without turning. “The pasture was here first.”

He came up behind her, barefoot, and set his chin on her shoulder. His hands found her waist with the ease of a man who had learned the shape of her in the dark. Together they looked out over the Ashworth downs, the low swell of green running down to the river, the white rails of the training track catching the light, and beyond it all, the roof of the new stable block rising clean and red-bricked against the sky.

“It looks different,” she said. “Lighter.”

“The sun’s out.”

“No. I mean it.” She turned her head just enough to see the line of his jaw. “It was always my father’s land. My burden. Now it’s—” She stopped, searching for the word.

“Ours,” Julian finished.

She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Ours.”

They stood a moment longer, and then Helena laughed, sudden and bright. “Julian, we are in our nightclothes, staring at horses from the window like two stable hands who’ve lost their way to the loft.”

“I’ve been called worse.” He dropped a kiss on her temple and stepped back. “Get dressed. I want to walk the track before the grooms turn it to mud.”

They dressed quickly, in the efficient rhythm of people who had spent their lives rising before the household, and went down the back stairs to avoid the servants’ morning bustle. The kitchen maid, a girl of perhaps fourteen with flour up to her elbows, dropped a curtsy so deep she nearly toppled a bowl of cream. Helena laughed and told her to mind the butter, and they were out the door into the cool, damp air of the yard.

The downs were quiet. A few horses stood in the near paddock, heads low, tails flicking lazily. Farther out, on the gallop, she could see a single rider—one of the lads, she thought, a small figure bent low over a bay colt, moving at an easy canter through the mist that still clung to the hollows.

Julian walked beside her, hands in his pockets, his cravat only loosely tied. He looked more at home than she had ever seen him: less the London investor, more the man who had spent his youth in the country and had only half forgotten it.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“Dangerous habit.”

He smiled. “About the yearling sales. The bay colt out of Windfall—the one your father was fond of—he’s ready for training. But we have no one to school him.”

“We have lads.”

“Lads who can gallop, yes. But the colt needs a patient hand. He’s clever, and clever horses go sour with heavy riders.” He glanced at her. “I thought you might take him on yourself.”

Helena stopped walking. “Me?”

“You’ve the lightest seat I’ve ever seen, and he trusts you. I watched you with him last month—you spoke to him like an old friend, and he followed you to the gate without a lead.”

“He did, didn’t he.” She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and looked away, embarrassed by how much his words pleased her. “Well. I suppose I could. If you think it wise.”

“I think it wise.” He took her hand, and they walked on, fingers laced. “I think a great many things will change now, and not all of them need to be for the worse.”

“That is a remarkably sanguine view for a man who married a woman who deliberately got herself disqualified from the Whitbury Stakes.”

“I married a woman who threw away a race to win me a trophy I then gave back. I think we’re evenly matched.”

She laughed, and they came over the rise to where the training track ran straight and true toward the river. The mist had burned off now, and the sun lay warm on the grass. She could see the whole estate from here—the house behind them, the stables to the left, the cottages of the grooms and their families scattered along the lane. It was all hers. All theirs.

“Julian,” she said, “do you ever regret it?”

“Regret what?”

“Leaving London. The funds, the speculation, the—the life you had. You gave up a great deal to come here.”

He was quiet a moment, his gaze following the line of the track to the river and then beyond, to the low hills that marked the boundary of the property. “Do you remember what I told you, the first time we spoke properly? At the ball, when you accused me of knowing nothing about horses?”

“I accused you of knowing nothing about anything.”

“There you are.” He squeezed her hand. “I told you I didn’t come to London to stay. I came to make enough to buy back what my family lost. And somewhere along the way, I found that I had been looking for the wrong thing. It wasn’t land I wanted. It was—” He stopped, and turned to face her. “It was the chance to build something that mattered. With someone who mattered.”

Helena blinked rapidly, her throat tight. “You are going to make me cry, and I have not even had my breakfast.”

“Then I shall feed you first and say pretty things after.”

They walked on, back toward the house, their steps easy and matched. The kitchen maid had recovered herself and was now hanging wet linens on a line, and she waved shyly as they passed. Helena waved back, feeling lighter than she had in months—years, perhaps. Her father’s death was still a raw ache, but it had settled into something she could carry rather than something that carried her.

They ate breakfast in the small morning room, which overlooked the rose garden—though the roses were past their best now, and the beds were being turned for the autumn. Julian read the post over toast and marmalade, frowning at a letter, then setting it aside, then picking it up again.

“Something interesting?” Helena asked, buttering a second slice.

“The Earl of Marchbanks wishes to sell his stud. He asks if we have interest in a private purchase.”

“Marchbanks? He has that grey mare—the one that threw Eastman’s colt at Newmarket. She’s got fine blood, but she’s brittle. He’s never raced her properly.”

“He says she’s sound now. And he’s asking below market.”

Helena took a sip of tea, considering. “We could see her. But I’d want to watch her move before I agreed to anything.”

“Naturally.” Julian folded the letter and tucked it into his coat pocket. “I told him we would visit next week.”

“You told him?”

“I have learned that you prefer to have the matter brought to you than to chase it yourself. Consider it a husbandly service.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You are learning.”

They were clearing the table when the knock came—a sharp, commanding rap that brought both of them to a standstill. The butler, a stooped man named Grimsby who had served her father for forty years, appeared in the doorway with a silver salver. On it lay a single envelope, sealed with red wax.

“A messenger from London, my lady. Marked immediate.”

Helena took the letter. The seal was not one she recognized—a crown, and beneath it, a horse. She broke it open and scanned the contents, then read them again, more slowly.

“Julian,” she said, her voice strange in her own ears.

“What is it?”

“It is from the Duke of York.”

He was at her side in an instant, reading over her shoulder. The letter was formal, in the clipped handwriting of a secretary, but its contents were unmistakable. His Grace, the Duke of York, who had long been a patron of the turf and was known to take a personal interest in the sport of kings, was pleased to extend an invitation to Lord and Lady Ashworth to enter a horse—or horses—in the Royal Meeting at Ascot the following summer. He had heard of their union of stables, of the quality of their bloodstock, and he wished to see what the combined Ashworth and Vane yards could produce. He signed it with a flourish.

Helena lowered the letter, her hands trembling slightly. “Ascot. The Royal Meeting.”

“Read the rest,” Julian said softly, and she did.

The Duke added, almost as an afterthought, that he remembered with fondness her father’s victory at the St Leger in ’96, and that he hoped the daughter would prove as worthy as the sire.

She did not realize she was crying until Julian wiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb. “Your father would be proud,” he said.

“I know.” Her voice broke. “I know he would.”

They stood together in the quiet of the morning room, the letter lying open on the table between them, and Helena felt the last tight knot of grief in her chest loosen, just a little. The season had been brutal—the schemes, the betrayals, the loss of her father, the loss of her innocence about the world she had trusted. But this, here, was what she had fought for: a future, a family, a place to put her feet.

“We’ll need to breed the bay mare to the grey,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “If she’s sound, she’ll throw a colt that could run at Ascot. And Ember—if she recovers fully, she’s fast enough for the King’s Plate.”

Julian laughed. “You are planning the bloodlines of a race we have not even entered.”

“We have entered. His Grace has seen to that.” She picked up the letter and folded it carefully, then tucked it into the bodice of her dress, next to her heart. “Now walk with me to the stables. I want to check Ember’s leg, and then I want to see the bay colt. I have a feeling about him.”

“You have a feeling about every horse you lay eyes on.”

“Yes, and I am rarely wrong.”

They went out together into the bright morning, and the door swung shut behind them. The downs stretched before them, green and open and full of promise. Helena took Julian’s hand as they walked, and she did not let go until they reached the stable door.