A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

“No, of course not. I understand, darling.” He cast a glance over her shoulder, out at the countryside. “Wynterhall is only about two miles’ distance, if we cut across the fields. Would you prefer to walk?”


“Oh, yes.” Her face brightened. “I would prefer it. In fact, I suspect I’d enjoy it.”

Toby suspected he would, too. There were any number of stone borders between here and his estate. Haystacks, too, and smooth-barked trees. Yes, walking could prove a very enjoyable alternative to traveling by carriage.

He exchanged a few words with the driver and then vaulted the wall before swinging Isabel around and helping her down the other side. She laughed. It was a giddy, girlish sort of laugh that he didn’t recall ever hearing from her before. He liked it.

He took her hand, and together they started off across the field.

For some time, they did not talk. It seemed too soon to speak about what had happened in the square, but also too soon to think of anything else. So they simply walked in silence. They walked like children, letting their linked hands swing between them as they made large, purposeful strides past the knee-high grain. First fast, then slow, then quickly again as they gathered momentum coming down a slope.

When they reached the opposite edge of the field, Toby helped her squeeze through a gap in the hawthorn hedgerow.

“Just a moment,” he said, once they’d both made it through. “You’ve a bit of bramble in your hair.” He disentangled the offending twig and held it up for her inspection before tossing it aside.

“Thank you.” She blushed, popping up on her toes to kiss him.

It was lovely, that kiss. Petal-soft, and innocent. And it told Toby instantly that he would not be tumbling his wife against a tree, somewhere along the journey home. All that sensual urgency between them earlier—they’d lost it somewhere in that barley field. Now it was comfort that warmed the place where his fingers grazed her wrist. Comfort, and companionship, and a general sense of all being well with the world. Toby couldn’t honestly say it was better than sexual release. But neither could he say it was worse.

It was different. Different from anything he’d known with a woman before. He was still pondering it minutes later, when Isabel gasped and drew to a halt in the center of a pasture.

“Good Lord, what is it?”

“Your speech!” She clapped her free hand over her mouth and turned to him, smothering a burst of giddy laughter with her palm. Lowering her hand, she continued, “Oh, Toby. You never made your speech.”

“Never you mind.” Chuckling, he squeezed her hand as they continued walking. “It’s not as though anyone would have listened after that uproar, now is it?”

“But… but what happened? That Colonel Montague and his strange speech, the musket fire …

I still don’t understand it.”

“Colonel Montague is our local war hero. He stands for every election and has done for decades. Always runs on a platform of subduing treasonous rebellion in the American colonies.”

Isabel slanted a look at him. “Haven’t the American colonies been independent for—”

“Thirty-five years? Yes. He’s not called Madman Montague for nothing. The old soldier’s a bit touched in the head, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I had. And I thought it was horrid, how his illness was exploited for the public’s amusement. The poor man.”

Toby refrained from noting that the “poor man” had very nearly got her killed today. Just like his sweet wife, to look back on the afternoon’s horror and feel nothing but sympathy for the decrepit sot. “It’s not so mean-spirited as you might think. The old fellow enjoys the attention; the crowd enjoys his enthusiasm. He never gets any votes that don’t come from those oafish nephews of his; but one could say he achieves his goal just the same.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“He rallies the borough,” Toby explained. “For an entirely fictional cause, to be sure, but the unity he engenders is real. It can’t be a completely bad thing, for the townspeople to gather every few years and answer the call of duty, honor, vigilance.” He recited the words with gusto and gave her a wide grin.

She was not amused. “I take it the musket salute is not usually part of the routine.”

“No, no. That part was a surprise, I assure you. And I’m certain this will have been Montague’s last candidacy. Wild-eyed speeches are one thing, but he’ll not be permitted to pull a stunt like that again.” Toby shook his head. “Don’t know what the old fool will live for now. It’s a bit tragic, really.”

Isabel replied hotly, “What’s tragic is a man stripped of his dignity. If he’s touched in the head, as you say, he should be pitied and protected. Not paraded before the town every few years as a laughing stock.” Her accent grew increasingly pronounced as she spoke; her strides became clipped. “Madness is a serious condition, not a joke.”