Highest Stakes (67 page)

  Charlotte quickly pulled her skirts aside to climb over the fence. She caressed Amoret's nose. "You poor, poor girl," Charlotte murmured. With soulful eyes, Amoret bumped her, as if to say, "You have no idea of my suffering."

  "But dearest, Jemmy says it shall be over soon," Charlotte encouraged as the groom approached the mare's flank.

  "Aye, her time be coming soon," he said. As he reached a hand under her belly to her most private place, Amoret kicked out and squealed indignantly.

  "No need to be feisty, old girl. Ye've done this many a time," Jemmy said.

  "Tell me, Jemmy! What do you see?"

  "Yesterday her sack was full, and now she be dripping the premilk."

  "Premilk?" Charlotte asked.

  "It's watery like and comes in right afore the birth. Ye need to be feedin' her turnips now."

  "Turnips?" Charlotte exclaimed.

  "There be nothin' better than turnips to make good milk in a mare. Put turnips in her feed, and ye'll be guaranteed good milk and a strong foal." Jemmy retrieved the halter and lead hanging on the fencepost, and slipped it over the mare's head. "Ye best hold her for me now. She already be a bit ill-tempered and won't like me messin' back there."

  Charlotte took the lead, and Jemmy approached the mare again. Standing close to her hip and out of kicking range, he lifted her tail. "The passage looks nigh ready, missus. It gets longer and thicker as the time comes. I say she be ready to drop her foal any minute."

  Amoret turned her head to look at her abdomen, as if in confirmation.

  "What can I do to help? Should we get blankets? Boil water?" Charlotte's voice was shrill and near panic.

  Jemmy laughed. "There be no need to fuss. This old broodmare knows what's what. All she need is clean, dry bedding or this nice green pasture. As the time gets closer, she'll pace much, piss much, and mor'n' likely roll on the ground a time or two. There be no worry unless she don't get up. Some mares even drop the foal whilst standing."

  "They just drop them to the ground?"

  "I'd say they more like slide out. 'Tis not so bad as ye might think."

  "Then what should I do?" Charlotte said helplessly.

  "Best thing is to leave her be. If naught goes awry, ye're like to have a foal by morning."

  "But what if she becomes distressed?"

  "I'll be checking on her. If she don't foal within an hour or so, then I needs to help pull the young one out. But 'tis a rare case to intervene."

  Amoret turned her head to her belly again and regarded the bipeds with a speaking glare.

  "I think she's telling us to leave, Jemmy," Charlotte declared.

  "I think ye be right 'bout that. If ye be so inclined to come back in an hour or so, missus, ye might have a pleasant surprise.

  Charlotte named the gangly chestnut colt Shakespeare.

T he
late spring day opened warm and sultry, encouraging droves of people to come from all directions for the races of the county fair, the most popular of the Virginia horse races. By noon the throng had strung all along the one-mile course north of York Street in Williamsburg.

  Daniel Roberts stood by his aged gray stallion and observed the amassing crowd. Three years ago, he had arrived a nearpenniless victim of circumstance, but his sentence had proven a blessing in disguise.

  He had found his place in a world that gauged men by their own merits, and he had measured up. Robert Devington, known in Virginia as Daniel Roberts, was outwardly flourishing, but inwardly, no amount of success could counterbalance what he had lost. His drive to succeed was commanded by his burning desire for vengeance, a yearning yet unfulfilled.

  Much of his success had sprung from his fortuitous meeting with the young gentleman in the Bristol tavern. The eldest son of the Lee family, wealthy and politically connected planters, had introduced him to those gentlemen of Virginia who shared a passion for horseflesh. In these circles, Daniel Roberts's intimate knowledge of running bloods had stood him in good measure.

  The most avid of these, John Tayloe, had offered Roberts a position in his new racing stud. The improvement in the quality, speed, and distance of Tayloe's runners was soon evidence that his confidence in the young Englishman had been well placed. Roberts's talents quickly put him at the head of Tayloe's breeding and training programs, a position that allowed him to bring his own stallion, Mars, into prime racing condition.

  In England, with almost no training, Mars had proven himself as a runner. He not only possessed the strength of mind and body to persevere the grueling four-mile distances, he had also demonstrated the incredible breaking speed of a sprinter. The popularity of shortdistance racing in the colonies offered a wealth of opportunity to capitalize on this talent.

  Roberts began to run his stallion in the "short" races. Entering quarter-mile sprints run on barely better than cow paths, they were abruptly initiated to the rules of Colonial racing; there were none!

  The quarter-miler was fast and furious with no holds barred as long as a rider was not actually
caught
unhorsing his opponent. Under these conditions, Robert's cavalry training served him well. Though he was careful to keep his opponent to his left side, where he was less susceptible to foul play, failing this tactic, he was even known to defend his seat by running with his bridle reins between his teeth!

  Prevailing against all takers in any distance under two miles, Roberts had garnered nearly two thousand pounds in cumulative winnings. Their names in short racing grew to near legendary proportions, but Roberts and Mars had yet to make their mark where it most counted, in the distance races.

  Now at twelve years old, any other horse would have been past his prime and retired to the breeding shed, but Roberts was determined to pit his unlikely stallion one last time. They would run against

His friend Ludwell hailed him from within the crowd, "Roberts!" and approached. "Just placed a bit of coin on your horse; pray don't let me down, old friend. I shall need the money for my trip back to London."

  "You have decided to pursue law, then?"

  "I am obligated to follow my father's wishes, though I can't say I should mind the diversions of London now I am older and free to enjoy the pleasures without the particular impediment of Mr. Hanbury's watchful eye." They both chuckled, remembering the Quaker who had done his best to keep his youthful charge out of trouble. "Speaking of obligations and diversions, Roberts, you have yet to respond to mother's invitation."

  Since his arrival in Virginia, the Lee family had helped him to navigate his way in his new country. He especially had them to thank for his employment with John Tayloe, but of late, their interest on his behalf had grown a bit too personal.

  Mrs. Hannah Lee, the family matriarch, had taken it into her head to find him a wife, and her chosen venue was to be the Lee's annual English-style garden party. Although running contrary to all his inclinations, Roberts feared he was indeed obligated to accept her invitation.

  He changed the subject. "'Tis quite a turnout, is it not? I daresay the crowd begins to rival those of my Doncaster days."

  "'Tis quite remarkable, indeed. Since my boyhood, I have seen our racing passions burgeon from jovial enthusiasm to fervent obsession. Indeed, I begin to fear the friendly matches of the past, when one pit his best saddle horse against his neighbor's for a bale of tobacco, are nigh gone by. Moreover, the 'English' races are become increasingly popular hereabouts, and one can hardly find a taker for anything less than fifty gold pistoles."

  "Do you believe the distance races will replace the quarter mile altogether?"

  "While the quarter-milers remain popular to the south and in the Carolinas, I daresay 'tis due only to the shortage of cleared land for proper racetracks, but with these now established in Fredericksburg, Leedstown, Yorktown, and Alexandria, I believe 'tis only a matter of time.

  "As evidence, one need look only at the steady stream of imported English blood to Virginia and Maryland in recent years. 'Tis become a constant game of one-upmanship between us, but Virginians do not stomach defeat graciously." Ludwell laughed. "Any losses to Taskers or Byrd of Maryland serve only as impetus to further improve our Virginia stock."

  "I am thankful the sentiment is pervasive," Roberts rejoined. "It has provided me a comfortable living."

  "Knowing we colonists as both a presuming and fiercely competitive breed, Roberts, 'tis not unimaginable we might one day rival Old England on the turf."

  "No, indeed," Roberts murmured, voicing aloud his private ambition for the first time. "Not unimaginable at all."

Once she had secured Daniel Roberts's attendance to her party, Mrs. Hannah Lee made it her mission to invite a number of suitable women, having in mind to end the young Englishman's bachelor days. Mary Griffiths, a quiet young widow with five hundred fertile acres and two rambunctious young boys, was Hannah's primary candidate to become the young gentleman's wife.

  It was mainly for her boys' sake that Mary had agreed to look for another husband. Prosaic rather than romantic, she harbored no illusions that she was a beauty and was well aware that the halfdozen smooth-talking fortune-seekers who had paid her court in the past twelvemonth had pretensions only to her property.

  Obstinate in her convictions, Mary had not hesitated to refuse them all. She would settle only for a man who would oversee the plantation in the knowledge that it would one day go to her sons; a man who would be a good father, and if not a passionate lover, at least a fond companion. She had begun to despair of ever finding the man she sought, until Hannah Lee had delivered the hapless gentleman firmly anchored to her arm.

  Though Mary had put forth her best and brightest smile, Daniel Roberts, unlike those preceding him, had shown no inclination to flirt or flatter. He spoke little and demonstrated no more than polite interest in their conversation, until Mrs. Lee's retelling of the Indian massacre that had left Mary a widow. His sympathy had been genuine, but after a respectable interlude, he had made his escape back to the company of the gentlemen.

  "What do you know of this Daniel Roberts?" Mary asked Mrs. Lee with unconcealed curiosity.