"Good. Humility improves the upper classes."
He leaned on me, breathing hard. "Miss Finch, I need your help."
"With walking?"
"With listening."
That was how I became, secretly and unofficially, the Duke's horse interpreter.
By day, I was still Nell Finch: hired horse trainer, curer of bad habits, designer of patient exercises, and recipient of Mrs. Vane's suspicion because I tracked straw in places straw had no invitation to be. I cleaned tack when tack needed cleaning, but I also rebuilt Bramble's trust one circle, halt, touch, and breath at a time.
By night, I met the Duke in the training ring while Bramble stood as lookout and insulted both of us.
Lift the left foot, Bramble would command in my head. No, the other left. Duke should be labeled.
"Bramble says your left foot is confused," I told Rowan during our second midnight session.
"Bramble can come demonstrate."
"He cannot. He is busy being majestic. He declines," I said.
Rowan grunted and took another step. Sweat stood at his temples. I walked beside him with one hand ready beneath his elbow.
"You may mock me less," he said.
"I could, but then you might think you are terrifying."
"I am terrifying."
"You are wearing a dressing gown and arguing with invisible horse commentary."
His mouth curved. "A temporary reduction in terror."
Each night, he improved by inches. Each morning, he returned to the chair, pale with exhaustion and sealed inside his lie. I began to understand its cost. People spoke over him. Guests discussed his future while he sat there. His aunt, Lady Beatrice, called him "poor Rowan" at least ten times an hour, usually while eating his biscuits.
His cousin, Silas Horne, hovered with bright concern and eyes that counted inheritance like coins. Silas was handsome in a damp sort of way: blond, smooth-faced, and always smelling faintly of lemon soap.
He bent toward Rowan one afternoon in the stable yard and said, "You must not overstrain yourself, cousin. Acceptance is the beginning of peace."
Bramble offered his own wisdom: Acceptance is what I practice when oats are late. Push him into manure.
I was carrying a bucket; the temptation was spiritual.
Rowan, wrapped in his lap rug, gave Silas a thin smile. "Your wisdom comforts me."
"I knew it would."
Bramble made a sound like a door scraping judgment.
Silas looked at the horse. "That brute should be sold. He caused your injury."
The yard went quiet. I felt Bramble's outrage before his thought formed: I saved him. Rope, blood, rain. I stayed.
My hands tightened on the bucket. Rowan's fingers curled on the chair arms.