“Pardon?”
The word escaped her lips before she could stop it.
She simply stared at him, dumbfounded.
Clifton met her gaze, the corners of his lips still turned up.
“If my proposal doesn’t appeal to you, you may go to church as planned.”
Hearing the word ‘church’ again jolted Merdi back to reality.
She realized what he’d said wasn’t a hallucination and quickly shook her head.
“No!
I mean…
that’s fine.”
Her vehement denial drew a low chuckle from him.
Merdi blinked, taken aback by the unfamiliar expression.
‘Can he laugh like that?’
The laughter she knew from Clifton came in two varieties: a polite, ceremonial smile, or a mocking sneer.
But the sound he’d just made seemed to be neither.
“Do you know how to ride?” he asked suddenly.
The smile was gone from his face.
“…Not very well.”
“So you can ride.”
When Merdi gave a small nod, Clifton turned and descended the steps of the annex entrance.
It was a silent command to follow.
Despite having already answered, Merdi hesitated until the last possible moment.
The church, or Clifton.
It was true she dreaded going to church, but an outing with Clifton wasn’t exactly a welcome alternative.
Still, it would be awkward to go back on her word now.
Ending her brief deliberation, Merdi called out to his back.
“…Wait a moment!
I’ll just change my shoes.”
Clifton glanced back and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Taking that as a sign he would wait, Merdi hurried to swap her dress shoes for riding boots before joining him.
The boots looked ridiculous with her neat dress, but she didn’t dare ask the cold man to wait while she changed her entire outfit.
She would have to endure it.
As she fell into step behind him, Merdi finally broke the silence.
“Where are we going?”
“Leaving Greenfield will be difficult, so I thought we could ride near the Schultz River.”
It was a good plan.
A ride like that would take at least two hours, removing any lingering temptation to attend the church service late.
As the stables came into view, Merdi glanced around, trying to see past Clifton’s broad shoulders.
She hadn’t seen Vincent since she’d been forbidden from the stables and the hut.
She hoped for a chance encounter.
But Clifton suddenly stopped.
“I’ll go into the stables alone.”
Merdi frowned.
Even if she was barred from lurking near the stables, did he have to be so thorough?
“What if I want to come with you?”
“Then today’s plan is canceled.”
His reply was not just firm but cold, and Merdi’s hopes sank.
“…Very well.
Go on.”
Watching his back as he walked toward the stables, Merdi had no choice but to swallow her disappointment.
She would have to see Vincent another time.
Clifton soon emerged leading a glossy brown horse and another, slightly smaller one.
He handed her the reins of the smaller horse.
“What’s her name?”
“It doesn’t have one.”
Merdi pouted at his heartless answer as she placed her foot in the stirrup.
“No name?
The poor thing.”
“There’s nothing to feel sorry for.
None of the horses here have names.”
Clifton extended a hand toward Merdi, who was struggling to mount after so long.
She instinctively reached for it, then pulled her hand back, just in case.
She worried her hesitation might displease him, but once she was safely in the saddle, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
Clifton mounted his own horse with a quick, concise movement that made her clumsy efforts seem shameful.
He urged his horse forward, and Merdi clumsily followed.
“Can I give them names?”
“As you wish,” Clifton granted, much to her surprise.
She had intended to name them secretly even if he refused, but having the owner’s permission made her feel more at ease.
“I’ll call him Leo.”
She didn’t have to think long.
Clifton smirked.
“The name Leo doesn’t suit such a small, puny horse.”
Merdi glanced down at the horse she was riding before correcting him.
“Leo isn’t for the horse I’m riding.
It’s for the one ‘you’re’ riding, Your Grace.”
“Um…”
“And for your information, I’m naming my horse Marian.
She reminds me of a female knight from a novel I read last year.
She was small in stature, like this one, but elegant and strong,” Merdi chattered on, momentarily excited.
Clifton, however, had stopped his horse and was staring blankly at her.
Her own mount, following behind, soon caught up.
The instant realization that she’d been babbling on her own again made Merdi shrink into herself.
‘He’s not going to threaten me with the horses now, is he?’
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked warily.
“Because it seems you never grow up.”
Merdi tilted her head, confused by his incomprehensible words.
“Pardon?”
She asked for an explanation, but he simply gripped his reins and urged his horse forward without another word.
He set off so abruptly that Merdi had to pull sharply on her own reins to follow, struggling to match his sudden burst of speed.
She scowled at his retreating back.
‘What is his problem?’
Not long after, they arrived at the riverbank, settling beneath the shade of a large willow tree.
Clifton reined in his horse sooner than expected.
Tying her own mount to a nearby tree, Merdi asked,
“Aren’t we going further?”
“Did you think we were out for some equestrian training?” he drawled.
Merdi’s mouth snapped shut at his sarcastic tone.
‘If not, then why not just say so?’ she fumed inwardly.
The man had a perverse talent for twisting every word.
She had once been captivated by his gentlemanly facade, but being with him now felt like facing a complete stranger.
After silently securing her horse’s reins, Merdi looked up.
“Then why did you want to ride with me today?”
“Because I believe it’s time to see this ‘effort’ you promised.”
‘Ah, the effort.’
Merdi puffed out her cheeks.
“I didn’t ‘promise’ anything.
Your Grace ‘extorted’ it from me by threatening my sheep.”
“Regardless of how it came about, the fact remains that you owe me this effort.
Is that not so?”
She could never win a battle of words with him.
She was the debtor; he, the creditor.
“What kind of effort am I supposed to make?”
“Recall that afternoon you were chattering to yourself over rooibos tea.
It seemed then that you weren’t the least bit concerned with nausea.”
That much was true.
Though she’d been sitting at a considerable distance from him, her anxiety had melted away as she lost herself in thoughts of things she loved—books, her sheep.
But that wasn’t something she could simply will into being.
Forcing herself to relax would likely have the opposite effect.
Pondering this, Merdi glanced up at the willow tree.
As a child, she would have scaled its branches to shake off her worries, but she knew he would never tolerate a fiancée who hiked up her skirts to climb a tree.
“My legs are a little sore.
It’s been a while since I’ve ridden,” she said, compromising with herself.
“I’ll just sit for a moment.”
Instead of climbing, Merdi settled under the willow’s sprawling branches.
The grass by the river was still damp with dew, but not enough to bother her.
Only then did she become aware of his gaze.
Was he about to scold her for sitting in the dirt, just as Grand Dame Margaret would?
In her brief fantasy of climbing the tree, she hadn’t considered the consequences of simply sitting beneath it.
A prickle of anxiety went through her.
Clifton simply looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
His eyes held no anger or irritation, yet his silence alone was enough to set her on edge.
“Look at this.”
Suddenly, he knelt before her and took her foot in his hand.
“You never seem to grow up.”
With that, Clifton began to tie her undone shoelace.
The unexpected tug on her foot made Merdi lose her balance, and she tipped backward, catching herself with her hands just before she fell completely.
She looked down to see his smooth, elegant fingers deftly working the loosened lace of her riding boot.
The knot must have come undone at some point.
Merdi slowly lifted her gaze from her shoe to the man kneeling before her.
Clifton, on one knee, seemed utterly unreal—like a heat shimmer on a long summer day.
But this was no illusion.
The memory of their first meeting rose like déjà vu, still sharp and vivid.
Over his chiding voice, the dreamlike recollection washed over her.
It had been their first meeting.
The grounds of the castle in the Kingdom of Belloc were awash in the colors of fallen leaves.
That day, too, he had appeared without a sound, lowered his head, and knelt.
Like a dream.
Like a fantasy.