The notice arrived on a Tuesday. Tucked into the hand of a smirking groomsman from Julian's rented lodge. It was not an invitation so much as a declaration of war. Printed on thick creamy cardstock that felt heavier and more valuable than anything left in Oakhaven Manor. The Duke of Blackwood had announced that he would be hosting his annual hunt.
Eleanor Vance read the words in the gray morning light of the breakfast room. A room that had long forgotten the smell of bacon or fresh bread. It smelled now of damp stone and the ghost of beeswax. Her cousin, Julian Thorne, sat opposite her stirring a cup of weak tea he had insisted Mrs. Gable brew.
He had been at Oakhaven for a week. A self-imposed visit that felt more like a siege. "A bit of sport," Julian said. His voice slick with false conviviality. It will be the event of the season in this dreary corner of the world.
Of course, you shan't be going. It was not a question. It was a statement of fact. As plain and solid as the threadbare patch on the elbow of her gray morning gown. Eleanor placed the card down beside her plate.
And why is that? Julian gave a theatrical sigh. A performance for an audience of one. "My dear Eleanor, one must have a mount for a hunt. A proper hunter.
And as I was just observing to your man, Thomas. Your stables are well they are a monument to equine history. One plow horse and a pony with a limp. He took a delicate sip of his tea. Hardly the impression one wishes to make on a duke.
The cruelty was in the gentleness of his tone. It always was. For 6 months, ever since her father had passed, Julian had been circling Oakhaven like a patient vulture. The will had been a shock. Her grandfather's will, a document full of archaic clauses and strange stipulations, governed the estate.
It was not hers outright. It was hers to keep only if she could prove by Michaelmas next that the estate was well-managed and productive. If not, it passed to the next male heir, to Julian. He was bleeding her dry, using his London lawyers to challenge every expenditure, question every tenant agreement. The estate was failing, not because she was a poor manager, but because he was actively strangling it.
The hunt was merely another turn of the screw, another way to remind her of her isolation and her poverty. "Perseus is a fine horse," she said, her voice quiet. Julian actually laughed, a short, ugly bark. "He's a beast of burden, Eleanor, a magnificent one, I'm sure, but he's meant for pulling a plow, not for clearing fences in pursuit of a fox. You would be a laughing stock. " She looked down at her hands resting in her lap.
They were not the soft, pale hands of a lady. They were capable hands, stained with garden dirt and ink from the ledgers she pored over late into the night. She knew every field of Oakhaven, every stream, every crumbling stone wall. She knew this land in a way Julian with his polished boots and sneering condescension never would. And in that moment, a seed of an idea, hard and defiant, took root.