Page 15 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

S ultan cantered with his easy, long-striding lope along the path up towards the Hampshire Downs, the breeze of his speed blowing Isabella’s abundant curls out behind her.

The dun Arabian was bounding with more than his usual energy, having been deprived of his customary early-morning ride, and every so often his back end rose in an impudent buck.

But Isabella didn’t mind. Sultan’s wild and fiery nature was one of the reasons they got on so well together and why she’d taken over riding him since Marcus’s death.

She would have had it no other way. And probably Sultan preferred her lighter style of riding to Marcus’s heavy-handedness. At least, she liked to think he did.

At the end of the track stood a crenellated tower, one of the previous, long-dead dukes having taken it into his head to provide the estate with a large number of follies.

This one, unlike most follies, served good use as staff accommodation.

Mrs. Crump, wife of the elderly gardener who was its present tenant, was engaged in spreading her washing over the bushes in the garden as Isabella approached.

Sultan, taking advantage of something as untoward as an array of sheet-covered bushes, skipped sideways as though he’d never seen such a thing before.

Unfazed, Isabella applied her left leg and a flick of her whip and brought him back under control as Mrs. Crump, having set her washing basket on the ground at her feet, bobbed a hurried curtsey. “Beg pardon, Your Grace. I didn’t see you coming. You’re usually about much earlier than this.”

Isabella waved a hand in casual dismissal.

“Don’t worry. I’m much later than is my habit.

And as for this firebrand, he takes umbrage at the least little thing in a ditch, so I’m always on the look out for things he won’t like.

” She patted Sultan’s sweat-damp neck and laughed.

“But I’m not embarrassed to admit that I love him for it.

My rides would be quite boring were my horses to be plodding hacks. ”

Mrs. Crump’s brow furrowed. Probably she’d never ridden a horse in her life, nor had much to do with them. “Crump has often said to me as you’re the bravest rider he’s ever laid eyes on. Not just for a lady, neither. From the gentlemen he’s seen too. And plenty of them.”

This wasn’t the first time Isabella had heard such praise, but, susceptible as she was to praise, it didn’t stop her from mentally preening herself.

After all, she’d only come to riding after her marriage, as her papa, bless him, had not thought riding a skill a young lady about town needed.

Consequently, it pleased her every time someone commented on her prowess on a horse, and right now this inclined her to further conversation with Mrs. Crump, whom she liked.

“I thought I’d ride up over the farm track and come down through the woods on the far side, by Heaven’s Gate. I feel Sultan and I both need to stretch our legs this morning, and that track is so invitingly grassy and smooth. Perfect for a gallop.”

Mrs. Crump’s frown deepened. “Mind how you go up there, Your Grace, if you don’t mind me saying so.

If you was my daughter, I’d be worrying after you out on your own like this on a horse as excitable and wild as that one looks.

It’s a long way from anywhere if that horse of yours should skip sideways like it just did and toss you in a hedge. ”

Isabella laughed. “If he skips sideways again, I shan’t be ending in any hedges.

You mark my words. I shall be fine. And besides which,” she paused, tilting her head to one side, “should I not return home you’ll be able to tell a search party where to look for me.

” She turned Sultan away, making her final remark over her shoulder. “Not that you’ll need to.”

Leaving Mrs. Crump standing next to her still-piled washing basket, Isabella turned Sultan onto the farm track, edged on one side by woodland and the other by a low hawthorn hedge.

As she’d told Mrs. Crump, the grass between the wheel tracks was invitingly soft and springy, and Sultan, who knew all the places he was allowed to gallop, pranced under her firm hold of the reins. Yes, she would let him gallop.

A mile and a half later, as the track started to head downhill, Isabella brought a sweaty Sultan down to a walk and loosened the reins to let him stretch his neck.

Totally alone at last, and with the morning’s disturbing cobwebs blown away, now was as good a time as any to consider the new arrival at Stourbridge and what had brought him here.

The warming sun beat down on the back of her neck, and, in the sky directly over her head, larks were calling.

Away from the castle and all the worries it contained, this was where she’d always felt at peace.

Her mind slipped back to Marcus, as it so often had done in the last eight weeks.

Indeed, she’d thought more about him in this time than she had in the whole of her marriage.

In the ten years she’d been his wife, he’d never once mentioned he had a cousin to her.

It had taken Dora to reveal this fact. This in itself was not surprising, as, in truth, Marcus had shared very little with her.

In fact, after their first year together, he’d had as little to do with her as possible.

Isabella was under no illusion that this change in his attitude had not been because once her father had died and he’d inherited the fortune he’d married her to get his hands on, she’d served her use.

While her papa had lived, he’d been civil to her, although never loving.

As soon as Josiah Hope had succumbed to his final illness, that civility had evaporated like snow on a hot summer’s day.

But even in those first months of their marriage, when he’d been pretending to like her, he’d told her nothing of his childhood, nor even of what he liked or disliked.

Dora had filled all that in, and because Marcus had told Dora their cousin had died abroad, both women had believed this and Dora had rarely spoken of him.

Dora.

Dear, vulnerable, frightened Dora.

Isabella guided Sultan onto the track into the woods that would lead down the hill, past the brick-built, arched folly called Heaven’s Gate, and back into the park.

Up here on the Downs, stretching away into the distance, all the land was part of the estate, as productive farmland, all of it tenanted out to produce an income.

She would have had to ride a long way to leave Stourbridge land behind her.

Her thoughts returned to Dora. She’d first met Dora when Marcus had brought her to Stourbridge, after her father’s death.

Their first year of marriage had been spent in London, close to her father, and she’d been more than surprised to find the castle already occupied by a woman six years older than herself.

But she need not have feared, for Dora, whom she’d discovered to be a quiet, gentle creature, had taken her under her wing and made a friend of her.

She’d needed one back then, when Marcus had abandoned her like an old coat he no longer wanted and returned to London without her.

She’d been a different young woman then.

Just a girl, heartbroken her beloved papa had died leaving her alone in a strange world she didn’t feel part of.

Now, though, she’d forced her way into that world and taken it by the horns with a vigor that would have shocked her gentle papa.

It had taken a while, but as she’d grown older, she’d learned to assert herself and deal with the people who’d sneered at her origins when Marcus had married her.

And it had been a pleasure to learn how to make them feel as small and insignificant as they’d made her feel.

Isabella was not a young lady who forgot a slight.

But not Dora. No, dear Dora had never been in the least bit condescending to the daughter of a nabob who’d made his money on trade in the Indies. She’d been as kind to Isabella as if she’d been the mother who’d died so long ago Isabella could recall nothing about her.

The path began to head more steeply downhill, passing the tumbledown folly and threading its way through tall trees where the sun slanting between the leaves made a greenway for Sultan to follow.

On occasion, Dora had divulged little snippets about Richard, the childhood playmate she’d thought forever lost. Isabella could see it now.

They’d been sitting together in the walled garden one warm summer’s day.

Birds had been singing. Marcus had been in London so the house and gardens were happy and peaceful… and safe.

“Diccon came to us when I was five years old,” Dora said, her gentle smile lighting her plain face.

“He was one year older than me. His mama and papa had died, of what, I never found out. Some sickness took them both at the same time. My own papa was his uncle, but Diccon was considered nothing but a poor relation by Marcus. He took his lead from my papa, who I found out from Marcus had never liked Diccon’s papa, his younger brother.

My unfortunate uncle had gone off and married the girl he loved, you see, against the wishes of his father.

A girl Marcus took great pleasure in saying was a nobody, and our papa could not forgive him for it. ”

“Like me,” Isabella had said. “In Marcus’s view, I’m a nobody.”

“Not to me you’re not.” Dora took her hand and squeezed it. “You are my dearest friend, even though I sometimes think you are quite mad in the things you do and the ways you provoke Marcus’s ire. There’s such a thing as being too brave, you know.”

“What happened to this Diccon?”