by Mary Nichols
It was Richard’s turn to laugh. ‘Lose the best horse I ever had on a hand of cards? No, my lord, I am not such a sousecrown.’
‘Then the captain will be known for a welsher.’
John, suddenly very sober, looked at him in anguish. ‘Richard, play my hand for me...’
‘No.’ He had never been very good at cards; horse-riding was another matter. He turned to Lord Barbour. ‘I’ll race Victor over a measured mile against the best in your stables, my lord. If I win, my friend’s debts are cancelled. If I lose, you take the horse.’
Richard had played the only hand he knew. Lord Barbour’s stables were among the best in the country except for one thing. They lacked a really great stallion such as Richard owned. The young man had a vague feeling that his lordship had manoeuvred the whole situation, but there was nothing he could do about it, short of abandoning his friend to his fate. As soon as it became known that John had been unable to pay his gambling debts, every tradesman in town would be dunning him and he would be left without a feather to fly with.
John tried to dissuade him and was still trying to do so the next day, when, with a pounding head and sick to his stomach, he called on Richard to go to Hampstead Heath. ‘I can’t let you do this,’ he said, mopping his face with a handkerchief soaked in lavender water. ‘Leave me to my fate...’
‘No. I can no more go back on a wager than you can. It’s done now.’
‘You know Barbour is down on his luck,’ John said. ‘I heard he was mortgaged to the hilt at Baverstock’s bank and Baverstock ain’t known for his generosity. Old Ten-in-the-hundred, they call him.’
‘My cousin,’ Richard said thoughtfully.
‘Oh, I had forgot; sorry, Richard, but I’ll wager Lord Barbour will refuse to hand over my vouchers even if you win.’
‘Not even he would renege on a debt of honour.’
‘No, but there are other ways of avoiding payment.’
‘Cheat, you mean? He wouldn’t dare.’
‘Not exactly. I had heard his lordship intends to put his fourteen-year-old son in the saddle and the boy is only half your weight.’
‘Is that so?’ There was nothing in the rules of the wager which said either protagonist had to ride himself, though Richard had assumed they would and so was glad of the information. ‘Then I shall have to employ a jockey, shan’t I?’
The jockey weighed less than seven stones; Victor, who was used to Richard, who weighed double that in uniform with all his accoutrements, hardly knew he had a rider on his back, except for the sharp little spurs and the whip, something he was not at all accustomed to. He flew over the heath like the wind. The race was so close that the two horses were neck and neck; first Salamanca drew ahead, then Victor. Lord Barbour, on the sidelines near the finish, yelled at his son, ‘Unseat him! Unseat him!’ The boy, half a head behind, pulled his horse alongside Victor and flayed his whip at Richard’s jockey, causing a spurt of blood to appear on his face. The injured man veered away from another blow and Victor, confused by conflicting messages on the reins, stumbled and almost unseated him. Both recovered quickly but the set-back was enough to lose them the race.
Richard, his face dark with fury, strode over to Lord Barbour, who was embracing his son. ‘If you imagine, my lord, that I will hand over my horse to you after that demonstration of cheating, you may think again.’ He turned to his jockey whose face poured with blood. ‘I’m sorry, Daniels. Get off to the physician and have that cut seen to. Have the bill sent to me. You will be paid as if you had won, which you would have done if the race had been fair.’
‘All’s fair in love and horse-racing, don’t you know that?’ Lord Barbour said, with a self-satisfied smile. ‘I’ll have your mount, if you please.’
‘You will not. The wager is void and you must know that.’
‘I can only suppose you have been soldiering so long, you have forgotten what a debt of honour is.’
Richard was about to vouchsafe his opinion that his lordship did not know the meaning of the word, when John tugged at his sleeve. ‘Don’t, I beg of you, provoke him.’
‘You expect me to hand Victor over when he so flagrantly cheated?’
‘Yes,’ John advised him. ‘You cannot prove the boy did it on purpose.’
‘We both saw it.’
‘Who will believe us? Two rakes, home from the wars, against a respected pillar of society with a great deal of influence?’
‘You would do well to listen to your friend, sir,’ Lord Barbour said. ‘He may not be the best card-player in the world, but he speaks a great deal of sense.’
‘I will have satisfaction.’
Lord Barbour smiled. ‘Name the day and the conditions. I will accommodate you.’
‘No,’ John said, horrified. ‘My friend did not mean to duel with you.’
‘Did I not?’ Richard said through gritted teeth. ‘I am persuaded nothing would please me more than to make him eat grass before breakfast.’
‘You can’t do that,’ John insisted, pulling him to one side. ‘The contest would be so uneven it would be denounced by the whole world. Look at him. He’s so fat and out of condition you could hardly miss, either with pistol or rapier, and he’s nearly old enough to be your father.’
It was the thought of his father that decided Richard. He had been in enough trouble before he left home to wish to add to it now. Reluctantly he unsaddled the horse, threw a blanket over it and handed the reins to his adversary. ‘Consider he is on loan, for I shall have him back. I claim a return match.’
‘Any time,’ his lordship said complacently. ‘Any time.’
‘Mind you treat him well while he is in your care,’ Richard added. ‘For if I hear anything to the contrary, blood will be spilled.’ He patted the horse’s neck and walked swiftly away, carrying the saddle. Not for anything would he let anyone see how down he was. The horse had been with him through many a battle; he was full of courage, steadfast and loyal as any human comrade and Richard felt as though he had betrayed him. He turned to John who had hurried after him. ‘If you are going to start apologising again, you may save your breath.’
John knew better than to argue, though he felt every bit as blue-devilled as his friend. ‘No, I was going to suggest you ride behind me to the nearest tavern where we can drown our sorrows in a bottle or two.’
‘That will do for a start.’
Two hours later, after two bottles of the landlord’s best claret had been consumed, Richard was still cold sober and the loss of his mount was still foremost in his mind. ‘If that blackguard Barbour thinks he has done me over,’ he said, ‘he will soon learn different. I mean to get Victor back.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I will think of something. What will you do? It might be prudent to take a repairing lease in the country until the fuss dies down.’
‘No. My mother is lately come to town and I mean to stay with her. She may be persuaded to keep the duns off my back. But as to Victor, if I can do anything...’
‘My mount is my affair,’ Richard said brusquely. ‘I’ll call at Rowan Park on my way to Dullingham House and see what Sir Henry has to offer. He served me well before; Victor was one of his.’
‘You are going home?’
‘Yes, it has to be faced.’
‘You can hardly blame Lord Dullingham for being vexed,’ John said. ‘It ain’t done for the heir of an estate like yours to go off to war, especially when there is no second son to take your place. But considering you served with distinction I’ll wager he is very proud of you and now you are back safe and sound all will come about.’
‘Perhaps, but his last words to me were if I was such a codshead as to stand in the line of fire I should deserve to be hit and he would not mourn my demise...’
‘I’ll wager you said something equally hot-headed to him.’
Richard laughed. ‘Maybe I did.’
‘Why did you join? You’ve never said.’
‘Pride, I su
ppose. I was barely twenty and something of a scapegrace. I needed to sow a few wild oats.’
It was not exactly the truth but as he had never told anyone why he had left it was all the answer he intended to give. He had been nineteen when his father married for a second time and the shock of it had stunned him. He could not understand how his father could have so far forgotten the love he bore his first wife as to marry Honoré Montellion, a French émigrée, as grasping and vicious as a hawk.
From the very first she’d set out to marry stepson to daughter, a whey-faced, over-indulged girl of fifteen; if her own children could not inherit because Richard was the heir, then she was determined that the next generation would through a union between Richard and Lucille. But when Richard had declined to fall in with her wishes she had made his life a misery, finding fault with everything he did, sending him on futile errands and alienating him from his father, who could see no wrong in her and had encouraged her in the matchmaking. Unable to stay and fight her without filling the whole house with discord and upsetting his father, he had left home and enlisted.
He looked at his friend across the empty bottles and glasses on the table and smiled ruefully. ‘If my father had carried out his threat to disown me and make my cousin William his heir...’
‘Is the estate not entailed?’
‘Not so he can’t get out of it.’
‘He was bamming you.’
Richard was not at all sure of that. His parting with his father had been acrimonious, to say the least, and it had been with him all the years he had been in the army. They had corresponded, to be sure, but neither had felt able to put his true feelings on to paper and the letters had been stilted, full of battles and army matters on Richard’s part, and politics and estate affairs on his father’s.
But Honoré had died in childbirth several years before and the war was over, which meant there was no longer any excuse for staying away. And, if Richard was honest with himself, he was more than a little homesick. It had grown worse since Maria died; he saw his homecoming as a way of coming to terms with that, of accepting that she was part of another life, another world which those who had been left behind in England could never comprehend. He wanted to lock it away and begin again.
It was what he was thinking about as he descended from the coach at The Barley Mow inn on the Great North Road just north of Baldock, instructing Heacham, his man, to continue on to the next stage with his luggage, from where he would easily be able to hire a conveyance to take him to Dullingham House. The inn was quiet and a few minutes later, having bespoken a bed for the night and left his cloak-bag, he took his saddle, which he had obstinately brought with him, and went out to the yard to hire a hack to take him to Rowan Park. It was a poor beast and the fine saddle looked incongruous on it, but Richard set out cheerfully enough. It was a new beginning and the day was set fair for new beginnings.
Chapter Two
It was a cloudless summer’s afternoon with a gentle warmth quite unlike the searing heat of Spain; a slight breeze caressed Richard’s cheek and lifted his hair from his neck. A couple of kestrels hovered over Royston Heath, bees droned on the purple heather and the clop, clop of the mare’s hooves almost lulled him to sleep.
A few minutes after he had turned down the lane which led to the stud farm he was suddenly alerted by the sound of hooves thundering towards him and only just had time to pull the mare to one side before a shadow loomed over the hedge beside him and a horse and rider flew over it and galloped on towards the heath, leaving him swearing fluently and once more in solitary possession of the lane. It had either been a completely irresponsible act of someone ignorant of the consequences or the rider was a supremely confident horseman to take a hedge like that, but then he was in Paget country where reckless riding was normal.
He rode on down the hill towards the house and outbuildings of Rowan Park. If the horse came from there, then he would speak to Sir Henry about it; horse and rider should not be risked in that fashion.
Dawson came out to meet him as he rode into the stable-yard and dismounted. ‘Can I be of assistance, sir?’
‘I have just been almost run down by a maniac on a black stallion, which I assume came from here. Have you no control over your lads at all?’
‘The lads are all sensible riders, sir.’
‘This one wasn’t. Six foot, that hedge was. Six foot and the rider so slight, I wonder you dare put him up. I had thought Sir Henry had more in his cockloft that to allow such a thing.’
‘Sir Henry died a year ago, sir. Had you not heard?’
Richard’s seething anger subsided. ‘No, I am sorry to learn of it; Sir Henry was the best judge of horseflesh I ever knew.’
‘Yes, sir, he was that.’
‘But that is no excuse for ramshackle behaviour. Are the stables still in business? I collect Sir Henry had no son.’
‘The stables are in perfect working order, sir.’
‘Then where is the new owner? I would have a word with him.’
‘Coming now.’ Dawson, barely able to suppress the grin which creased his rugged features, nodded in the direction of the lane along which Richard had himself arrived. He turned as the horse and rider he had seen earlier walked calmly into the yard. In spite of his annoyance, he found himself admiring the way the young horseman controlled the restive stallion and brought it to a halt a few yards from him.
‘You are a sapskull, bratling,’ he said. ‘A veritable thatchgallows. It is a good thing that, unlike you, I am a careful rider, otherwise my horse might have bolted with me. Don’t you know better than to jump blind?’
‘I wasn’t blind. I saw you clearly enough even if you did not see me and I have taken that hedge any number of times.’
He was alerted by the voice into looking more closely into the rider’s face and found himself gazing into a pair of dancing green eyes, which thoroughly unnerved him. His surprise must have shown for she laughed aloud. ‘Have you never seen a woman on a horse before?’
He was tempted to tell her what he thought of women in breeches who galloped about the countryside without benefit of groom or chaperon, but decided against it. It was probably not her fault if she was a daughter of Sir Henry, and she looked oddly vulnerable, in spite of the easy way she handled the horse. ‘Not riding an animal like that,’ he said, appraising her mount appreciatively. ‘And most assuredly not one so foolhardy. You were lucky your horse did not bolt at the sight of me.’
‘Why sir,’ she said, throwing a breeches-clad leg over the saddle and sliding to the ground, ‘I did not think your appearance so very out of the ordinary. If you had two heads, then Warrior could be forgiven for taking fright, but an ordinary man on a very ordinary horse - what is that to fly into the tree-tops about?’ She was aware as she spoke that he was not in the least ordinary. For a start, he was a very big man, tall and broad-shouldered, and his features had a ruggedness which in no way detracted from his good looks; his jaw was clear-cut and his mouth firm. ‘Did you ride down here especially to ring a peal over me? For I can tell you the lane is private property...’
‘I would not have wasted my time on such a fruitless exercise, ma’am,’ he retorted stiffly, ‘had I not needed to come on business.’
‘Oh.’ She handed Warrior’s reins to Dawson who had been listening to the exchange with something like glee. ‘Have him rubbed down and when he’s cooled you can give him a good dinner; he’s earned it.’ She cast a cursory glance at Richard’s hired hack before turning to face him, aware that he was much taller than she was and she was tilting her head up towards him - a most unusual occurrence. ‘I am sorry, sir, we seem to have begun on the wrong foot. I’m Georgiana Paget. What can I do for you?’
He grasped the hand, though he was unsure whether to shake it or convey it to his lips. ‘Miss Paget, your obedient servant. Am I to understand that you are the new owner of Rowan Park?’
‘Yes,’ she said, unable to avert her gaze from his dark eyes which seemed to be looking
into hers as if they could perceive the uncertainty there.
‘I need a good hunter,’ he said, releasing her hand and breaking a spell which had lasted only seconds but which, to Georgie, had seemed like minutes. ‘The one on which you nearly rode me down would be just the thing.’
She was about to protest that she had come nowhere near riding him down, but stopped herself with a laugh which sounded empty to her own ears. ‘Mayhap it would, but Warrior is not for sale, and certainly he would not do for you.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Simply by looking at the animal you are riding. I never saw such an apology for a horse in my life; it is definitely dishing. And you are far too heavy for it.’
He turned to look at it and grinned ruefully; she was right but he would not give her the satisfaction of telling her so. ‘That is no excuse for terrifying him and me along with him. And you must allow me to be the judge of what will do for me, madam. Pray ask whoever is in charge of this establishment to show me what there is on offer.’
‘I am persuaded it would take more than that to terrify you, sir,’ she said, watching his face for his reaction, ready to fly into the boughs the minute he exhibited any reluctance to deal with her. ‘I will show you what we have if you tell me what you have in mind.’
‘Another like Victor,’ he said, deciding to humour her. When she found herself out of her depth, she would have to call her guardian or manager or whoever now looked after her affairs. He admired her spirit, though what she hoped to gain by this delaying tactic he did not know.
‘Victor? You mean Bucephalus’s colt out of Winning Streak? I collect he was bought by a cavalry officer. Viscount Dullingham’s son, I believe.’
He grinned and gave a mock-bow. ‘Major Richard Baverstock at your service, ma’am. You have a good memory.’
‘I know the lineage of all our horses, Major, and where they went. What happened to Victor?’
