Bramble stretched forward and breathed warm across Jamie’s palm. The child nearly laughed, caught herself, then laughed anyway when the mare’s whiskers tickled her skin.
“She is sniffing me.”
“Aye,” Hamish said. “That means she is deciding whether ye are worth her time.”
Jamie looked scandalized. “I am.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Frederick folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the opposite stall, letting the exchange settle into him. Hamish showed Jamie how to stroke the mare along the neck rather than patting at her like a dog. He corrected the angle of her wrist. Had her step to the shoulder rather than the front. Explained how a horse watched with its ears, with its weight, with every shift of muscle, long before it decided to move.
Jamie listened.
Truly listened.
She asked questions in a near constant stream, but she did not fidget past the lesson or pretend to know what she did not. She brushed where Hamish told her to brush. Cleaned mud from one hoof with such concentration that her tongue pressed briefly to the corner of her mouth. Reached for fresh straw when asked.Refilled the water bucket under Hamish’s eye and checked the latch twice afterward because he told her careless hands had no place in a stable.
Frederick had expected enthusiasm. He had not expected the quiet seriousness of it.
After some time, Jamie turned toward him, cheeks flushed and hair coming loose again from whatever ribbon had once attempted to restrain it.
“When do I ride her?”
Frederick did not smile, though the urge was there. “Nae today, lass.”
Her face fell only a little. She had learned not to protest too quickly when the answer might still be turned.
“Why nae today?”
“Because riding begins long before the saddle,” he said. “A rider who doesnae ken the horse has nay business on its back.”
Jamie glanced at Bramble, then back to him.
“So what do I do?”
He pushed away from the stall and came nearer. “Ye come here. Often. Ye help care for her. Ye listen to Hamish. Ye learn her moods, what she likes, what startles her, how she moves, how she stands when she is pleased and when she is nae.”
Jamie took that in with surprising gravity. “And then?”
“And then,” Frederick said, “the more times ye come to the stables and care for her properly, and the more good reports I receive from Hamish, the sooner I will decide ye are ready for the next lesson.”
Hamish snorted softly. “So, I am to be bribed with competence.”
“Aye,” Frederick said. “It is our favorite kind.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed in thought. For one brief moment, he wondered whether she would decide the pace too slow and lose heart.
Then she grinned with full, bright challenge. “I will get very good reports,” she said.
“Aye,” he said. “I thought ye might.”
Frederick looked at her for a long beat and found himself thinking, with no small amount of satisfaction, that he had been exactly right. She did not shrink from the challenge. She leaned toward it. The same spark lived in her that lived in her mother.The same refusal to back away merely because the road had been made steeper on purpose.
“Must we go back already?”
Jamie’s question came the moment they stepped out of the stables, one hand still clutching the edge of the little currycomb Hamish had let her use before taking it back with great ceremony. Her cheeks were pink from exertion, her hair half-fallen from its ribbon, and there was straw clinging to one sleeve that she either had not noticed or had decided was now part of her permanently.
Frederick glanced down at her as they crossed the yard. “Do ye mean to move into Hamish’s loft before supper?”