A Passionate Endeavor (6 page)

“Gentlemen,” he said with exaggerated
politeness, “will you please leave us now? Miss Kittridge, I humbly
beg your aid.” There was a disgruntled murmur from the assembled
group that indicated that they did not take kindly to the invasion
of a female in their domain. They stared at her in disbelief until
one dark look from Nicholas dispersed the ranks. Stevens left the
reference book in the stall and herded the group outside.

Miss Kittridge trod across the straw and
kneeled behind the animal’s haunches, stroking the horse’s sides to
signal her presence. A ripple of movement captured their
attention.

“Well, at least the foal is still kicking,”
she said, reaching for some clean rags nearby. She pushed her short
sleeve over the curve of her slim shoulder.

“Have you ever done this before?” he
asked.

“With a cow. Once.”

“I see,” he said, with a hint of doubt. “I
haven’t been able to locate our stable master,” he said.

She lowered her ear to the animal’s side.
“How long has she been laboring?”

“She has been pacing for at least one hour
and a half,” he said, stroking the horse’s flanks. “She stopped
trying to stand about twenty minutes ago.”

“That is too long for a horse, I think.
Yes?”

“Most are delivered of their foals within a
half hour.”

With one hand on the flank, she inserted the
other into the birth passage slowly. The feeble horse raised her
head and whinnied for a moment before lying still once again. Miss
Kittridge looked lost in concentration on her task.

“Ah, there it is,” she whispered as she
closed her eyes. Blood seeped onto her sleeve. “I almost have it.
Yes, wait,” she said, as she seemed to be tugging with all her
strength. “No, it’s not working. I need a brace, please. Come sit
beside me.”

He crawled next to her, ignoring the sharp
pain in his thigh.

“That’s it. Now, please, I need to brace my
feet to gain more strength.” Her feminine voice clashed with the
intense seriousness of her purpose.

“Perhaps I should do this,” he said.

“No,” she said. “It is better I do it. My
hands are smaller, and I can already feel the cord stuck high up
the foreleg.”

“Yes, but I have more strength.”

Her gray eyes appeared huge in her small
face. He was so close he noticed the smallest freckle—or was it a
mole?— under her right eye. He paused. He longed to tell her that
she was the most admirable woman of his acquaintance, but he was
sure gallantries held little value in her intellectual turn of
mind.

“Please, I think I can save her.” She stroked
the mare’s side. “But if I can’t move the cord over the leg, I will
sever it and then we will have to pull the foal out immediately. I
can’t promise to save either one of them. But, it is the only way,
I think.”

“I would not be putting added pressure on you
if I told you that this is the best mare in all of Wiltshire if not
all of Christendom, would I?” he asked, dryly. “We must try to save
her, first and foremost.” He grasped Miss Kittridge’s small, booted
foot as she scrunched up her leg in preparation for pushing against
him.

“I’ll try my very best.” She closed her eyes
and pulled. He felt with surprise her great reserve of strength as
she levered herself against his hands.

“Oh, I don’t know. The cord seems too short
to come around. It must be tangled in several places. All right,
so,” she said with effort, “I’ll need the smallest knife you have.”
She removed her arm and looked down at her ruined gown.

Nicholas reached into his pocket and
retrieved a small pocketknife. He unsheathed the blade and placed
the handle in her small palm.

“This is perfect,” she said as she examined
the tool. “All right. I’ll cut the birth cord and then try to pull
the foal out. But I don’t think your mare has the strength or any
natural contractions at this point to help at all, and I’m not sure
I can do it alone, so you might need to help me.”

“Of course,” he said as she began the
procedure.

Several long minutes passed before Miss
Kittridge’s arm became slack. “Can’t quite hold onto it,” she
murmured with eyes closed. “There. It’s done.” She removed the tool
and returned to the work of pulling out the foal. She shook her
head. “It’s not budging. It must be hung up somewhere else too. You
try, now.”

Nicholas reached for the tiny foreleg and
felt the soft nose right behind it. The second tiny hoof was not
far behind. He pulled with all his strength and revealed the two
small hooves and wet, shiny nose. Miss Kittridge grabbed one
foreleg in a rag and pulled alongside Nicholas. With a sudden
whooshing sound they both fell back as the entire head appeared
with the cord wrapped twice around the neck. Miss Kittridge
untangled the cord. They then struggled to free the shoulders
before pulling out the foal.

The mare made a great effort for a few
moments as if she wanted to stand, but could only lay her head back
down. Miss Kittridge rubbed the foal with rags, felt for the pulse,
and checked the forelegs. She laughed suddenly.

“Look, he has a blaze in the shape of a
question mark! It’s almost as if he knew there was a question as to
whether he would make it into this world or not.” She laughed in
pent-up relief.

Nicholas looked up into her radiant smile.
She looked pretty—like a whimsical fairie. Her hair had fallen from
its precarious perch and a sudden beam of sunlight weaved rays
through its luxurious waves. He was dumbstruck. She was not simply
pretty. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

Charlotte looked away when he did not return
her smile.

“I fear for your horse,” she said. “I fear
she might not last. I wonder… is that a reference book?” She
motioned toward the volume Stevens had left in the straw.

A familiar sick feeling snaked up his spine.
“Yes.”

“Would you mind seeing if it says anything
about what to do after a difficult foaling?” She lifted up her
blood-stained hands. “I don’t want to dirty the book.”

He swallowed and remained rooted to the spot.
He had Stevens’s name on the tip of his tongue. “I’m sorry, does it
pain your leg?” She continued when he did not respond, “Why, of
course it does.”

“No. I shall retrieve it,” he said slowly.
And suddenly he knew he would not call out to Stevens. He made his
way painfully to the entrance and picked up the book. He thumbed
through the pages, stopping as he came upon the diagram of a horse.
A large “H” was on the top, followed by an “O,” but the rest of the
letters danced a jig on the page. The well-remembered cold ring of
sweat laced his neck cloth. It had been a long time since he had
last tried to make sense of the letters on a page.

“What does it advise, my lord?” she asked
while wiping her hands on one of the cloths.

He could not force himself to look toward
her. He stared at the letter that looked like an “S” and remembered
“
Ssssss
as in snake.” He looked below the diagram to see
hundreds of letters and words. Oh, he knew the names of most, but
not how to string them together. He could feel the icy fingers of
dread grip his forehead.

Finally, he looked up to face her—to
encounter the familiar disgust, he was sure.

“Shall I take a peek? I’ve cleaned my hands
now.” She moved to sit beside him, settled the book on her legs,
and began studying it.

She knew. He was sure of it, although she did
a good job of hiding her shock at his ignorance. “I cannot…
read.”

She continued to concentrate on the page.
“Yes.”

Her small voice made the hairs on the back of
his neck prickle. She was so calm. He wanted to provoke her. “I am
an ignorant.” She looked up, her dark eyes huge in her shadowed
face.

“No, never that.”

“Then what do you call a stupid fellow too
slow ever to acquire the ability to read?”

“I don’t know, but certainly not an ignorant.
An ignorant would never be able to converse on world history,
estate management, and law as you did with me while you were
confined to the sickroom.”

“I had a patient servant willing to read
aloud to me in my youth—just as you did while I was confined.”

“Well, I have the ability to read, but not
the memory to store facts as you have done.”

He leaned closer to pick several strands of
straw from her hair. Nicholas had a great desire to touch the
smooth skin of her cheek. He had a greater desire to lay his head
in her lap. But he knew, from experience, that it would scare her
away. Perhaps the seeds of a great disgust of him had already
germinated in her. It was amazing she had not found an excuse to
take her leave of him straight away, given his sordid revelation.
It pained him to think she might stay out of pity for him. Even
disgust was better than pity. Why did he care what she thought? He
had thought he had learned how to steel himself against those
emotions long ago.

At last, he spoke. “I forced myself to
memorize everything. It is an easy trick, I think, when one does
not have the luxury of rereading facts.”

“Well, you must be quite clever to have
secured a commission as an officer. My brother spouts the
requirements of becoming an officer regularly, and I am aware that
a knowledge of the written word is necessary.”

“So it is—unless one’s father is a duke, with
money to bypass protocol. I, of course, secured a loyal batman
willing to serve as my ‘eyes’ around the clock.”

“I had assumed your family had been opposed
to the heir deserting his future responsibilities.”

“Oh, no. I rather think the circumstance was
quite the opposite.” He stopped himself. What on earth was he
doing, telling this girl these unsavory facts? He had no idea why
he was offering any of these startling revelations, facts he had
not pondered in many a year.

“Surely you jest. For I know that is your
favored style, humor to avoid serious conversation.” She lowered
her gaze to the book and turned the page.

He couldn’t understand why he was unable to
shock her. He was uttering the most unsavory observations. Most
ladies of his acquaintance would have been blubbering a bit by now
or at least rendered speechless by his candor. He just wanted to
turn the subject desperately now. His usual wit had deserted
him.

A long silence intruded. The sound of Miss
Kittridge turning the pages in the old book filled the void. He
looked at her intelligent brow and wondered at the direct funnel of
knowledge she could obtain from the printed word.

“It offers little information, just
suggestions of care for the new foal,” she said, closing the
volume. “Is there another mare nursing now? May we transfer the
foal when he stands?”

Nicholas called out for Stevens, who returned
in moments along with the small group of stable hands. The group
gawked at the prone mare and her foal, who was trying out his legs
for the first time. In a moment, Nicholas arranged for the foal to
be removed to another brood mare who was with milk.

“Be she dead, yer lordship?” asked the carrot
topped Scottish lad, nodding to the dam.

“No. But it is probable she is soon to be.
I’ll stay with her now. Until… “ The words stuck in his throat.

“I’m very sorry we could not save her,” Miss
Kittridge whispered.

He would have bowed down to her as a peasant
to his queen for her efforts if not for his infernal leg. He looked
at her blood-splattered person. “I’m sorry about your gown. Of
course, we will see to its replacement. It is the very least I can
do to thank you for your efforts,” he said, as he looked to the
group behind her. “I’m afraid I was about to end our exertions and
forsake the possibility of new life when you came upon us.”

“Please, my lord, let us not talk about the
gown. It doesn’t matter,” she said, as she walked to the stall’s
doorway. “I’ll bring some warm compresses to comfort her in a short
while. I don’t know what else to do to ease her discomfort. But I
shall do a bit of research and ask my father.”

Nicholas looked down at the horse. “I don’t
know how to thank you.”

He looked up to see her bow her head and walk
away. No one uttered a word until she was gone.

The Scottish stable hand shook his head. “An’
me Da, he would be a sayin’ that pigs would sooner fly than a pip
of a girl would no’ faint clear dead away to be performin’ the
likes of what tha’ mere slip of a female jus’ did!”

A young man who looked like the other,
although shorter, responded. “Yes, and Da would clobber us o’er the
head if he knew we stood by like a pack of fools and did naught to
‘elp her!” That brought a round of laughter, which lightened the
mood.

Stevens raised the book he held clutched in
his hands. “Well, a fat lot this helped us. Thank the Lord for Miss
Kittridge.”

“Yes, store that book with all the others
will you, Stevens?”

Nicholas closed his eyes as he remembered
Miss Kittridge’s lovely, smiling countenance. Yes, they should all
say a prayer of thanks for Miss Kittridge tonight.