August (Prairie Grooms, #1) (8 page)

Jefferson laughed again. “Lucky for you, I just happen to have a side-saddle.”

“You do?” Miss Red asked, eyes wide.

“Of course. It belonged to my late wife, Honoria. That would be Duncan, Colin and Harrison’s mother. If you pay attention, you’ll find little pieces of England all over this house, and even a few out in the barn.”

“Harrison and Sadie named their baby after our late aunt?” Constance asked.

“Yes – they did me proud when they did that,” Jefferson told her.

“How quaint,” Miss Red whispered.

August looked at her, his mouth shut. He decided he’d better keep it that way. He couldn’t figure out what she was thinking, whether she was glad or mad to discover she could ride in the way she was accustomed.

“I’ll fetch it after I finish my coffee,” said Jefferson. “You can ride to town while your sisters go in the wagon.”

Miss Red’s face paled. “Oh, ah ... well ... I could just as easily ...”

“Penelope’s afraid of horses,” Constance announced, cutting her off.

“Constance!” Eloise scolded. “You didn’t have to
tell
everyone!”

“They might as well know, otherwise pride would dictate she mount the beast, which in turn would sense her fear and then buck her off all the way to ...”

“Enough! Kindly keep your explanations of my riding ability to yourself, Constance.”

“I wasn’t talking about your riding ability, I was talking about your fear of horses.”

Miss Red closed her eyes in resignation and shook her head. It was all August could do to keep from laughing. But embarrassing her was not on his to-do list that morning, so he opted for saving her dignity. “Are
you
afraid of horses?” he asked Constance.

“No,” she stated.

“Good. Then why don’t you ride with me, and your sisters can ride in the wagon?”

Miss Red’s eyes flicked over him, and he could see she was angry. “Constance will do no such thing,” she said. “I will ride with you. My sisters will ride in the wagon,” she announced stiffly.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“Of course I’m sure. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have suggested it, now would I?”

He looked her up and down. Her face had gone pale with her little speech, and he knew she had to be shaking like a leaf inside at the thought of getting on a horse. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, ma’am.”

“It seems you want proof of my ability to handle a horse. I shall give it to you, sir.”

“I didn’t say I needed proof you could ride, you told me you could. I’ll take your word for it, Miss Red.”

“Her eyes narrowed. “What did you call me?”

Oops.
He sighed. “Nothing.” He stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go help Logan with the wagon. I’ll see you ladies in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“What?” Eloise asked, confused.

Edith chuckled. “It means he’ll be seeing you soon. Eat up, girls. We’re going to town!”

* * *

P
ride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall ...
Penelope remembered hearing her father speak that proverb now and then, usually before her brother made a journey to London. She recalled the last time she’d heard her father say it. She and her brother had gone to a ball, her first, during the height of the season, but she’d become ill and had to leave early. There was a fight, and Charles had somehow wound up in the middle of it. The evening ended in tragedy, and he never came home.

The curse of the Sayers began that night – and if disaster wasn’t plaguing her father’s family, it went after her Uncle John’s. Any male heir bearing the Sayer name met with an unseemly demise. And once it had struck the male line down, it went after the females, ensuring no one would be able to take the Sayer name and use it for his own. Anthony Sayer’s estate had a black cloud around it since the day he died, and none had been able to lift it until Duncan Cooke – a.k.a. Duncan Mackenzie Sayer – came into his own and took over the title and estate. Peace finally settled over the remaining family members – all of them female, and either widowed or unwed.

It would only be a matter of time before Uncle John’s daughters descended upon America. Penelope hoped they were dealt a better hand than she and her two sisters had been. If they were lucky, though, they’d be sent across the Channel to France to marry instead of having to travel across the sea. Barring that, she hoped that if the Duke did send them this way, it would be no further west than New York or Philadelphia.

She stared at the sorrel mare as it stood calmly waiting for the saddle to be cinched up. Were they purposely giving her the saddest-looking animal on the ranch? Did they think her that incompetent? No, of course not. She told them she could ride. They just thought her a silly child for being afraid to.

“There, that ought to do it for you,” Jefferson said as he patted the animal on the neck. “This here’s Lady J. She may not look like much right now, she hasn’t completely lost her winter coat, but she’s a good horse.” He turned to look at her. “She belonged to my late wife. The boys call her Juliet.”

Penelope smiled at the name, and automatically thought of
Romeo and Juliet
. But surely no one here would make such a reference ...

“Duncan took Romeo with him to London.”

“What?” she asked in surprise, then looked away as embarrassment flushed her cheeks. When was she going to stop judging these people harshly, solely because they lived out on this hardened frontier? She wished she could simply let herself go and start enjoying things in the moment like Constance did. She had realized earlier as she walked to the barn, that she was beginning to fall into an “us against them” mentality - which wouldn’t do at all if she was to marry one of ... well,
them.
But now she was seeing the depth of that fall – and she didn’t like it very much.

“Yeah, kind of funny, isn’t it? Naming horses after characters in stories,” said Jefferson.

“Plays,” she corrected reflexively as she reached out and patted Juliet on the neck. “Shakespeare was a playwright.”

“A what? Oh, never mind. Honoria was always correcting me on things like that. What do I know? I’m just a man from Missouri. Only reason I even talk halfway proper is Honoria’s years of teaching me,” he added with a grin.

She smiled. “And you came out west to make a new life for yourself?”

“Along with thousands of others. We’ve done all right, I guess, but enough of that. Let me give you a leg up.”

She backed away from Juliet and turned to him. “A ‘leg up’? Oh, dear ...”

“What’s wrong with a leg up? You telling me you didn’t have that in England either?”

“No, we used a mounting block.”

“A what?”

“They stood on a big box, Jefferson,” August said as he entered the barn. Both turned to face him. “But what we do out west is give you a leg up.” He gave the saddle a once-over. “Just what in Sam blazes
is
that thing?”

Penelope straightened herself. “Allow me to demonstrate,” she replied icily. She took the reins from Jefferson and led the horse to a nearby crate. It was a little small, but it would do in the pinch. She would not let August Bennett have the satisfaction of giving her a “leg up,” as it was called, especially not if he was going to make fun of her choice of saddle. Besides, the thought of his hands on what she assumed would be her leg made her insides go all funny on her.

She moved Juliet into position, stepped on the crate, and with a grunt, mounted. Juliet stood as still as a statue, and Penelope sighed in relief. “Good girl,” she whispered.

“Well, I’ll be,” August remarked. “That doesn’t look like someone who’s afraid of horses, does it, Jefferson?”

“Nope, sure doesn’t,” he agreed.

Penelope gave Juliet a nudge, and the horse headed for the open barn door. She rode past August with a smirk, but without a word, and into the barnyard where the others were waiting. Constance and Eloise smiled as she guided the horse to the back of the wagon next to August’s.

He came out of the barn with Jefferson, still gaping at her, before he stomped over to his horse, a beautiful Appaloosa, and mounted – astride. “Are you ready?”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Are you?”

He squinted against the morning sun. “Yep. Let’s ride.” With that he spurred his horse ahead of the wagon. Jefferson came out of the barn and waved as they set off.

Logan gave the horses a slap of the reins and got the wagon moving. Constance and Eloise both let loose a giggle as the wagon lurched forward. Edith and Belle rode in the back and watched as Penelope kicked Juliet into a trot to catch up with August. Too bad Sadie decided to stay home with the baby – the upcoming battle of the wills was going to be a good one, they guessed. They hoped Logan didn’t let the wagon lag too far behind the couple, as they wanted to be able to hear them.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t a good day for eavesdropping. August kicked his horse into a canter and rode on ahead of them. Penelope followed suit.

Juliet was a dream to ride, and sensitive to Penelope’s every movement. She enjoyed the mare, and her usual fear of the large animals dissipated as she urged Juliet into a trot. Now as she cantered after August, she found the cool morning air invigorating. She hoped it felt as good on the return ride. Though cool now, Belle told her the afternoons could grow quite warm.

“You don’t do so bad, Miss Red,” August commented as she rode up alongside him.

He slowed his horse to a walk, as did she. “I told you I could ride.”

“How come your sister said you were afraid of horses, then?”

She took a deep breath. “Because, Mr. Bennett, I am.”

He looked at her. “Why?”

“I suffered a riding accident when I was a little girl. It broke my leg.”

He stared at her open-mouthed. “You did? That must’ve hurt something awful.”

“Indeed,” she said flatly. “More than you know.”

“I broke my arm once,” he offered.

Now it was her turn to look at him. “How?”

“Got bucked off. I took a job breaking horses back in Texas. I truly didn’t know what I was doing, and everyone but me knew it. Those boys let me take a licking and get all banged up just to prove it.”

“That’s horrible!” she gasped. “Who would do such a thing to another person? Did you quit after that?”

“Of course not! I had to prove I was as tough as the rest of them.”

“But your injury, how did you work around that?”

“Practice. Soon I could ride just as well with one arm as I could with two.”

She faced front, her mouth open, but snapped it shut as a big bug of some sort flew past them. Juliet flicked her ears in response.

“I still can,” he said. “It comes in handy once in a while.”

“You can ride with one arm?” she asked without looking at him.

“Yes, ma’am. Would you like to see?”

She gave him her attention. He grinned ear to ear, stuck one hand behind his back, and then whistled. His horse took off like a shot.

Penelope had to bring Juliet to a stop to keep her from taking off after him.
Now
she was scared, scared that her horse would run off ... but she soon realized August was galloping and turning so fast she could barely see him through the dust. Still, she had to admit that as frightening as it was to watch, his riding finesse was impressive.

The wagon caught up with her. “Show-off,” she heard Logan Kincaid mutter under his breath as he pulled the team to a stop.

All of them watched August run his horse through a series of figure eights, around sagebrush, and even jumping over a log before he spurred it toward them at frightening speed. He came skidding to a stop before Penelope, his horse kicking up dust and dirt. She covered her eyes against the flying particles and coughed a time or two. She also making quite a show of fanning the air about her with her other hand, if for no other reason than to hide the fact his recent display had her starry-eyed. Not to mention utterly infatuated ... at least for the moment.

“S
ee? I told you I could ride one-handed.” With those words he was off again.

Well, Penelope had no doubt he could easily outride her. She didn’t follow, but instead kept pace with the wagon and her sisters. “I dare say, but is it always this dusty?” she asked Logan.

“No, ma’am. It gets dustier, the further along into summer we get.”

“Lovely,” she commented.

“Let’s go to the mercantile first, Logan,” Edith called from the back of the wagon. And so they did.

Penelope hadn’t paid too much attention to the little town when she and her sisters first arrived. For one, they’d been sleeping when the stagecoach rolled in, and didn’t realize they had reached their final destination. And when they did realize it, they didn’t want
it
as their final destination if it could be helped. At the time, they were so shocked at the lack of any actual town, they just wanted to
hightail
it out of there. Penelope smiled as she realized she’d just used a Western colloquialism in her own thoughts.

The town did have a few amenities. There was the mercantile, of course – a rather large one for a town so small. It also had a saloon, which, to hear the Cookes tell it, was a social gathering place where people ate and did a little drinking, but not a lot – more like an English public house than the usual conception of a Wild West barroom. There was a livery stable, a feed store which was new, a barber shop (also new), a bank, and the crown jewel – the hotel.

Penelope’s eyes widened along with her sisters’ at the sight of the beautiful blue building with white and red trim. “Oh,” she breathed. It was so beautiful it looked out of place in the tiny town, and she wondered why on God’s green Earth Cyrus Van Cleet had chosen to build his gleaming hotel out in the middle of nowhere. “Are there even any guests?” she asked no one in particular.

“Nope,” Belle said from the back of the wagon. “Not at the moment. But there will be ... one day.”

Penelope looked at her. The woman sat staring at the place like it was holy ground, as did all the others save her sisters.