Page 92 of Counting on a Countess
Nearly two years had passed since Kit had actually been on a horseback campaign. In those intervening years, he’d grown used to sleeping on a bed with a genuine mattress, covered by blankets free of fleas. It had taken him months to break the habit of sleeping with his boots on, and even today, he left them right beside his bed. He now could eat hot, cooked meals whenever he wanted and go to sleep beneath a roof, rather than a canopy of branches, and no rats tried to nibble on his fingers or run across his face.
Yet as he woke in a hayloft eight days into his journey to Cornwall, stretching out the kinks that inevitably worked their way into his muscles, he felt strangely free. The artificial constructs of London fell away like so much scaffolding supporting a warship at dock. He didn’t concern himself with sleeping in to an indulgent hour, or what witty things he might drawl to the lads at White’s, or how he’d fill his long, leisured hours with ephemeral amusements. He was a man on a mission, and that goal kept him moving always forward, paring away anything unnecessary.
Kit’s thoughts were filled with Tamsyn. Long hours in the saddle gave him little diversion besides his own mind. He grimaced at his coldness toward her that day, and his anger had been infantile.
His plans for the pleasure garden were merely distractions, a fantasy formed in the darkest depths of war. Yet he should have known better.
Nothing and no one could ever erase what he’d seen and done. Perhaps only time could make those memories fade.
If he built a rich, worthwhile life with Tamsyn—a life she deserved—there might be a chance for him to slow down, an opportunity to stop running from the past. He would learn to be a proper earl, bringing her along for every step.
All he had to do was make her forgive him.
Sitting up, Kit picked straw out of his hair and tossed the pieces down to the barn floor below. They twirled in lazy circles to lie in the dust and be trampled by animal hooves. Dawn sunlight cautiously slipped through the wooden slats, though full daylight was still an hour away.
A folded kerchief held his spare breakfast provided from the farmhouse, after the farmer had agreed to let him sleep in their hayloft for the princely sum of one penny. The meal the yeoman had provided was simple and devoured quickly.
After gathering up his belongings and attempting to return the hayloft to some semblance of order, he climbed down the ladder that led to the rest of the barn. A half-dozen cows lowed at him from their stalls, and a goat took a liking to the tails of his coat, nibbling at its hem.
Kit snatched the coat away before too much damage could be done. If the roads held, he’d be in Cornwall tonight, and it wouldn’t do to have him show up looking like a vagabond whose coat was eaten by goats.
On his way to untie his horse, he passed a large orange tabby sunning himself on a pile of blankets. Kit paused to scratch the cat’s chin, which the animal deigned to receive with indulged dignity. Having satisfied the ruler of the barn, he went to his horse and began preparing it for the day.
The barn door opened, and the farmer came ambling in. He was roughly Kit’s age, though bronzed from the sun and with a burly build. He had thin, light brown whiskers. Tipping back his hat, the farmer said, “Accommodations suit ye, my lord?”
“I was dead to the world the moment I lay my head down,” Kit answered, cinching on the saddle.
“Begging your pardon, my lord,” the other man said, resting his arms on the slats that made up the horse’s stall. “There’s a perfectly good inn not five miles from here. A fine gentleman like yourself shouldn’t be sleeping in barns.”
“Some princes like to disguise themselves,” Kit replied with a wink.
The farmer’s eye’s widened. “A bloody prince, are ye? If you’d said so, I would’ve kicked the missus out of bed so she and Islept in the hayloft and you’d have the bed to yourself.”
Kit held up his hand. “Forgive my jest. I’m no prince, merely a man who’s looking to find his way.”
“Ain’t you got no money, then?”
“Enough for the necessities,” he explained, adjusting the horse’s bridle. “But I thought I’d save some coin and secure more economical housing.”
“The way you’re seeing to that animal,” the farmer noted, nodding his head toward Kit’s horse, “seems like you’ve a heap of experience in that department.”
“Had my share of getting by with the bare necessities,” he answered, rechecking the stirrups.
“Two of my brothers went to fight,” the other man said somberly. “Only Joe came back, and he’s got but one arm now. Joe does what he can to help on the farm, but...” He shrugged. “He’s not the same man who left in search of glory.”
“Not many of us found it,” Kit answered.
“We see ’em coming through, even now,” the farmer went on. “Soldiers back from the War. Poor blighters. No work for ’em anywhere, so they wander from place to place like revenants, and some missing parts of ’emselves—like Joe.” He shook his head.
Kit dug into his pocket and produced a handful of coins. “Some of this is for you and Joe. And if you see any of those men nearby, give them a cooked meal and a hayloft to sleep in. The expense is on me.”
“Thank ’ee, my lord!” The farmer tucked the coins away, and Kit hoped that the money would be used in the spirit in which it had been given.
Kit thought that perhaps their conversation was complete, but the farmer lingered, watching Kit make the last adjustments to his gear. Maybe things in this part of the country were so quiet that the sight of a gentleman saddling his own horse counted as something rare and exciting.
Though he’d mapped his course ahead of time, he asked, “Do you know the way to Newcombe, in Cornwall?”
“Oh, aye,” the farmer answered, nodding his head vigorously. “Stay on the main road and turn south, that is, make a left at the church with a collapsed steeple. Go on twenty more miles, and you should reach it. But... if you beg my pardon, my lord, what would you want with a place like that?”
