“Suppose I find — find myself in the” — she forced out the dreadful words —”the family way!”
He had undone the last hook and he bent his head and kissed the nape of her neck. “You won’t. Not unless you ever wish it.”
When all her clothes were lying across the chair and every pin taken from her hair he picked her up in his arms and carried her across to the bed.
9
With Judith beside her on the wagonette seat Tansy drove through the white gates that led direct to the Ainderly Hall stables, the driveway hidden by a high, ancient wall and thick trees from the house and its own grand entrance. It was a fine morning and she would have walked through the village from Rushmere if she had been on her own, but Judith had asked to accompany her and that necessitated the use of the vehicle.
As they drew up in the stable yard they saw several lads going busily about their work, but there was no sign of Roger. Tansy alighted, and a rugged-faced man in a riding coat and leather gaiters came out from an office adjoining the saddle room. He was in his fifties, straight-shouldered, with a full, neatly trimmed sandy moustache, his hair well brushed and brindled with gray. There was a look not unlike that of a well-groomed horse about him.
“Good morning, ladies. May I be of any assistance?” Being bareheaded he had no hat to doff but inclined his head in a slight bow.
“I’m Miss Marlow,” Tansy answered, “and this is Miss Collins. I wonder if we might have a word with Roger.”
“That can be arranged. I’m Will Kirby, the trainer here.” He spoke directly to Tansy. “In your service too, ma’am, since you are part owner with Mr. Reade of Young Oberon. Doubtless you have heard of me.”
“I have indeed. I should like to take this opportunity to ask you about Roger’s progress.”
He looked a little awkward about giving his opinion and ran a hand over his thick hair, but he answered her with a frankness that rang true.
“He’s shaping up. In fact, I’ll say that he’s shaping up very well indeed. The lad works hard, never shirks a duty, and I’m more than satisfied with the manner in which he handles Young Oberon, who has a strong will and can be exceedingly difficult at times. I may well let your brother try out a runner in one of the minor races before long.”
“Does he ride that well already?”
“Good jockeys — like Derby winners — are not just made, Miss Marlow. They have inherent in them that special streak that lifts them out of the ordinary class in the first place. Without that streak the best training in the world won’t make a champion and, taking it the other way, with lack of good training that streak might never come to light and the Turf would be the poorer for it. Your brother may — I’m not saying he has, mind you, and I ask you to keep what I say to yourselves — but he may have something of that special quality in him. It’s early days yet, but rest assured I’m keeping my eye on him.”
“That’s splendid news. What of Young Oberon? Is he —?”
Will Kirby interrupted her, laying a warning finger against his nose. “Let’s say I’m keeping an eye on him too. I’ll give you a full report in confidence with Mr. Reade at your convenience any day. I always watch what I say when there could be spying eyes and ears about. Only this morning I set some lads to chase off a tout caught watching some trials at the gallops. Now,” he said briskly, changing the direction of the conversation, “shall I send your brother to you or would you like to see him at work?”
“At work, if we may.”
Will Kirby took a large gold pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. “He’ll still be grooming Young Oberon after the day’s training at the gallops. I’ll take you over to the loose box, but you can’t go in, I’m afraid. He’s high-spirited and doesn’t take kindly to strangers — or even any of the stable lads for that matter — invading his domain.” He saw that Judith was about to get down from the wagonette and he hastened round the back of the vehicle to give his hand and assist.
“Is he a dangerous horse, Mr. Kirby?” she asked him, grateful for his aid.
“No, but he’s a stallion and proud of himself, liking to assert his presence as though he knew himself to be a winner already. With your brother he’s as sweet and docile as he could be, but woe betide anyone else who might handle him a trifle roughly.”
“Would he resent a strange rider on his back?”
“No, he’s learned to run and to be ridden, and it will be up to any professional jockey to get the best out of him when the time comes. Mr. Reade has two of the best jockeys in the country to bring the winners in for him — that’s Nat Gobowen and Arthur Nisbet, and whether young Marlow will match them one day, or even surpass them, remains to be seen.”
While talking he had been strolling at their side to lead them across to the loose box at the end of one of the stable buildings from which Tansy had seen the colt led out on her previous visit. They heard Roger whistling before they reached it. The top half of the door was open and Will Kirby rested an arm on the lower half. The warm aroma of horse and oats and clean straw wafted out to them.
“Two ladies to see you, Marlow. Normally I wouldn’t allow visitors in working hours, but as your sister happens to be part owner of the colt in your charge I’ll allow you five minutes off and you may parade him around the yard for Miss Marlow’s inspection if she so wishes it.” He turned to the girls once more. “Good day, ladies. Don’t forget, Miss Marlow, that I’ll be pleased to present that report to you at any time, and if you should wish to join Mr. Reade one morning when we’re stretching the colt on the gallops to see what he’s made of you’ll be more than welcome.”
He departed. Roger, eyebrows raised in surprise at the sight of the two girls looking over the half door at him, came toward them with the brush in his hand, with which he had been polishing his charge.
“Tansy! Judith! What brings you here? Not to tell me about Nina’s betrothal, I hope. I heard about that soon enough. It put me in a bad light with the other lads, having connections with that lot at the Manor. Their colt, Wild Wind, is going to run against our filly, Merry Day, in the Derby and the St. Leger.”
Tansy might have been amused by Roger being unable to discuss anything without linking it to horses and racing if anxiety over his tremendous loyalty to the Ainderly Hall stables did not cause her some worry. Would he deliberately blind himself to any trickery he saw going on there? Or was he so enraptured with his new life that he would see no villainy even if it were flaunted before him? It would be as well, perhaps, if she herself made a point of coming more often to the stables, which should be a little easier for her to do after she had seen Dominic later that same morning.
“It’s not to inform you of Nina’s betrothment that we came,” she said, “because we knew you would have heard of it; the whole village and the district is agog with the news. We’re here to let you know you have been included in an invitation we have received to a house party at the Manor —”
She had no chance to tell him more, for already he had started to shake his head firmly, aversion to the idea of being involved in such a social gathering showing on his face. “No, thanks! Phew! What an ordeal! I couldn’t go anyway. I should never get time off for half a day, and I thank heaven for it! Young Oberon is going to run next week for the first time. He’ll be among the runners in the Hothampton Maiden Stakes, which is a race for colts and geldings that have never won, and I’m going to be with him right up to the starter’s flag, and when he gallops home as winner I’ll be there at the paddock entrance to lead him in and unsaddle him and tell him how well he has done all the time I’m sponging him down and scraping him dry. Go to a house party! Not me! Not in a thousand years!”
Tansy and Judith both laughed together at his vehemence. “No need to go on so much about it at such length,” Tansy declared. “I didn’t think for one moment that you would be able to come or would want to, but I had to find out before I wrote our acceptance.” She looked beyond him at Young Oberon, who stood as t
hough bored, resting a hind leg, watching them with his dark, melting eyes. “I should like to see Young Oberon in the yard.”
“No need to ask me twice!” Roger exclaimed eagerly.
Tansy helped Judith to draw away from the door, which he opened wide and hooked back against the outside wall. Then, taking the colt by the headstall, he led him out into the sunshine as proudly as if the beautiful animal had already won for himself every racing laurel.
Tansy was lost in admiration. Young Oberon had grown and developed since she had last seen him, his coat having a sheen like satin, and he walked as though on eggshells, every inch of him built for speed.
“Is he really going to win his first race?” she asked, thinking of the banknotes she had in her purse as a first payment to Dominic. They were few enough, her savings from her winter money-making efforts, but if she placed that small amount on the race she stood to win a larger sum, which would take her much further along the road to repayment.
“Of course he is!”
“Would it be safe to — to place a bet on him?”
“You couldn’t lose!” Roger’s eyebrows had shot up. “But a bet. In money.” He burst out laughing. “Not exactly the action of a lady!”
Tansy laughed with him, clapping a hand over her mouth at the audacity of what she contemplated. Judith frowned in concern, not amused, knowing the double purpose of Tansy’s visit to Ainderly Hall that day, and caught her warningly by the arm. “Don’t take the risk! It would be dreadful if you lost. You would be back where you started with not one penny to show as a mark of good faith to Dominic. You don’t want him to think your promises were worthless, do you? Go to him today with what you have in your purse as planned!”
Tansy’s face became resolved and she put temptation from her. “You’re right, Judith. If the colt wins, then my half share of the prize money will go toward his keep and training, no matter that Dominic wanted no part of those expenses from me. I’ll be thankful for that.” She took a few steps forward to meet Roger and Young Oberon as they completed the circuit of the yard. With both hands she patted the sides of the colt’s handsome neck, and he blew through his nostrils, which quivered and flared out like rose-tinted shells. “Good luck, my beauty. Maybe one day you will recoup my fortune for me, who knows?”
She stood watching Roger lead him back into the loose box, Then with a final wave to their brother she and Judith returned to the wagonette. A few minutes later Tansy had driven through the grounds to the front of Ainderly Hall. Leaving Judith by her own choice on the wagonette seat in the sun, she was admitted into the house and was shown at once into the study where Dominic sat writing at a desk strewn with racing sheet calendars, race cards, clipped newspaper cuttings, and opened letters. Behind him were bookshelves filled with sporting works, and parallel to them a rack gleaming with double and single-barrelled guns. The paintings on the walls were all of race horses from his own stables. Before he was out of his chair at her entrance she had crossed swiftly to the desk between them and emptied the contents of her purse onto it. The banknotes floated and spread out.
“My first payment,” she said, not without pride. “I’ll oblige you for a receipt.”
He sat slowly down in his chair again, motioning her to take a seat, which she did, and he picked up one of the banknotes and held it by opposite corners, his elbows propped on the desk.
“I know what this money represents,” he said, frowning at it. “Early morning and late evening drives in the worst of the winter weather, hours of housework and scratching with a quill pen, and then those sessions selling at a stall in a marketplace, which nearly brought you to your deathbed.”
“I could have caught that chill anywhere,” she answered. “I would have returned to the stall again when I recovered if there had been anything to sell, but Amelia will not be persuaded to make more of her cosmetic creams and refuses to divulge the ingredients, or else I would have set about making them myself.”
“I’m thankful to hear it. You must take care of your health. Judith told me that the doctor warned you to take no risks for some time to come.” He picked up his pen again and dipped it in the inkpot pulling a sheet of paper toward him. “You shall have your receipt.”
The nib scratched in the silent room. She looked about her, taking in more detail than before. The bay window opened to a lawn where a few tame pheasants pecked, the sun touching their feathers with orange and green and gold. His collection of sporting books appeared to rival her father’s, although they were not devoted exclusively to horses and horse racing as those at Rush-mere were. Angling, shooting, beagling, hare-coursing, and hunting all took their place among the range of subjects. She glanced at the race-horse paintings in turn, each a winner, the name, race, and date on small silver plates attached to each. So! His stables could boast the Goodwood Gold Cup, the St. Leger, and the Oaks! No mean achievement indeed. It was small wonder that he longed to win the greatest of all races, named after the twelfth Earl of Derby, who founded the race for three-year-old colts and fillies with his friend Sir Charles Bunbury, during a riotous house party at his nearby mansion, the Oaks, which had already given its name to the first running of the famous race for fillies only. The two friends had tossed a coin to decide the name of the new race, and when the first Derby was run the following year in 1780 fate dealt out the honours evenly by letting Bunbury’s colt win it. Tansy had heard her father tell the well-known tale many times, and it occurred to her that she had grown up as much steeped in racing lore as Dominic must have been.
The receipt rustled as he handed it across the desk to her and she thanked him, folding it and putting it away in her purse. “You told me once that you had known my father for five years,” she said, “but he had owned Rushmere for much longer than that. How was it that you didn’t meet before?”
“I must have practically rubbed shoulders with him many a time at race meetings, but to my knowledge we never spoke until I purchased Ainderly Hall and its almost empty stables from a mutual racing acquaintance, an unfortunate fellow on the brink of bankruptcy. Heavy losses and mismanagement had run him into the ground. I’ve built the stables’ reputation up again.”
“Some would say it was a tremendous risk for you, a very young man, to take.”
“I was twenty-four. I already had race horses of my own, and I had been looking out for a place to buy.”
“You must have been most confident of success,” she challenged, her sympathies all with the former owner, who could have been the victim of the same racing knavery that had been used by Dominic to propel him to the top.
He leaned back in his chair, tilting it with one foot, an arm slung over the back of it, and answered casually, his lips parting in a smile. “I’m a gambler. But I like to think Lady Luck smiles on me when she knows there’s something I really want.”
“Perhaps she will tire one day of being coerced,” she retorted shortly.
“Coerced?” he repeated with raised eyebrows. “That’s a strange choice of word. I should prefer to say that I always wooed her well with a good race horse, a new pack of cards, or a compliment to a pretty woman.”
She could see the turn that the conversation was taking and decided to make her departure. “You shouldn’t have to wait so long for the next payment,” she said. “I’m opening up Rushmere for the Epsom meeting next month.”
He walked with her to the door. “How many guests will you be able to accommodate?”
“At least twelve in comfort, and there are six rooms on the upper floor under the eaves, which were servants’ quarters, but I’m painting them up and making them more than habitable with extra furniture from other parts of the house. That should mean eighteen guests in all.”
“Have you advertised yet?”
“No, but I intend to.”
“Don’t bother with it,” he advised. “There’s no need. I have many racing acquaintances who will be more than glad to learn from me of such excellent accommodation within easy reach of Ep
som. An advertisement will result in all sorts of unsavoury riffraff beating a path to your door. Every kind of thief, pickpocket, and scallywag follows a race meeting, you know.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said in dismay.
“Instead, those whom I know will be glad to pay treble anything you may charge to save the battling and bribing that they normally have to endure to get a roof over their heads in race weeks. It was thought that the extension of the railway line would ease matters, but last year hundreds of people were turned away from the booking offices in London, and the trains that did set off were so crammed with passengers that the locomotives couldn’t make it up the gradients and people were left stranded.”
“I’ve heard the roads to Epsom are so crowded as to be impassable at times,” she said, “but that people should be left high and dry by the trains too is surely the last straw.”
They had come out into the sunshine and she saw that Judith, looking pink-cheeked and pretty, was engaged in conversation with a tallish young man, about her own age, who stood lounging against the wagonette, arms folded, looking up at her.
“I see Judith has met Matthew Kirby, my trainer’s son,” Dominic remarked.
Tansy felt a pang of misgiving. On no account did she want Judith extending any social connections toward Ainderly Hall. It was bad enough that she herself was involved with it and Roger had been ensnared, but she hoped that Judith would not become embroiled in its meshes in any way. When Matthew turned at the sound of their approach Tansy was forced to admit to herself that he was a personable young man with long, narrow eyes and somewhat pugnacious good looks under a heavy thatch of brownish hair.
“Morning, sir. Morning, Miss Marlow. Miss Collins and I have been passing the time of day. Er — well, I’d better be getting along.”
The Marlows Page 20
