couldn’t see you properly. Is Nalin all right? Are you all right, sir?”
The muffled clop of hooves sounded, and I glimpsed Mr. Thornfield quickly tethering Nalin’s reins to a thick hedgerow branch. Once the mare was secured, his silhouette turned to face me with the moon rising behind him.
“If you never speak to me again, it’ll prove difficult to sack me.” I rolled to my hands and knees and a bolt of brimstone shot up my leg. “Oh.”
He strode swiftly towards me. “The devil take your impatience!”
Attempting to stand, I insisted, “I only—”
“Wait a moment or you’ll make all worse than it need be. Here, please sit down—sit. That’s right. Heavens, but you’re a feral soul at heart, aren’t you? No, stretch your legs out straight.”
Sitting upon the ground with icy granules accumulating in the folds of my skirts as I sprawled awkwardly, I allowed Mr. Thornfield to clasp me round the torso. The wind cut at my ears, and the stones bit through my petticoats. It had not been the reunion I had anticipated; in fact, I had amused myself by anticipating every possible reunion, from schoolroom tranquillity to defending the house from marauding seekers of mysterious boxes, save this humiliating one. With him at my back, I managed to get my hands round my knees and wrench both limbs to the front, shaking with effort and pain.
“All right, hush now. We’ll be fit to conquer the subcontinent in no time.”
“Why hush? I didn’t say peep.”
This earned me a startled chuckle. “’Pon my life, there’s some truth there. No plans on blubbing, or swooning, or stabbing, come to that?”
“Not at present.”
“Capital woman,” said he. “Now, I saw how you landed, and damned if it weren’t a smasher—feel along your legs to the ankle, very carefully, unless you cannot and wish me to do so.”
His scruples, for which I ought to have been grateful, seemed merely irritating. “A highly considerate question coming from a sawbones—I heard you were a medical man, sir.”
Mr. Thornfield huffed, still bracing my spine. “And I heard you were a governess, but not many of that set can say bugger with quite so much purity of conviction.”
A fresh wave of embarrassment washed over me. “I am not yet myself, Mr. Thornfield, but I think my legs remain intact.”
“Blast, what a shame! I was so looking forward to having ’em off here in the road. Would’ve been like old times, I can hear the drum and the fife even now. Make certain all is well, please.”
My brains were addled, my pride dented, and my ankle probably sprained, but nothing permanent had befallen me; that is, supposing I did not lose my position upon the morrow.
“All my bones are inside. I do beg your pardon, sir—had it been someone other than you there in the roadway, I don’t know what I should have done.”
“Called some other whoreson bastard a whoreson bastard, I expect.”
Fully five seconds must have passed with my neck craned round to look into his eyes before I burst into helpless laughter. I waited for dismay to manifest, but Mr. Thornfield only smiled crookedly, and I wondered what could produce that lopsided mirth again.
“I’d every right to expect the worst of you,” I complained as he lifted me easily upright. “Whatever were you doing out here in the middle of an empty dirt path?”
“I requested the local inn to house Falstaff for the night to take a weight off my conscience, for the old fellow was fatigued enough as was, and I trust them, and my mind needed clearing on the route homeward anyhow. My mind, Miss Stone, is now clear as holy water. Shall we see about getting you home?”
I used Mr. Thornfield’s support to take a few steps, nearly gasping at the pangs shooting through my ankle. The joint was already swelling—and I left to the mercy of the man I had just threatened with a pocketknife.
“I think I can ride back,” I suggested.
“Yes, come to that, what are you doing jumping hedgerows with one of my most expensive mares?”
“Attempting to prove myself to Sahjara—we study nothing save horses in every subject.”
For a few lengthy moments, the only sound was the snow crushing under our soles as I limped towards my disappointed steed; Nalin, one of the most intelligent and yet Puritanical horses I have ever met, tapped her right hoof as if to say, You are a disgrace.
“Supposing you desire Sahjara’s respect, shall I assume you don’t want your corpse to be discovered