which, if truth be told, were still not strong enough to take too much more of this.
One last test and he would go back to the stables. He turned the horse towards a low fence at the bottom of the pasture. There was no risk in it. He had been jumping that particular obstacle since he was a boy and the horse was familiar with it as well. As they approached, he felt nothing but pleasant anticipation of both man and beast, for the moment of weightless flight as they passed over it. And they did, with ease.
It was then that Zeus chose his moment for rebellion, landing hard, dipping his head and digging in his feet to send Will over his neck and to the ground with a thump. His moment of triumph was immediately followed by the air being jarred out of his lungs and the warning snap of large sharp teeth beside his ear.
‘You dirty bastard,’ he wheezed, rolling out of the way.
‘My lord!’ Jenks was rushing to his side to take the reins and help him to his feet.
Will held up a hand to signify that all was well and managed a weak laugh. ‘Nothing to worry about, Jenks. I have not cracked my pate, or damaged anything but my dignity.’ Hardly even that. The fall had been tonic, just as the ride had been. He had not feared the jump or the fall. His riding clothes were stained with mud and he smelled of grass and dried leaves. But he had not shattered as he’d feared he might. His mistake had been in taking his brother’s miserable horse out in the first place. But there was nothing particularly fragile about him that might prevent such rides in the future.
He thanked Jenks for his help and promised to visit again soon and choose a more manageable horse. Other than that, the day had been a success. Yet it did not fully content him. Would he never regain anything from the time before the accident?
It was sad that he could not remember his wife. But how near to death did one need to go to erase even the fear of falling from one’s mind? He had been half-expecting that an innocent tumble would knock the memory back into him. He would see a flash of that time, on a different horse. Perhaps Jupe had startled at the sight of a rabbit, or stumbled on a hole. He had sent Will sailing through the air with the knowledge that the landing was likely to be a bad one, ending in pain and darkness.
Still, there was nothing. His mind was as smooth and as blank as a block of ice, with the things he wanted frozen for ever inside. He would find Justine and beg her for more information on the day of his accident. Perhaps she had seen something that might have indicated the reason for it, other than carelessness on his part. Had he been drunk, or in some other way completely unaware of what was about to happen to him?
When he returned to the house, she was nowhere to be found. The morning room was as tidy as if she had never occupied it at all. Her bedroom was equally empty, as was his. Only in the library did he see evidence of her presence. In the darkest corner of the room, a table was stacked with leather-bound journals his mother had kept while she still lived in the house. What she sought there, he was not sure, for his mother had been an indifferent correspondent at best.
Beside them, the family Bible was open to the page where his birth had been recorded, along with the significant events of his childhood. Was she really so eager to please him that she chose to research his past? What else could she be looking for but his mother’s anecdotal record of his life and perhaps a few favourite recipes and menus?
He smiled. He’d have found the behaviour strange, had it been described to him. But there was so much about his new wife that was odd, it hardly surprised him. If she had a fault, it was her almost obsessive desire to make him happy. Tonight, she would be surprised to learn that to accomplish her goal she must take as much pleasure as she gave.
Justine pulled a row of pins and undid the last few knots of the lace on her pillow, so that she might fix the mistakes she’d made when she’d lost concentration. Perhaps she should ask Will to read Walter Scott tonight, especially the bit about tangled webs and deception. Of course, a dishonest woman in that story had ended up walled alive in an abbey. In her current frame of mind, that story would not be light entertainment.
‘You are sure there is nothing you can recall about the accident that might make things clearer.’
Since she was making the story up as she went, she doubted that she had the detail he was hoping for. ‘I was not close enough to see. And it all happened too fast.’ He had been questioning her all through dinner about the past. After nearly two hours, he was no closer to what he expected to hear, but she balanced on the edge of a knife.
He was silent for a moment and she took the opportunity to turn the tables on him. ‘In my opinion, it is fortunate that you do not remember. Suppose it had come upon you suddenly and given you a turn. It was very dangerous to ride at all. What if something had happened and you had fallen again?’
Now he was the one who was uncomfortable, squirming in his seat like a guilty little boy.
She looked up from her work, too surprised to remember the role she was playing. ‘You fell again, didn’t you?’
‘It was nothing,’ he replied hurriedly. ‘I was back on my feet as soon as I regained my wind. But it makes me all the more confused at what caused the earlier accident.’
‘I do not know why I bothered to nurse you, if you use your recovery foolishly.’ Was this real alarm she was feeling at the thought of him lying hurt again? It was always sad when a man so young and alive met with a tragic accident. But when had it begun to matter to her?
He was at her side now, full of apology. ‘If it bothers you, I will take no more chances. Adam’s horse is a brute. I will not take him out again.’ He knelt in front of her now, until he was sure that he had caught her eye. ‘Am I forgiven?’
‘Of course,’ she said, trying and failing for her usual calm smile.
‘Very good,’ he said, then stared down at the work in her lap. She resumed her knotting, and he watched, fascinated by the rhythmic click and switch of the bone bobbins, the exactitude of pins and the slow but steady increase in finished work. ‘What are you making?’ he asked at last, unable to contain his curiosity.
‘I do not know, as of yet,’ she said. ‘A bit of trim for something. It is an old pattern and I do not have to think to work it. But it makes up very pretty.’
‘If you do not know what it is for, then why are you doing it?’
‘To keep my hands busy,’ she said. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, after all.’
‘Have you given thought to my suggestion of last night?’
She frowned, trying to remember what it was that he had said.
‘When I told you to make something for yourself,’ he said. ‘A tucker for that bodice, perhaps.’ He was staring at her breasts.
She placed a hand on her chest to hide them. ‘I am sorry if the gown is too low. I will change, if you wish.’
He pulled her hand away, wrapping the fingers with his. ‘There is nothing wrong with the dress, other than that it is rather plain. Not that you need to adorn yourself, to be more beautiful,’ he added hurriedly. ‘It simply surprises me that you do not treat yourself as you do others.’
She nodded, relieved that she had done nothing
