Fortunate Wager

by Jan Jones

  ‘As well he might! Just over four weeks in which to train an untried horse is preposterous!’

  ‘Peace, Caro; all the entrants will be untried. I retained that much sense.’

  Caroline was a little mollified. ‘As it happens, she does look built for speed. But she is so nervous at the least noise….’

  ‘So Flood told me. I tell you, I was looking over my shoulder all morning to hear the place so silent.’

  ‘It’s working already though. I was surprised myself at how well. She passed a quiet night and let Flood groom her without a murmur. I only took her up to the first field and back today, but I’ll walk her around the paddock properly tomorrow. You can judge how she goes on. Which course have you set for the race?’

  ‘The Rowley Mile. Rothwell himself said that any longer a course would be unfair, but that this should sort out the sprinters. I must say I’m looking forward to wiping the superior look off his face. He treated me as if I were the veriest cub! As if he were decades older than me rather than just a few years.’

  ‘Harry, you make me feel decades older and I am six years younger!’ She drew a breath and added casually, ‘By the by, what happens if we lose?’

  Harry got up. ‘Heigh ho, I’d best get on, I suppose.’

  ‘Harry!’

  Her brother didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Don’t fret, Caro, I know you’ll bring her up to scratch. The only competitor to worry about is a half-thoroughbred of Grafton’s. The rest are nothing.’

  Caroline fixed him with a bayonet gaze. ‘What if we lose?’

  ‘A thousand guineas,’ he mumbled.

  ‘How much?’ She stared at him, appalled.

  He flushed. ‘I was foxed. You don’t know what it’s like. It’s damned tricky not to get carried away when everyone around you is playing high and saying how lucky you are and what a touch you’ve got and so on.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Lord Rothwell led you on? I don’t believe it!’ Whatever other impression he had given yesterday, a shark preying on brash young minnows hadn’t been one of them.

  ‘No-o, I think it was a friend of his. There was a crowd….’ Harry’s voice trailed off unhappily.

  Caroline knew better than to remonstrate. It wasn’t Harry’s fault that their father and elder brother had always crushed him for being so lightweight. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been born with laughing eyes and the red-gold Fortune hair that had passed her by completely but which made him so fatally attractive to women that he’d played up to it, desperate for the approval he didn’t get at home. It wasn’t his fault that in order not to be bullied at Harrow he had landed himself with a devil-may-care reputation. It certainly wasn’t his fault that he’d fallen head over heels in love with Caroline’s closest friend. Unfortunately, Louisa was the daughter of a prosperous goldsmith who was looking rather higher for his only child than the son of a Newmarket trainer, gentleman or no.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘We’d best begin calculating how to make up the money should we fail. How did we do yesterday? You didn’t spend all our winnings last night, did you?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Harry. ‘I banked two hundred guineas this morning.’ He crossed the room for The Racing Calendar and in picking it up knocked Emma to the floor. He grinned. ‘Caro, you must be the only girl I know who uses novels to conceal the fact that she reads racing periodicals, rather than the other way about.’

  ‘Stop wasting time. Let’s see now, there was a light rain overnight which has taken the edge off the ground. What odds were the legs quoting on Mermaid this morning? And I do think Bobadil has a splendid chance in the Claret Stakes, don’t you?’

  Alex rang the bell of Fortune House in a towering temper. Was this blasted trainer never at his place of work? How the devil was Alex to keep an eye on the everyday doings of the racing fraternity if his excuse for doing so was continually absent? He barely suppressed his impatience as, for the second time in two days, the flabby-jowled butler opened the door to announce ‘Lord Alexander Rothwell’.

  At least Fortune was here this time. He was sitting on the sofa next to his sister, his close-curled red head bent near to her smooth brown one, both of them poring over a journal. They looked up, startled.

  ‘Goodness,’ remarked the young lady, recovering her aplomb. ‘Mama will be desolated to have missed you a second time, my lord.’

  Alex curbed the insubordinate twitch of his mouth. ‘She need not have that disappointment if your brother was ever to be found at his place of business,’ he said quellingly.

  The chit opened her eyes wide. ‘But he has been there. Perhaps you are not aware of how early trainers and stable hands have to start their work. Indeed, I was about to request a small nuncheon for him before he goes up to the heath. Will you join us?’ She signalled to the butler.

  Alex’s eyes went to the ormolu clock ticking on the mantelshelf.

  She noticed, blast her. There was a decided gurgle in her voice as she added, ‘If you think it proper, naturally. I am afraid Mama will not be back to lend us her countenance for some time yet.’

  ‘If she were, I wouldn’t be here,’ said Harry Fortune frankly. He came over to Alex with his hand outstretched. ‘I beg your pardon. I was not expecting you at Penfold Lodge today, otherwise I would have remained there.’

  The cub had charm, Alex gave him that. He shook the proffered hand and sat down.

  ‘Did you come to enquire about your horse? She hadn’t killed anyone up until an hour ago, but of course it’s early days yet.’

  His sister gave a strangulated sound which she managed to turn into a cough. Alex’s exasperation rose again. The pair of them were so damnably young!

  She was talking once more, crossing the room to the tray by his elbow. ‘Will you take a glass of wine, my lord? Harry, you will have to do without ale. Scroope appears to think it inappropriate in view of the company.’

  About to refuse, Alex looked up and experienced a slight shock. Plain though Miss Caroline Fortune undoubtedly was, she had lovely eyes, something that hadn’t been apparent yesterday when they were filled with scorn. Now they were honey-brown and suffused with a merriment that was really quite difficult to snub. She was also, he realized with indignation some thirty minutes later, remarkably managing. Without at all meaning to, he had consumed two glasses of claret and a plate of meat and pickles whilst talking over training methods quite different from those he was accustomed to. All of which found him leaving the house with Mr Harry Fortune in a far mellower mood than when he had arrived.

  ‘I expect I’ll see you on the heath later,’ said Fortune cheerfully. ‘Rufus is running today.’

  That reminded Alex of something. ‘Your sister said she helped birth him. Can that be true? How old is she?’

  Fortune grinned. ‘In years? Eighteen. Came out last season.’

  ‘I do not remember her being in Town.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. Honoria is the beauty, you see. Caro was quite in her shade. She’ll go up again when Selina comes out next spring, but I daresay it’ll be the same story. Great gun, though. Worth all the rest put together.’

  Alex walked back to the White Hart with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction that he was quite unable to account for. He discovered Giles in the yard, inspecting a dun gelding.

  ‘What do you think?’ said his friend.

  Alex scrutinized the horse. ‘Too short in the back.’

  Giles turned to the groom. ‘Tell your master I’m obliged to him, but Lord Rothwell thinks him too short in the back.’ The groom nodded and led the gelding away. Giles fell into step with Alex. ‘Had a good look around the stable, then?’

  Alex lowered his voice. He didn’t want the entire coaching inn knowing what was going on. Jessop was too close to them as it was, polishing unnecessarily at a spotless girth strap. ‘Didn’t get a chance. Fortune wasn’t there.’

  Giles looked at him sharply. ‘Then where have you been this long time?’

  ‘I ran him to ground at
Fortune House. His sister insisted on plying us with victuals.’

  Giles snorted. ‘Trying to keep you sweet. Doesn’t want you quarrelling with her brother again.’

  ‘That would be impossible. I might as well argue with the sun for shining.’

  ‘Damned cheerful country hick. Doesn’t stop him being our man. He pocketed so much yesterday that it couldn’t all have been luck.’

  Alex felt a surge of vexation. ‘Giles, you know my views. I believe this whole crazy notion to be a mare’s nest of Sally Jersey’s. There is no double dealing at the Newmarket races, let alone anything perpetrated by someone as feckless as Harry Fortune.’

  ‘Feckless? You didn’t see how much blunt he collected.’

  ‘Deuce take it, for all his youth, the cub is a trainer. He is out on the grounds day in day out. Naturally he watches the other horses as well as his own. His “luck”, as you call it, doubtless results from the application of his knowledge.’

  Giles shrugged. ‘Then I like him even less. There’s something damnably ill-bred about using science in the sport of kings.’

  ‘What nonsense you do spout. I’m away to the heath, not that one can spy anything amiss with all the crowds and the dashing between courses. I never knew such a place for so much confusion. If Lady Jersey had ever attended a Newmarket meeting herself, she would know so and not expect me to work miracles on her behalf. “The outsider sees more of the game” indeed.’

  ‘But as she hasn’t, and doesn’t know what goes on, you may enjoy yourself without worrying and later tell her you noticed nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Giles, when I promise to do something, I do it.’

  His friend shrugged. ‘As you will. It makes you a damned uncomfortable companion though.’ Then he brightened. ‘Hey, here’s a thought – why not save yourself some trouble by asking one of the grooms to skulk around on your behalf? Jessop would do it for extra coin in his hand, I’m sure. What’s more, he’s native to the course here and would know in a moment if there was anything smoky.’

  ‘No.’ Alex didn’t hide his instant distaste for this suggestion. ‘The fewer people in this affair the better.’

  ‘Ha! More that you hate being obliged to the lower orders,’ observed Giles. ‘You could ask him with ease for I was going to take him up there anyway. You don’t mind, I suppose? My man’s down with some infernal stomach complaint.’

  ‘You’ll be riding. Why do you need a groom?’

  His friend looked at him askance. ‘For the spare mount if mine goes lame, of course. Where’s the fun if you can’t follow the race?’

  ‘At the finishing post?’ said Alex drily.

  ‘Paltry. You can’t just wait for excitement to find you in this life, Alex. You have to go out and extract it whenever possible.’

  ‘You are incorrigible.’ Alex clapped him on the back and rode off, waving away his grooms. That was Giles all over. Even on the brink of ruin he would bet the devil he could trot around the rim of Hell without falling in. If he would only put one tenth of the energy he expended on amusement into tending his lands instead, he wouldn’t find himself in precarious straits quite so often. Giles, however, had never viewed the long run as near so enticing as the next minute’s sprint. Talking of which, Alex felt gloom descend on him once again. He really was not looking forward to spending the ensuing days peering at jockeys and their agents to see whether any of them had been nobbled and by whom.

  The gloom was justified. After the most frustrating week’s racing Alex had ever suffered, he leaned his throbbing head against the cool windowpane on Saturday morning, wincing at the sun just beginning to shine palely over the rooftops opposite. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid as to drink heavily again last night. First at Crockford’s and then damn near a whole bottle of brandy back here in his rooms at the White Hart. Sheer self-pity because most of his acquaintance were departing and he was not.

  Soft hoofbeats grazed his ears. He focused morosely on a lithe stripling trotting a bay along the High Street. The boy had a superb action, seeming at one with his mount. Alex had been going to ride today to get the stench of failure out of his head, though admittedly not this early. He’d have to forget the idea. The only thing he could contemplate with any degree of complaisance right now was premature death. He managed to swallow some water without gagging and then crawled back into bed cursing all women and the obligations they exacted on honourable men. Somewhere in his twisted dreams Lady Jersey laughed heartlessly at him, his sister eloped with whole strings of fortune hunters, his one-time mistress taunted that she was leaving him for someone less boring – and then they all turned into Caroline Fortune who informed him he’d brought everything on himself.

  He did not feel that much better when he got up some hours later.

  ‘I’m off fishing,’ said Giles. ‘Coming?’

  Alex cast a jaundiced eye through the window of the inn at the offensively bright sunlight. ‘You’ll never catch anything.’

  ‘Lay you a pony I do. Besides, Rutland invited me. Can’t not go when I’ve been asked.’

  ‘I’ll see you at dinner if I happen to be still alive. Remind me to block my ears the next time you suggest a night-cap on top of whatever hellish brew they were serving at Crockford’s last evening.’

  Giles chuckled unfeelingly, calling in unnecessarily strident tones for his valet as he left their private parlour. Alex allowed himself another moment of self-pity. If he’d been at home, his butler would by now be hovering at his shoulder with a covered tankard. True, the contents in general smelled appalling and tasted worse, but it did the job.

  Oh, he was wasting so much time here! He should be in London, studying the proceedings in the House, mixing with the influential personages who were sponsoring his admittance and finding him a seat, impressing them with his intelligence and gravity.

  A waiter came in to clear away the remains of Giles’s breakfast. He looked sideways at Alex. ‘The master always says what a gentleman needs who’s been a bit on the go, is the hair of the dog that bit him.’

  ‘Your master is a publican,’ pointed out Alex crushingly. ‘Such sayings are to his profit.’ A crash from the street, followed by horses neighing and an ensuing loud altercation made his head throb unbearably. Was there nowhere quiet in this inn? He picked up a printed pamphlet exhorting the reader to visit sundry Local Attractions for the benefit of their Health and Amusement. A description of the Abbey ruins at Bury St Edmunds caught his eye. ‘How far to Bury St Edmunds?’ he asked the waiter.

  ‘A matter of fifteen miles, my lord. But it’s a good road all the way.’

  ‘Then ask them downstairs to get my curricle ready, please.’ Yes, cool monastic solitude sounded very good to him at that moment.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CAROLINE SAT ON a bench near the Abbey Gate, her eyes closed and the spring sunshine warm on her face. Harry and Louisa had applied to see what was left of the ruined abbey (which wasn’t much after Henry VIII had had his way and then the townsfolk had used the resultant rubble as a handy source of building materials), but at the last minute Caroline hadn’t been able to face it and had said she would wait outside for them. Louisa had pressed her hand, thinking her friend was being discreet, but the truth was that Bertrand had brought her here before he left to rejoin his regiment in the Peninsular that last time. She had been back several times since, of course, but the sight of two small boys bowling a hoop down the street as they arrived and their sister pleading with the nursemaid to be granted a turn too had brought him too vividly to mind for her to continue.

  It had been a lovely day. Bertrand had included his grandparents and the rest of the schoolroom party in the outing and they had sought permissions and brought a picnic, but she had known right from the expedition being mooted that it was her he especially wanted to address. He wanted to say something particular, something he couldn’t give tongue to in the stables in the early morning with her dressed in breeches and the men all around
.

  ‘Keep visiting my folks, won’t you,’ he’d said, after the ancient stones had been clambered over, clothes dusted down, raised pies and cold chicken eaten and they had moved slightly apart from the others. ‘They’ll need some life about the place once I’ve shipped out.’

  ‘Of course,’ Caroline had replied. ‘I would even if I didn’t want an excuse to keep escaping from home. And I’ll look after Rufus and see to his training for you as well.’

  ‘For us,’ he’d corrected her. ‘And don’t forget to carry on with our betting account. Flood will put the money on and bank the winnings if Harry can’t.’ He’d coloured and fiddled with his gloves. ‘Caro, I know you’re only fourteen and I’m quite a bit older, but you’re the best friend a chap could have and I’ve always thought we might … That is, I’ve been rather hoping that in another couple of years we’d….’

  A well-spring of happiness had nearly unmanned her. ‘Oh yes, Bertrand. Yes, please. I’ve never wanted anything else.’

  He’d looked relieved. ‘That’s all right, then. I’ll sell out once we’ve seen off Boney. Don’t much fancy the army in peacetime. Those brats are making a hash of flying the kite, aren’t they? Shall we give them a hand?’

  Reviewing the conversation now, Caroline could see it lacked a certain something as far as romantic declarations went, but Bertrand Penfold had always been more at home with jokes than with deep feelings, and to a girl who had idolized him since he first put her up on a pony when she was an adventurous three-year-old and he a good-natured twelve, the unspoken understanding between them had been all she’d needed. Oh Bertrand, if only you hadn’t—

  ‘What the devil are you doing here alone?’

  Caroline’s eyes flew open. The children and their nursemaid were gone. Instead, Lord Rothwell towered in front of her, his eyebrows drawn together in a fearsome scowl. ‘I am not alone! I’m with my brother and Miss Taylor.’

  His lordship looked around in sarcastic disbelief. ‘Who are where exactly?’