The statement was meant to be a joke, and his tone almost achieved its normal joviality, but there was an underlying bitterness to it.
Or perhaps that was Sophia’s own feelings lingering in her ears.
Jonas gave her another squeeze and returned to his side of the wall.
“How is the stall working?” Sophia asked, more to change the subject than out of real curiosity.
“It keeps her in place. I hate not being able to take her out during the day, but I can’t risk it. Alone, I don’t inspire much curiosity. If I were with her, though . . .” He shrugged again. “I don’t go out often, but unless I want to start breaking into barns, it takes a while to find enough tall grass or hay scraps to feed her.”
“It’s just for a few more weeks,” she said, though she wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince. “A few more weeks and we’ll be together. You’ll be better. I’ll have other job offers. We’ll start a riding school and horse farm, just like we had before.”
Jonas looked at her, his face unreadable. Sophia’s chest started to heave, then her chin began to quiver. She clenched her teeth together to keep the vibrations from becoming tears. She had to hold on to this dream, because if she lost it, she didn’t know what she would do.
Jonas leaned one shoulder against the side of the opening between the two rooms. “Are you safe, Soph? Really, truly safe?” He looked down at the ground and then back up at her. “I’m trying not to worry, reading all the passages where God talks about holding us in His hands, but . . .” He sighed. “The circus world accepted a female rider, but racing, well, I just can’t imagine it being the same.”
“They’ve been rather supportive,” she said. If one took a lack of negative comments as encouragement. Everyone had shifted to glaring silently instead, but Jonas didn’t need to know that part. Sophia would win them over before Jonas met them. She would.
Jonas pressed his lips into a thin line. He knew she was lying, and he knew that she knew he knew she was lying, but still he nodded, allowing both of them to believe the comfort of the untruth.
“Come over here,” Jonas said, nodding his head toward the table. “You attended service today, but I didn’t. How about we do our own study like we did when we were traveling?”
Sophia nodded. While she’d physically been to church, she hadn’t gained any spiritual insight there. Bible study with her brother would do her good.
He led them through a passage from the book of Matthew about not fearing. Then they put Rhiannon in her makeshift stall and went for a walk together around the cottage. A close call with another strolling couple was enough to send them scurrying back inside for the remainder of the afternoon.
When it was time for Sophia to return to Meadowland Park to get their dinner, she was grateful for the excuse to leave. After one afternoon stuck in that cottage, she was unbelievably restless, desperate for something to do. How did Jonas manage?
She returned with their evening meal, but the camaraderie was stilted. It was obvious Jonas detested having to rely on her for everything, even though he didn’t say it out loud. It was a shift for them both, but what else could they do? Revealing his presence in town would prove to Mr. Whitworth that he’d been tricked.
It was only delaying his anger, because Jonas would join her once she had a more secure position. The man was hardly all smiles and grins now, but his stoic impassiveness was better than having him frown at her in blatant displeasure.
Or worse, ignore her entirely.
In a mere week she’d become fascinated by him. He wanted to appear simple to the world, but she could tell he wasn’t. There were too many questions, too many secrets. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he would say or do something unexpected, and she was right back where she started.
He probably didn’t mean to be fascinating, but since she couldn’t stop staring in his direction anyway, she might as well think about him. Sometimes she thought about him even when she wasn’t looking at him.
KNOWING THAT JONAS had planned to take the horse out at midnight, she wasn’t surprised to find him asleep when she took him breakfast the next morning. She arrived even earlier than normal, so she took her time strolling to the training yard. She wanted to see the Heath without any horses on it.
To her surprise, it was already bustling.
There were a few strings of blanketed horses darting about under eagle-eyed trainers, but there were also gentlemen dotting the landscape. Some rode leisurely, while others participated in impromptu races of their own making. The entire expanse looked alive, rolling and shifting under the hooves of all the horses. Here the men and the horses and the land all blended together.
She’d never seen the like, but something about it reminded her of home, of her childhood. How many times had she sat in the hayloft or on the fence and watched her father’s horses? Watched him train rider and animal to work as one?
It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to remember those years, a long time since she’d mourned the loss of what she’d thought would always be there. Mostly she dreamt of re-creating it. That was far less painful than remembering it was gone.
Sixteen
Miss Fitzroy stomped up the lane toward Oliver’s stable, sending a surge of thoughts through Aaron’s head. A storm of emotions tripped over themselves as well, but he didn’t know how to identify them or what to do with them, so he ignored them.
He’d barely seen her since he’d accompanied her on brush runs, and he’d convinced himself that he’d imagined the pull he felt to her.
He hadn’t.
Despite his own irritation, he grinned at the outward expression of hers. Was she miffed that he’d sent a note beckoning her to him? Or was it because he’d made her walk from Meadowland Park to the training yards and then halfway back again to Oliver’s?
Neither act was very gentlemanly, but he was in such upheaval about her that he’d had to do something. Barley threatened to quit if Aaron left him to deal with this nonsense alone one more day, so Aaron had to take over today’s training, and he’d needed to do it as far away from speculative eyes as possible.
There’d be no stopping the stories after tomorrow, though. Was he truly going to put a woman on a thoroughbred stallion and let her race?
Yes, he was. Whether he liked it or not, the woman had won his respect. She had ridden long, hard hours. She walked across Newmarket daily without complaint. She wasn’t afraid to do the dirty work of caring for the horses or tack, though he’d hired an extra boy for the stable to do most of that for her.
What he needed was to find her another job. He’d started going to local taverns for dinner each night, hoping to overhear something that might spark an idea. For the first twenty minutes, he had to endure snide comments and accusatory glares. When he gave no response, people changed to ignoring him and he was able to listen in on their conversations. None had given him any clue of what to do with her.
Not that a tavern was the best place to find a job for a lady, but what else could he do? He had no knowledge of her non-equestrian abilities. If she even had any. The story about the scullery didn’t seem promising.
Miss Fitzroy finally reached him, and her chin jutted up as she looked him in the eye. Her hands opened and closed at her sides as if she didn’t know what to do with them—or rather as if stopping herself from doing what she wanted to with them.