would you wager money we cannot afford on a stupid race that’s run for pride’s sake?”
It was the worst thing she could have said. She knew it as the words left her mouth, and yet… Deene’s attempt at a compromise was scaring her more than any lawsuit might have.
“My pride is indeed a stupid thing, Wife, and yet I cannot seem to misplace it long enough to please you.”
He lifted his tea halfway to his mouth, then put it down untasted. If Eve could not find something to say—the right something to say—this was the moment one of them would stalk out of the room, and tonight, for the first time, they would sleep in separate beds.
“Deene, I don’t want to quarrel with you. I should not have said what I did just now, but I don’t understand… I cannot understand how I am to accept this.”
“And I cannot understand how you expect me to do nothing, Eve, while I watch my niece grow up from a distance, as if I’m some sort of monster, a leper because of my title and standing, because of things I cannot change. Marie loathed the notion of marriage to that man, and Georgie is the only good thing to come of the entire tragedy. I cannot abandon her. I cannot.”
Eve nodded. His reasoning, stated thus, made a kind of sense.
But so did hers: if she’d wanted proof that her marriage ranked below this claim the past held on Deene, her husband had just handed it to her. He was wagering at least the sum of her dowry on the outcome of a single race, money they could not afford, money he’d garnered solely by marrying Eve.
She sipped her tea in silence, wondering what else her husband had tossed to the winds of chance along with their financial well-being, and any hope their marriage had of thriving.
The decision to withhold the entirety of Deene’s bet with Dolan sat uneasily, but less uneasily than it had several days ago.
Deene understood clearly that his wife disapproved of the match race, disapproved of the stakes as she knew them, and disapproved of the notion that Deene had concocted the entire scheme without consulting her.
And as to that last, Deene could only reason that had he discussed it with her, she would have somehow prevented him from challenging Dolan. She would have turned her big green eyes on him, let him see her disappointment, and that would have been that.
“He’s getting a sense of purpose about him,” Eve said from her perch on the rail. “He’s growing up, and none too soon.”
Deene followed his wife’s gaze out across the practice field, where Aelfreth and William were tearing around a course of three-foot jumps.
“He’s getting stronger,” Deene allowed. “He still isn’t where I’d want him to be, though he’s trying his heart out.”
Eve sighed and glanced over at him, suggesting to Deene that yet again, he’d said something that could be taken on different levels. Their marriage had become a chess tournament played out on several boards at once, and over it all lay a compulsion to apprise Eve of what exactly hung in the balance with this race.
“The difficulty is that Aelfreth has not settled into his role.” Eve climbed down from the fence, nimble as a monkey in a pair of boy’s breeches and old tall boots. “When they approach the jumps, they’re still in discussions about whose job it is to pick the take-off spot. They should be well past that by now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Between horse and rider, one of the two has the better eye for choosing the best distance for the take-off spot, and often it’s the horse. A sensible rider will trust the horse and intervene only if he thinks the horse’s choice will be lacking.”
Deene watched as in the distance horse and rider cleared the last hedge from a place just a hair too close to the jump to be in perfect rhythm. “Aelfreth is a good jockey.”
“He is good, but he’s on a young horse with a lot of speed, power, and discernment. Unless Aelfreth knows something the horse does not—the ground is not as solid as it looks, the land slopes away immediately following the jump, there’s a hard turn into the next obstacle—then he’s better off letting William build up confidence in his own judgment over the next two weeks.”
“So William learns that if Aelfreth makes a suggestion, there’s good reason for it,” Deene concluded. “Can the horse learn that in two weeks?”
Eve’s expression was doubtful. “He can learn it in a single outing with the right rider, but Aelfreth keeps changing the game. For this jump, he makes a suggestion, for that jump, he sits back until the last stride and then tries to make a correction. For the next two jumps, he battles the horse for the decision, and so on. They cannot go on like this.”
Another phrase laden with double meaning.
“Can you explain this to Aelfreth?”
“She has.” Bannister spoke up from several feet away. “But when the lad’s flying at a four-foot hedge at a dead gallop, it’s a different proposition than in the schooling ring.”
Deene resisted the urge to punch his senior trainer. “I rode dispatch, need I remind you, Bannister, behind enemy lines in all manner of conditions. I comprehend the difficulties.”
Eve’s gaze remained on the horse and rider trotting over the field several hundred yards away. “I have wondered, Deene, if you would not be the better rider for this race.”
“She has a point.” Bannister’s tone was that carefully neutral inflection observed when an employee cannot raise his voice to an employer, or speak the words “I told you so.”
“I weigh twice what Aelfreth weighs, I’ve never done more than hack the colt or school him in the arena, and it’s too late in the game to make such a change in any case.”
And there again, his words were fraught with meaning. Whatever the ramifications of this race for Deene’s marriage, it was far too late to back out of his wagers. Word had gone out in the clubs, the side betting was heating up, the course had been rented, the stewards chosen, and the plans laid. Bannister had managed to get a spy to Dolan’s stables, and if anything, Goblin’s year of rest and conditioning had put the stallion in fine form.
What else had Deene expected? That Dolan would risk everything he held dear on some broken-down nag?
“I find I am peckish.” Eve looped her arm through Deene’s. “Will you accompany me up to the house?”
“Of course.” But he could not help one last glance at Aelfreth, a glance Eve had to note.
“You cannot lecture him now, Deene. You must show confidence in Aelfreth, so he will show confidence in himself and in the horse.”
“How is it you understand this? I’ve probably spent a great deal more time on a horse than you have, and yet I cannot find the words to explain what makes perfect sense when it comes out of your mouth.”
She smiled, a tired, sad version of her usual good cheer, and Deene wanted to howl with frustration.
“I understand because I have crawled, Husband, and been proud of myself for even that accomplishment.”
“We all start out crawling—”
She shifted her grip, so they were holding hands, something they hadn’t done in days. “Come sit with me.”
A vague uneasiness took hold of Deene’s insides. They needed to talk, to come to some understandings, to start over… but the wrong talk, the wrong understandings, and he had every confidence Eve would be off to visit her siblings indefinitely. When Deene was in Town, Eve would be in the country. If he went north shooting in the autumn, she’d depart for Portugal within days of his return. His parents had managed for decades with such arrangements, and Eve had made no secret that she’d originally wanted a white marriage.
He sat beside his wife, despair crowding him more closely than the small woman immediately to his right.
“Do you recall that I once suffered a bad fall, Deene?”
Deene, Deene, Deene. She no longer called him Husband, much less Lucas.
“Quite some years ago, yes. I am pleased to note you don’t seem bothered by it now.”
“Every time I get on a horse, I’m bothered by it, but not the way I thought I would be.”
This was a confidence, a precious, unlooked-for break in the marital clouds. “What do you mean, Evie?”
“I could not walk, you know. I did something, something to my… hip, my back, I’m not sure what, but it hurt
