On the third morning of my marriage, Evelyn Mercer placed a pair of fleece-lined riding knee warmers in my hands. I had expected a house rule, a family heirloom I would be required to wear, or a quiet warning about what a Mercer wife did and did not do. Instead, my mother-in-law had noticed me shivering after a ride and bought something practical. At the Mercer estate, the stables were days from being sold, and my new husband believed the sale was the only way to keep his family's land from collapsing under its debts. I thought I had to choose between keeping my marriage easy and asking for the life I wanted. I didn't yet know whether Owen could love the version of me who refused to stay in the saddle only when it suited everyone else.