Margaret's breath caught. She remembered that fair, remembered a dark-haired gentleman in a greatcoat who had watched her from a distance and then disappeared. "You said nothing."
"I did not believe myself capable of love. I believed I was above it. You have spent our marriage teaching me otherwise, and I have been a very slow student."
From the stable block, a familiar bony head appeared over a half door. Gimlet, who had been sent down to Shropshire after the hunt, whickered softly. Margaret looked at the horse, then back at the man. The symmetry was not lost on her. Both creatures had been dismissed as worthless, and both, given the right hands, had revealed their worth.
"If I return," she said slowly, "it will not be as a clause in your contract. It will be as your equal. I will sit at your table and speak my mind, and if your mother does not like it, she may take her grievances to the bishop. And I will keep Gimlet with me in my own stables as a reminder."
Alexander went down on one knee in the damp grass, his boots sinking into the mud, his pride somewhere back in Oxfordshire.
"You may have every horse in my possession. You may have the house, the title, my name, my breath, my last shilling. I care for none of it. I care only that you believe me when I say I love you."
Margaret Thornwood, Duchess of Ashford, breaker of horses and men, looked down at her husband and felt the last wall inside her crumble. She reached out and placed her hand on his cheek.
"Then stand up, Alexander. You will ruin your breeches, and the mud here is particularly adhesive."
Part Seven
The Town Tatler, three weeks later, carried a very different notice.
"The Duke and Duchess of Ashford were observed yesterday in Hyde Park taking the morning air on horseback. Her Grace rode a gray mare of exquisite breeding and composure, while His Grace, we are informed, has commissioned a new portrait of the Duchess to hang in the great hall on the wall reserved for the masters of the hunt. One suspects the Dowager has been given something to think about."
It was a bright, cold morning in November when they rode out together, Margaret on Opal, the gray mare now going sweetly in a snaffle, and Alexander on a steady chestnut. The park was crowded with the fashionable hour, and every eye turned as they passed. This time, Margaret did not feel the weight of judgment. She felt the simple pleasure of a good horse beneath her and a man beside her who had learned to see her.
They stopped by the Serpentine, where a thin frost silvered the grass. Alexander drew rein and turned to her.
"I received a letter from Rexham this morning. He sends his congratulations and hopes we will visit him in Ireland. He also mentions, somewhat pointedly, that he has purchased a young mare from your father's farm and would value your opinion."
"He is a decent man," Margaret said, "and he never once made me feel like a transaction."
Alexander winced, but she smiled and reached across to touch his gloved hand. "You made it right, Alexander. That is what matters."
Gimlet had not accompanied them to the park. He was, as promised, living out his days in luxury in the Ashford stable block, fed on the finest oats and allowed to do absolutely nothing of consequence. Margaret visited him every morning and the old horse, who had carried her when no one else believed, would rest his heavy head on her shoulder and breathe in her scent.
The dowager had departed Ashford House for the Dower estate in Bath two days after Margaret's return, delivering a final volley of pinched remarks about ungrateful girls who forget their origins. Margaret had kissed her cheek and wished her a pleasant journey and the dowager had no response to that at all.
At the park, a group of riders approached, Lady Penelope among them, her face carefully blank. She nodded stiffly. Margaret nodded back with a warmth that cost her nothing and meant everything. She had won not by cruelty, but by simply refusing to become what they expected.
As the other riders passed, Alexander leaned toward her, his voice low. "What are you thinking?"
"I am thinking," Margaret said, gathering Opal's reins, "that I would like to gallop now."
"Here in the park at this hour?"
"You once told me a duchess does not gallop ahead of the field, but I am not just a duchess. I am your wife and your wife wants to run."
A slow smile spread across his face, the first true unguarded smile she had ever seen from him. "Then run, Maggie. I will try to keep up."
She did not wait. She touched her heel to Opal's side and the gray leaped forward like a loosed arrow. The ton gasped, parasols tilted, and somewhere a child cheered. Alexander followed, his chestnut laboring to match the mare's stride, and as they flew along the tan gallop with the wind whipping tears from their eyes, Margaret laughed aloud for the pure wild joy of it.
She had been given the worst horse at the hunt and she had left them all behind. But she had not ridden away alone. She had ridden straight into the heart of a man who had lost himself in duty and found himself in love.
And that, she reflected as the cold air sang past her ears, was worth more than any trophy, any title, any contract ever written.
Behind them, London glittered and gossiped and turned another page. But ahead, there was only open ground and two people who had finally learned to ride it together.