Read Chapter 35: Forever in the Saddle

The straw was warm and sweet-smelling, thick on the floor of the birthing stall, and Helena knelt in it without regard for the cost of her habit. Ember lay on her side, flanks heaving, dark coat slick with effort, and the small, wet bundle at her hip was already nuzzling blindly for warmth.

“There,” Helena breathed. “There you are.”

Julian crouched beside her, close enough that his shoulder pressed against hers, and he said nothing. He had learned, in the months since their wedding, that there were moments on this estate that belonged to her entirely. This was one of them. He only watched, his gaze moving between the mare and his wife, and when Helena reached out to touch the foal's trembling leg, he placed his hand over hers.

“A filly,” she said, and her voice cracked on the word.

“A filly,” he agreed.

Ember turned her head, nostrils flaring, and nickered low in her throat. The foal answered with a small, reedy sound, already trying to find her legs. Helena laughed, a wet, unsteady sound, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I thought I was done with crying,” she said.

“You said that at the wedding, too.”

“And I meant it then as well.”

Julian smiled and helped her to her feet. They stood together over the pair, Ember's dark eye calm and watchful, the foal a patchwork of grey and white, legs too long, head too large, perfect in every way that mattered.

“She has her dam's look,” Julian said. “That grey will come through. You'll see it by autumn.”

“She has her dam's heart.” Helena pressed a hand flat against her own chest, as if to hold the feeling in place. “That's the part that matters.”

The stable lad came forward then, quiet and efficient, to finish what needed finishing, and Helena allowed herself to be led out into the evening air. The sun was low over the downs, spilling gold across the grass, and she stood on the threshold of the stable block with her hand in Julian's, watching the light go amber and then rose.

“What shall we call her?” he asked.

Helena considered. Names mattered in racing. A name carried a horse from the paddock to the post, from the whispers before a race to the roar after it. She had learned that from her father, who had spent hours over the naming of each foal, and she had learned it from the dowager, who had said once that a horse's name was a promise you made to the world.

“Promise,” she said. “Call her Promise.”

Julian turned to look at her, and there was something in his face she had come to know well — the quiet, careful attention he gave her when she said something that mattered more than she knew.

“Your father would have approved.”

“I think he would have.” She looked out over the fields, to the fences and the stone walls and the long, rolling green that ran down to the river. “He used to say this land would outlast us all. That was the point of it, wasn't it? Not to hold it for ourselves, but to pass it on whole.”

Julian was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “We should make that a promise of our own.”

Helena turned to face him fully. He was still in his riding clothes, boots dusty from the afternoon's work, and there was a smudge of dirt along his jaw that she reached up and wiped away with her thumb.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we should never sell a single acre.” He took both her hands in his. “Not one. I know there will be offers. There always are. The land is good, the location is prime, and now that the stables are combined, there will be men who see an opportunity to buy us out piece by piece. I want you to know — I want us to agree — that we won't let them.”

Helena's throat tightened. “Julian, you can't mean to tie yourself to this estate so completely. You had plans of your own before you ever met me. Investments. Ventures.”

“I did,” he said. “And I sold them or folded them into ours before the wedding. Did you not notice?”

“I noticed you stopped talking about them.”

“Because there was nothing left to talk about.” He squeezed her hands. “Helena, I didn't marry you to acquire your land. I married you because I could not imagine a life that did not have you in it. And your land is part of you. It is in your blood in a way I will never fully understand, but I respect it. I cherish it. And I will not let it be taken apart under my watch.”

She stared at him. The sun was nearly down now, painting the sky in shades of deep rose and violet, and behind them the stable block was warm with lantern light, the sounds of Ember and her foal settling into the night.

“You mean it,” she said.

“I mean it.”

“Even if we never run another Derby?”

“We will run many Derbys.”

“Even if the market turns and the investments fail and we are left with nothing but the land itself?”

“Then we will have the land.” He smiled, that crooked smile that had infuriated her once and now undid her completely. “And we will be rich in the only way that has ever mattered to you.”

Helena laughed, and it came out half a sob, and she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her there, in the middle of the yard, with the last light of the day falling over them and the estate spread out in every direction, and she felt the tension she had been carrying since her father's death finally — finally — begin to ease.

“Promise,” she said against his shoulder.

“Promise,” he said back.

They stood that way for a long moment, until the first stars appeared and the air grew cool, and then they walked together along the fence line, the way they had walked on their first morning as a married couple. The grass was damp with dew, and the downs stretched dark and peaceful before them, and Helena felt an odd, unfamiliar thing settle in her chest.

It was hope, she realized. Not the sharp, desperate hope of a season spent fighting for survival. Not the brittle hope of a gamble placed on a single race. Just hope. Quiet and steady. The kind that came from knowing the ground beneath you would hold.

“The bay colt out of Windfall is coming along beautifully,” she said as they walked. “I worked him on the long gallop this morning. He has a stride like his sire and a temper like his dam, which I mean as a compliment, and he'll need another season before we can truly test him, but he's the best prospect I've seen in years.”

“And you want to train him yourself.”

“I do.”

“Then you will.” He said it simply, as if that had never been in question. “And Promise will have her turn in three years, and Ember will be retired to the paddock to live out her days eating grass and bossing the geldings, and we will build something here that neither of our families managed alone.”

Helena stopped walking. They had reached the top of the rise, the place where the estate opened out to the wide bowl of the valley, and she could see the lights of the house in the distance, warm and golden in the windows.

“You know what the Duke's invitation means,” she said. “Ascot will be watched by everyone. The ton, the press, the betting men. They will all be looking for cracks, for signs that a marriage between a racing family and a financial one cannot hold.”

“Let them look.” Julian took her hand and turned it over, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Let them look and find nothing but a woman who loves her land and a man who loves her.”

“They will find a woman who intends to beat the duke's own horses,” Helena said, and Julian laughed.

“That too.”

They stood together on the rise, hand in hand, and watched the last of the light fade from the sky. Down in the stable block, a man's voice rose in a low, soothing croon, and the sound of a foal's first, uncertain nicker drifted up to them on the evening air.

Helena did not want to move. She wanted to stand here forever, on this piece of ground her father had walked before her, with the weight of her mother's absence eased by Julian's presence, and the promise of the future stretching out in every direction.

But the night was growing deeper, and the house was waiting, and tomorrow there were bloodlines to discuss and training schedules to plan and a Duke's invitation to answer.

“Walk with me,” she said.

“Always,” he said.

And they walked down the hill together, toward the warm lights of home.