Throughout the length and breadth of England, fair summer days enjoyed a certain sameness. The blue of the sky rarely varied; the cheerful sun shone alike on cattle, sheep, country manor, or urban market with a predictably mellow, golden quality.
Before Oak Dorning had turned fifteen, sunny days had ceased to surprise his artist’s eye.
Rainy days, by contrast, varied from location to location. In the north, the rain took on an icy gleam. Along a shoreline, a storm could turn rainclouds a brooding jade green. In the uplands, a driving wind made rain more of a grim blur than actual precipitation.
A mile and a half outside Little Bathboro, along a glorified, double-rutted sheep track, a rainy day was the embodiment of every misery a man who’d recently splurged on a pair of new boots could imagine. A penetrating chill had gripped Oak a mile out from the Bathboro crossroad. The wind kicked up a quarter mile beyond that, and after topping yet another rise, Oak saw that the weather would not relent for the foreseeable future.
The entire vista before him was shades of desolation and damp, with contrasting dashes of flooding and mud. A square, gray edifice squatted on a slight hill a half mile in the distance, and if that wasn’t Merlin Hall, Oak would lay himself down in the nearest puddle.
He hefted his sodden valise and was preparing to negotiate slippery downhill footing, when he noticed a darker patch along the hedge-lined track below. A gig pulled by a sopping wet bay had become mired in the ruts, and though the horse hopped gamely forward in the traces, the wheels were stuck fast.
“Well, hell.” Part of Oak’s mind noticed the interplay of the melancholy clouds and the grass and gorse undulating in the gathering wind.
Another part continued cursing silently. “Seems you’re a bit stuck,” he said, approaching the vehicle. “Perhaps I can help.”
The driver was veiled in widow’s weeds, a heavy black wool blanket across her lap. “I can manage, thank you. Get up, Dante.” She waved the whip at the horse’s quarters without touching lash to hide. “Get up, boy. Get up.”
Oak set down his valise and ignored the icy trickle of rain dripping from the back of his hat brim directly onto his nape. The gig rocked, it jostled, it lurched forward only to sink back more deeply into the ruts. The beast was giving the job a good go, but the steep angle of the rut worked against him.
“You’re in want of a boost,” Oak said, when the driver allowed the horse a pause in his labors. “As it happens, I enjoyed a rural upbringing. I’ve unstuck a gig or two, ma’am, and I can have you on your way in a moment.”
She had good posture, whoever she was. Her back was as straight as a marble column, and her hands on the reins gave with the horse’s attempts to win free. A competent whip, as many rural ladies had to be.
“With another half hour or so of rocking your cart and hopping about,” Oak went on, squishing his way closer to the gig, “your gelding might bounce you loose. Or he might bounce you the rest of the way into the ditch and snap an axle. Your decision.”
The horse hung his head and sighed, his coat curling wetly along his shoulders and flanks.
“I hate this.” The lady sounded dejected and tired.
Had Oak not been assessing the shine of the waning light on the jet buttons of the lady’s cloak, and thus looking more or less at her, he’d not have associated those three plaintive, muttered words with her straight spine and graceful hands.
“Dante is not precisely thrilled with the day either,” Oak said, “while my own sentiments regarding this weather aren’t fit for a lady’s ears. Your horse seems a sensible sort, and we can take comfort from that.”
“He’s an utter love, and if he pulls a shoe in this muck, my stable master will give notice.”
What had sent this woman careering across the countryside on such a day? If she had a stable master, she likely had a closed carriage, but then, heavier vehicles became more easily stuck.
“He won’t pull a shoe. Dante knows what the job entails.” Oak offered a final, silent curse in the direction of gentlemanly obligations and stripped off his damp gloves. “When the gig comes free, you don’t stop to congratulate the horse, you don’t take a bow for your fine skill with the reins. Trot on. Don’t canter,