Joan Smith Page 15

  “That I could not manage him, but I could. What you do with a man like that is agree with him that every saucy baggage who walks through the door is a perfect beauty. Praise her a little harder than he does, and within two minutes he will be finding a fault in her. Edward liked looking at all the pretty girls, and flirting with them, but he liked dogs and horses too. He admired pretty things, that’s all. We had a very quiet wedding. Too quiet, and then came straight home to Troy Fenners. All the neighbors were very nice about accepting me, for Alice was not at all popular, always feeling herself above the country folks, and trying to draw Edward off to London twice a year, and in general acting like a queen when she was at home.”

  “Dr. Hill married some cousin of hers, I believe. What was the cousin like?”

  “Quite different. Alice would never have married a doctor. She was too proud. But Walter’s lady, you know, was getting a trifle long in the tooth, and was happy enough to take the first one who asked her. It was a good match for them both. It did not bother Walter that she was old and plain, and it did not seem to bother her that he was countrified. He let her smarten him up. Was happy to do it, for he was a little ambitious, you know, as a young man will be.”

  “Now he is smartened up so much he will be making an offer for you, I fancy.”

  She blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl making sheep eyes at her dancing master. “I won’t say he has not asked me. I expect St. Regis would throw a fit. The fact is, he has some aging uncle he keeps threatening to send down to Troy Fenners for a visit. A retired Colonel, a widower, who expresses a keen interest in turning country farmer. He has not said so, but he thinks I will marry the man. He is a regular matchmaker, St. Regis. I don’t know why he does not make a match for himself. He is of the age.”

  ‘‘He probably has some heiress in his eye.”

  “Yes, and will soon have her estates in his hands. Well, my dear, I think we should have some cocoa and go to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow. Chapter eighteen—I have been looking forward to getting at it.”

  As I could think of no more questions, I agreed to cocoa, and an early bed in preparation for chapter eighteen.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By having Pinny spy for me, I was able to ensure missing Pierre at the breakfast table. My spirits were in enough turmoil without having to fight him off this morning. I ate more lightly than usual. I had only coffee, while awaiting Aunt Loo’s descent, becoming more chicken-hearted by the minute. I should have gone to the stable, got Nancy saddled up, and taken the jump the minute I came down, without thinking too much about it.

  It was nine o’clock when Loo entered, wearing not one of her ghost-hunting outfits, but a decent blue cambric gown. She would go in the carriage to the tollgate to watch me commit suicide, for that was about the way I viewed the project by that time.

  “I want to see how Nancy looks, as well as learn how you feel, Valerie,” she said. “How the tail flies out, you know, how the sun moves on the ripples of her muscles, the wild, frightened eyes of her. All that will make good reading. I mean to stretch the jump out to a couple of pages at least. I want a page of Gloria’s thoughts and feelings, so be sure to remember how you feel.”

  “Nauseated,” I told her, as a prelude.

  “Now pray don’t go and be sick on me. It must be done today. I hate patching up a story, leaving a blank here and there, and going back over it like a carpenter mending a broken chair. It must be done in sequence, or the flow is interrupted. And I shall describe how beautiful you look too, my dear, with the fear pulling your facial muscles taut, and your fingers clutching at the reins. You will enjoy to read that, eh? But you must never reveal to your papa that it is you, or that I am Mrs. Beaton.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “I ain’t ready. I have not had a cup of coffee yet, and we cannot make the jump till ten-thirty. You will have plenty of time to pull yourself together. You look a trifle pale. Where is my toast? I want toast and marmalade.”

  While she dawdled over the meal, I went along to the stable, praying Nancy would have a sprained ankle, a pulled tendon, or a bad cold, that I might delay the jump another day. Upon seeing her empty stall, I felt a surge of hope. Dr. Hill had taken her back, needed her for some reason. His own mount must have been crippled. “Where is Nancy?” I asked the groom.

  “Mr. Sinclair took her, miss. Rode over to Winchester this morning he did, with Mr. St. Clair. He said you would understand.”

  “Did he indeed!” I declared, caught in the grip of a powerful and fast-rising fury. “How extremely thoughtful of him.”

  “Did you not give him permission?” the man asked, fearing he had done wrong.

  “No, I did not, but a lack of permission has never stopped Mr. Sinclair from doing what he wanted.” I turned and stormed from the stable, plotting my revenge. It is strange it took me so long to realize what I must do. I hold my demented state of fury accountable. It was not till I got back to Aunt Loo that it occurred to me. I phrased it in a manner that I hoped she would find acceptable.

  “Sinclair has exchanged mounts with me for the day, Auntie. He has taken Nancy to Winchester, and I am to make the jump on Diablo. I hope it will not interfere with your story.”

  “Not at all, but do you think you can handle that wild stallion?”

  “Diablo is a gelding. Sinclair must think I can, or he would not have made the exchange, would he?”

  “Are you sure? ... But of course if Diablo is in the stall in Nancy’s place, it is obviously his wish that you use his mount. He was afraid Nancy could not make it.” This rearranging of the facts satisfied her, and me. “I know you will not come to any harm. It would be a pity if you destroyed St. Regis’s mount, for it is a valuable one, you must know.”

  Not a single word of concern about destroying myself. It was the horse that worried her. “I’ll drive with you in the carriage to the gatehouse. I am to pick up Diablo there.”

  “Very well. Let us go. I have got my pad and pencil and telescope. I don’t want to miss a single detail.”

  “Pity Dr. Hill is not here,” I said forlornly, thinking I might have need of him.

  “He would enjoy to see it, but it would mean more to him if it were Nancy that was to do the jumping.”

  I got down from the carriage and walked round to the gatehouse stable, a small affair with stabling for only four animals. There were three there—Sinclair’s team of grays used with his curricle, and Diablo. The animal was large. He stood sixteen hands high. His long silky, black tail switched back and forth. When I reached out to pat his haunch tentatively, he lifted his head, his black mane shaking, and turned to stare at me, just as though he were a person. He had fine, large eyes, the bulging forehead and small concave nose of the purebred. He dilated his nostrils and whinnied, giving one a good explanation for his name. He did indeed look diabolically mischievous.

  While I tried to make my peace with the animal, Sinclair’s valet-cum-groom, Napier, came up behind me. “That there is a purebred Arabian,” he boasted.

  “Very nice.”

  “St. Regis bred and trained him at his own stables. He’s a goer.”

  “Manageable?” I dared to inquire.

  “If you know how to ride him. Nobody ever has, except St. Regis. And of course Mr. Sinclair,” he added.

  This conveyed to me what I was afraid to hear. The groom was going to be difficult about letting me take Diablo out of the stable. “You must be Napier,” I said. “I have heard my woman, Miss Pincombe, speak of you, I think. She asked me to see if you have a moment free this morning. She most particularly wished to speak to you about some matter. She is free now.”

  “Is she? I’ll take a run up to the house now, then, as soon as you’re finished looking around, ma’am.”

  “Don’t let me detain you,” I responded at once.

  He stayed for a few more minutes, but eventually romance won out over good manners, and he was off. I let him get well up the hill to Troy Fenners before I unti
ed Diablo’s rope and led him, frisking merrily, from his stall. I am neither so short nor so frail as to have any difficulty getting a saddle down from its perch and buckled over a horse’s back. It was, of course, not a lady’s saddle, but I had used a man’s before. I preferred it, and preferred riding astride as well for such a jump as awaited me. To get into a footman’s trousers, however, would take time, and I had to get Diablo out before the groom returned. I could hardly ride down the public road astride in skirts either. I would take the jump sidesaddle.

  Diablo seemed a compliant enough animal, so long as I patted his withers and flanks, and spoke in soothing tones. I led him to the mounting block, clambered up, and very carefully got on the beast. We generally assume animals lack intelligence. This one had the wits to lull me into a false sense of security till he was safely out of the stable. It was not till then he began living up to his name. He reared up on his hind legs in an effort to be rid of me, his mane floating out on the breezes, while he whinnied in exultation of the fine day. He wheeled his crazy circles, cantered a few yards, then stopped suddenly. He backed up a couple of steps, then flew forward suddenly again; he did everything but get down on his knees and roll over to dump me in the dust.

  The more antics he played off, the more determined I became he would not throw me. I held firmly to the reins, without jobbing him. When he had worked off his fit of fidgets, I patted his neck and called the scoundrel a good boy. The performance led Aunt Loo, observing us from the carriage, to suggest I could not handle the mount. Diablo was completely amenable to flattery; a few more words of praise, and we went along fairly well.

  “I can handle him,” I told her boldly.

  Diablo looked over his shoulder with a sly smile, rolling his great shining eyes at me. I urged him forward at a trot till we reached the road, then let him out gradually. Not till the tollbooth appeared in the distance did I give him the office to fly. I had a sneaking suspicion Diablo had wanted to take that booth ever since he first laid his eyes on it. He went for it with a vengeance, his head lowered, neck stretched, hoofs flashing. I rode in rhythm with him, swinging my body forward as we approached the booth, to lessen the weight. There was none of the anticipated terror. I enjoyed every second of the flight, and flight it was, clearing the building by a safe margin of inches. It was a smooth landing too. Diablo’s head came up, I relaxed somewhat, only then realizing how tense I had been.

  If I seem to be emphasizing the victory with Diablo, drawing it out to a page like Mrs. Beaton, it is to counterbalance the remainder of the ride. From the moment we hit the road on the far side of the booth, affairs took a sharp turn for the worse. I do not blame it on either rider or mount, but the mount’s regular rider, Sinclair, who should have been halfway to Winchester, instead of jogging down the road from the opposite direction. I thought I must be seeing things, for to tell the truth, I had wished he had viewed my performance.

  I suppose it was the unexpectedness of seeing Diablo flying over the rooftop that caused him to behave so foolishly. He stood up in Nancy’s stirrups and shouted at us, waving his arms and generally acting like a Johnnie Raw. Diablo—I am convinced that animal possessed a human brain—was thrown into a pelter by the display, and feared for his hide. Why else would he take into his Arabian head to go tearing down the road at fifty or so miles an hour? I tried to rein him in, without quite ruining his mouth.

  Before too many yards, I forgot about his mouth and turned my worries to saving my own head. On we galloped, past astonished riders and staring drivers, nearly overturning a dung cart that was coming toward us, leaving any drivers going in our direction in a cloud of dust behind us. The easiest, indeed the only course open to me was to let Diablo run himself to a standstill, though I did keep jobbing mercilessly at his reins. Eventually he began slowing down to a mere thirty or forty miles an hour, allowing Sinclair, following behind on Nancy, to draw up beside us, and shout various curses and imprecations in our general direction.

  When at last I drew Diablo to a halt, I was utterly spent, exhausted from fear and excitement and plain hard work. I looked down to see Sinclair striding angrily toward me, while Nancy turned aside to search for grass at the roadside, all unaware of the scene about to be enacted before her.

  Diablo, more interested in human affairs, looked quizzically to his master, to see if he was going to get the whipping he knew full well he deserved. My fingers went limp; the reins fell from them, and I slid down from the saddle. When I tried to stand up, my knees had turned to jelly, and I began sinking to the ground. Trees and barns and fields spun in giddy circles. Welland’s face was an angry black and white smear before my eyes. I was quite sure I was going to be sick to my stomach.

  Before I had quite sunk into the dust, Welland was galvanized into action. He grabbed me tightly to prevent my falling. I heard his short, shallow breaths in my ear, felt his heart pounding and hammering against my breast, could feel my own heart, which had mounted up into my throat, beating wildly. I closed my eyes and emitted a shaky, uneven sigh. A soft, violent curse was whispered into my ear. I shan’t scandalize you by repeating it, but it had to do with insanity in the canine kingdom, female branch. I rested my head against his shoulder till the nausea passed, then a moment longer to give him time to worry about me, before I looked up. All the while we were under the observation of passersby, with carriages slowing to a crawl, and one outsized man on a small mule stopping entirely to stare.

  “I did it!” I said triumphantly.

  More profanity followed, heavy, professional, mouth-filling profanities. I expect he learned such heady language at Oxford. “I should have known better!” he shouted when he had simmered down to a bubbling fury. “How dare you subject a valuable mount that does not belong to you to such a risk!”

  “Risk? You assured me he could do it.” My throat was too dry to say more.

  “There’s an inn,” he muttered. It was only a few hundred yards beyond.

  “A glass of ale,” I replied, swallowing painfully with my dry throat.

  He submitted, still trembling with anger, to this idea. I took one step and tumbled against him. Only then did he bother to inquire whether I had hurt myself, did it in a curt, abrupt way that did much to return my circulation to normal.

  “Not in the least. It was delightful, till you came along and upset Diablo.” Diablo, listening, whinnied in offense as Sinclair took up his rein to lead him along with us.

  “You’re going to get a good beating too, when I get you home,” the gelding was told. You will find it difficult to believe the animal laughed out loud, but his snort sounded very humanly amused at the threat.

  I wrenched my arm free of his grudging support and increased our pace. When the mounts had been stabled and we were ensconced in a private parlor, some semblance of rationality crept into our discourse. “What were you doing coming from the west? You were supposed to be at Winchester.”

  “We changed our minds. Peter remembered he had already seen the cathedral, and we went west instead.”

  “Where did you go? Where is Peter? Why did you come back?”

  “We were going to see a cockfight. It occurred to me about an hour after I left that you might decide to use Diablo for the jump, and I came straight back. Peter went on to see the fight. Now that we have that straightened out, I would like to hear the explanation for your audacity in taking Diablo without my permission.”

  “Why, Welland, how obtuse of you. I took him for the same reason you took Nancy, without permission.”

  “Not for the same reason. I took Nancy to save your life.”

  “That’s why I took Diablo, to save yours. I was ready to kill you, you see, till I realized you had left Diablo for me to use instead. You assured me, if you will hark back to last night, that he could do it from a standstill. I can’t verify the point. We took a good run at it.”

  “If that horse is injured in any way ...” he began, with a menacing scowl.

  “Do you take me for a flat? We dea
lt famously together.”

  “You were yanking at the bit so hard I’ll be surprised if he hasn’t got a split mouth.”

  “He was just a little rattled toward the end, when you made such a foolish commotion, and frightened him. Pity, really. It went so beautifully till then.”

  “What was I to think, to see a woman on a horse come sailing through the sky, about to land on my head! You should have had a scout on the other side, to be sure the coast was clear. And you should not have tackled it sidesaddle either.”

  “I would have preferred to be astride, but I was afraid Napier would be back too soon.”

  “How did Napier come to allow you to take Diablo out?” was his next angry question.

  “Don’t blame Napier. I lured him off to Troy Fenners by inventing a message from Pinny.”

  “Lies and deceit at every turn!”

  “Quite true. Deceit on all sides, including your own. I don’t exclude Diablo either, letting on he was as tame as may be, till I got him out of the stable.”

  A smile peeped out to hear this hint of trouble, so I was quick to minimize it. “I am greatly surprised, astonished he would let you mount him at all. No one but me has ever ridden him before.”

  “I can’t believe my ears! You have forgotten the great and wonderful St. Regis for a whole second. Napier assures me you and your patron are the sole riders. He has done your boasting for you. Now you see you have been overly cautious, and can recommend him to all your friends.”

  “At least it is over. I can stop worrying about it. How was the jump?” he asked, unable to contain his curiosity longer.

  “Perfect! I can’t begin to describe the exhilaration. You should have been there, Welland. It was like flying. I bet he cleared the roof by three or four inches. Auntie will know.”

  “Lady Sinclair? Was she there?”

  “Why, yes, she was,” I said, wondering what had become of her.

  “Imagine that woman allowing you ...” He stopped and shook his head ruefully. “As if she would have a word to say about it.”