Page 1 of His Spirited Lady
Chapter One
Norfolk, England
October, 1847
Amelia Chitester wasbored.
She was well-bred enough to feel guilty about it. After all, it was a lovely fall day. The sky was a blue so bright that it stung to stare too long. Wisps of pure white clouds drifted across it, casting shadows on the ground below. Birdsong floated on a breeze sweetened by rain the day before, the same gentle storm that had gilded the early fall colors on the leaves. This was everything she’d missed in London.
Almost.
Amelia filled her lungs as much as her corset would allow, using the country air to dispel the grayness that had settled in her chest during her, thankfully, interrupted Season. The sunshine warming her through her riding habit helped, as did the feel of her beloved gray mare, Molly, beneath her. Still, there was a spot that couldn’t be reached. Amelia tightened her knee around the pommel and wriggled in the saddle, hoping to loosen her laces.
“Would you like to rest a moment, Miss Chitester?”
She turned to her riding companion and smiled. “No, Mr. Raymond, thank you. I’m quite well.”
“It would be understandable if you wished to turn back,” he insisted. “We’ve been riding longer than most ladies do this time of year.”
He was right. Had they been in London, a few turns in the park counted as a ride, even though horses and carriages were so crowded that it could scarce be called riding. However,going to stand in the parkdid not have the same appeal. Not that it mattered. The purpose of a ride in London was to be seen.
Amelia had seen Ethan Raymond often during the summer in London, and even during her abbreviated fall visit. He drew attention for his impeccable fashion as much as for his height and his excellent seat on a massive white gelding. He must have considered tailoring and horsemanship to be intertwined, for here he was in the countryside, in a hat polished to a sheen that matched his tall riding boots, a jacquard waistcoat the color of wheat at harvest, and a teal blue coat. Who was he dressing for out here? The squirrels?
Wry humor at her own joke gave way to guilt over her nastiness. Amelia knew full well why Ethan was riding next to her in rustic Norfolk rather than in Hyde Park. She also knew all the women in London were stretching their necks to search for him in a crowd, fluttering their fans to hide their stares.
They would have been reveling in his undivided attention, not grousing over having to wear a too-heavy habit on an unusually warm morning. Perhaps her parents were right, and she did spend too much time alone.
“It is a relief to be out in the air after being penned in yesterday,” Amelia said, purposefully brightening her smile. It wasn’t Ethan’s fault that she wished to be somewhere else entirely.
Nor was he to blame that they’d quit the house so that Doctor Anderson could visit with her father again. The doctor had visited every day upon their return from London a fortnight ago, though Father had stopped him upon Ethan’s arrival. He’d said he didn’t want to dampen the visit, but Amelia knew better. Her father didn’t want to be seen as weak in front of someone he considered a suitor.
“I rather enjoyed yesterday,” Ethan said. “Rain is always more pleasant in the country, and you made the day entertaining.”
Hot coals heaped on Amelia’s head. She’d used every trick she knew to keep Ethan occupied, because if he was thinking of moves in chess or backgammon, he couldn’t formulate how to propose. If his hands were busy, he wouldn’t be reaching for hers. And if they were in the library, her favorite chair for reading was only big enough for her.
“And I dare say,” Ethan leaned closer to whisper. “Your chaperone would be much happiernoton a horse.”
His quiet, good-natured laugh was paired with a smile that most young women would envy—both that he had it and that he gave it to Amelia so willingly. But his words had her turning to check on Miss Graves, who had been her governess before being promoted to chaperone. The woman was shooing a fly from her nose while keeping a death grip on the reins of the family’s oldest and most sedate horse.
“Are you all right, Miss Graves?” Amelia called.
“Fine, miss.” Graves paused from shooing flies to wave her handkerchief at Amelia.
“That looks like a flag of surrender,” Ethan joked in a whisper. “Should we stop to give her respite?”
It probably was surrender. Graves was so thin that there was little padding between her and the saddle. She much preferred carriages to horseback, and she’d been quick to suggest they take the landau this morning. Amelia had been just as quick to reject the carriage and its seat wide enough for two.
However, relieving Graves would mean either returning to the house or dismounting here. It was too soon for the doctor to have finished his visit, and dismounting would mean accepting Ethan’s help. Amelia didn’t want to encourage that intimate contact and the impression that might make.
Ethan Raymond was a nice man, with the promise of a fine inheritance and a title. He would make some lucky girl a fine husband. But she would not be that girl.
“Let’s go to the top of the hill and then turn back,” Amelia suggested. “You can see the entire valley from there.”
If Ethan was disappointed in her answer, he didn’t show it. Though she might have heard a loud sigh from her stalwart companion. Amelia ignored Miss Graves and urged Molly forward at a slower pace than either would have preferred.
They reached their goal, and Amelia pulled Molly’s reins. The horse shook her head and sidestepped, arguing to continue down the familiar path. She quieted as Amelia stroked her neck as a wordless promise for next time. It was a promise to them both.
“I say, this is lovely.” Ethan’s gaze swept across the valley, assessing the neat patchwork of fields stitched together by hedgerows and broken here and there by farmhouses and forests. Amelia was more interested in the small plot to their left, and the neat, new building that sat surrounded by a stand of TK-kind trees.
