My Lady Jane(42)

That made it easier to keep going.

“When I saw those people in trouble, I wanted to help them. I had no idea what I’d do, though. I couldn’t have fought off the Pack. I couldn’t have saved their cow. And if I’d gone in all highborn, as you put it, they might have been offended. I hadn’t even considered that, but you did.

“I thought you were trying to prevent me from taking action, but the truth was that you were protecting me from myself. You prevented me from climbing down rocks I had no business trying to climb, and prevented me from confronting E?ians I had no power to stop.”

Gifford didn’t appear to be listening. Finished with the ear scratching, he’d wandered toward her breakfast and was nosing through the bag.

Jane sighed. “What I’m trying to say is that I appreciate what you did, but don’t expect me to ever say it again. I hope you’re paying attention.”

The stallion snorted in triumph as he pulled an apple from the bag, the red fruit pinned between his teeth. He tossed it into the air, caught it, and gobbled the whole thing down within seconds.

“I was going to eat that,” she said, not that Gifford even bothered to look ashamed. She shooed him away—“Go run”—and sat down on the tree root to read and eat her breakfast, but instead, Gifford lowered himself to lie next to her, his front legs tucked to one side. He watched while she propped the book on her knees and started to read, carefully keeping crumbs away.

She was halfway through The Formation of Mountains and the Balance Achieved in Valleys: a Theory of E?ian Magic in the Mundane World when Gifford nipped at the corner of the page she was turning.

“No chewing the books,” she reminded him, and offered him another apple, which he inhaled immediately. But when she dropped her face to read again, he nudged the book with his nose and stared at her. She glanced up. “What? Use your words.”

He blinked and nudged the book again.

“You want me to . . . read to you?”

He nudged the book.

Warmth bloomed in her chest. “All right. But pay attention. I won’t reread something if you miss it.”

His ears flicked back at a squawking bird on the far side of the meadow, but faced her again when she began reading aloud. After a while, he rested his chin on the root next to her, and while she held the pages open with one hand, she placed her other hand on his nose, stroking the soft fur every so often.

A few days passed in this manner, with Jane reading to Gifford while the sun was up, and the two of them spiriting food and medicine to nearby villages at night. If the house staff noticed that the lord and lady appeared to be going through the food stores unusually quickly, they never complained.

In the parlor, Jane finished reading the last pages of The Jewels of the World: Man-made Marvels and How They Were Built just as the sun touched the horizon. She watched the orange and red burn across the sky, shining through the large windows. Outside, Gifford-the-horse stopped running as his own light overtook him, and the silhouette of a horse became the silhouette of a man. As soon as he regained a sense of his humanity, he’d come inside for dinner/breakfast. Anticipation stirred deep in her stomach.

She placed her book on the shelf and buzzed around the parlor lighting candles for a few minutes, trying to appear busy.

Twilight had deepened when at last the door opened and Gifford stepped inside, clad in the clothes she’d laid out for him. His hair was combed and tied in a tail again, and there was the usual bounce to his step, as though running for half the day didn’t affect him whatsoever. “Good evening, my lady. How many books did you read today? Anything about horses?”

“You have hay in your hair.”

He smoothed his hand over his hair before he caught her smile. “No horse jokes.”

“Never! But I wanted to ask: are you catching a chill? You sound hoarse.”

Gifford snorted and shut the parlor door behind him. “And you look flushed. I hope you’re not burning from the sun.”

“If I didn’t spend every day reading to a horse whose only thoughts were for the apples I provide—”

“I never asked you to climb the tree to fetch more apples. And while we’re on the subject, I am a horse, not a stool.”

“Will you add that to the rules?”

“And risk another rule regarding your books? I think not.” He came toward her, subtly checking his ponytail for hay. “My lady, there’s something I wish to discuss.”

His tone had changed, the ever-present playfulness shifting into something more serious. It was the same tone he’d used when he’d described his feelings on being an E?ian and how he believed the scales needed “to be righted in the direction of equality” for E?ians and Verities alike.

“All right.” Truly, he’d been more handsome than ever during his speech that night. It had been the first time she’d ever thought there might be more to his mind than women, ale, and the wind in his mane.

“I wasn’t sure whether to tell you.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away from the candle she’d just lit. “It seemed like it might be easier for you to assume I hadn’t the wits to comprehend what you were saying, but I’ve given this a lot of careful thought and I’ve decided I wanted you to know.”

Jane gazed up at him.

“The other day when you came out to the meadow and told me that you appreciate what I did during the E?ian attack, I heard. I understood.”