It granted her the right to draw from his funds under the care of his regimental agent there and suggested a stallion for breeding to his dapple gray mare, Penelope, closing with a simple, Yours most affectionately, John Armstrong. She didn’t expect anything more from him for a few months, given the distance letters from Canada must travel, but she faithfully wrote him every month, assuring him his mother was as well as could be expected, and reporting everything Farmer Purvis told her about the management of his horses and the planting of the south fields. She enjoyed her new life more than she’d expected. Her raw grief at Giles’s loss settled into a quieter regret as spring came to Westerby Grange. Care for her mother-in-law and learning the management of the household kept her occupied. There was security, too, in knowing she had at last, for the first time in the ten years since her father’s disgrace, come to a home where no one could cast her out. She lived quietly, since despite her new marriage she considered herself still in mourning for Giles.
