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Racks of thick, chewy home-baked bread toasted on forks over the kitchen fire and fetched out by the half-loaf! The remains of the peach "jumble" sat on a raised pie plate, and stone jugs of preserves, jams and marmalades paraded down the length of the breakfast table, along with huge, sweaty globs of home-churned butter between every two place settings.
    And for the serious feeders, there were pork chops sizzling on black-iron pans, heaping bowls of gruel, and three different kinds of cheeses. As for beverages, there was ale, a lighter, gassier beer, tea, coffee, more chocolate, or a heavy, almost-black berry wine made on the property. More of Caroline's doing, he discovered, though he could not assay a taste after heaping a plate and taking three cups of strong tea.
    There was a mob at table; Caroline, looking a bit perkier this morning, dressed in a middle-green wool dress with a short jacket for riding on over it, Governour in rustic and worn boots, breeches and waistcoat so he could tour the properties. Millicent was there in a white sack gown, shawl and mobcap. Mother Chiswick was turned out in gray wool. There was the head groom, the gamekeeper, the assistant estate manager, who was trying to keep track of a two-sided conversation between Governour and Uncle Phineas, who was gnawing his way through a stack of pancakes, pork chops and ale, both eager to be out and doing, and a continual parade of underlings there to take orders and turn to with a will.
    Alan picked at his food, trying to carry on a conversation with Caroline, who was seated by his side this morning, with William Pitt in either his or her lap, peeking over the top of the table and singling out particularly dainty delicacies from their plates with one sly paw, when not being offered fatty bacon fast enough to suit him.
    "Christ, is it always like this?" Alan managed to ask in one of the lulls, broken only by the sounds of somewhat sedate chewing. "I've seen quieter twopenny ordinaries on Boxing Day!"
    "I'm afraid so, Alan." She smiled. "The work of a farm starts early, and never stops."
    "Then thank God I was never cut out to be a farmer," Alan said in reply. "The Navy's Bedlam enough. Cony mentioned something about riding this morning?"
    "If you would wish it, Alan," she assured him. "If you would rather loll about for the morning, we could go later. That is, if you could tolerate my being your guide."
    "Anywhere, as long as it's not here," he chuckled, patting her hand. "And anywhere with you, Caroline."
    "Then let's be on our way, right now!" she urged, half-rising. "If you have eat sufficient?"
    "Point me to a horse!"

Chapter 4
    She rode as if the Hounds of Hell were at her heels, astride the older-style saddle and bent over low, her light brown hair touched with gold streaming from beneath her straw bonnet like flame. Her mare was a good'un, making it hard for Alan's gelding to keep up for at least half a mile, until they thundered up a rising down towards a patch of wood lot, their mounts sucking and blowing like bellows.
    At last they slowed to a walk as they neared the summit, and Alan could draw alongside her to see what had vexed her so.
    "Good little mare you have there," he complimented her. "And you ride prettily. But what was all the hurry?"
    "I just wanted to get out from under foot," she replied, just a touch wan, though flushed with the exertion and the excitement of a hard ride. "I liked our little house near the road better, instead of all the coming and going around Uncle's. At least down there, we felt... settled and at peace. Snug in our own house, at last."
    "I don't see why you had to move, really," Alan said as their mounts cropped grass after getting their wind back. "Surely the maid that cares for your father could have come there instead."
    "Uncle insisted on it," Caroline replied with a wry grin, which flitted away quickly. "He insists on rather a lot of things, I fear."
    "Caroline, is there something the matter here?" Alan