Joan Smith (14 page)

“Why do you say so, Mr. O’Kelly? It’s early days yet. There is time to train her up.”

“Oh, that was not my meaning!” he exclaimed, surprised. He pointed to a mound of earth, where an ancient tree was enclosed by a rude fence. “There will be wildflowers blooming on the Boy’s Grave by April. I have been out to check for sprouts. I’ve spotted the green spikes of lilies of the valley, and something else that looks like buttercups.”

She blinked and frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not familiar with the legend? My dear lady, your training in superstition has been badly neglected!’’ he teased her with a delightful smile.

‘‘I never heard of any legend. Who is buried there? What boy?”

“That is reputed to be the grave of a shepherd who was killed for losing one of his master’s sheep. His friends buried his body there, under that mound, and planted wildflowers. When they bloom in April, a Newmarket filly will win the Oaks at Epsom. It’s held true since 1780, when the first race was won by Diomed. True Lady cannot be a Newmarket filly, or I’d have known about her. I’m not superstitious myself,” he added with a smile, “but a friendly Leprechaun told me never to enter anything but a Newmarket filly in the Oaks, and if you don’t follow a Leprechaun’s advice, you end up in the hot place.”

“Have you ever won?”

“I did once, actually, but was disqualified after the fact. It was claimed my entry was four years old—the race is for three-year-olds. An astonishing accusation, and never proven either, but Alvanley’s filly was named the winner. The Jockey Club boys stick together. Luten and his friends arranged it amongst themselves.”

“Lord Luten?” she asked, her pulse quickening.

“Yes, do you know him? I hope I’ve not trod on the toes of a good friend of yours.” Mr. O’Kelly looked abashed at his faux pas.

Trudie was quick to clear up the matter. “L am slightly acquainted with the man. He is by no means a friend. Quite the contrary!” she said stiffly. “But could you not prove them wrong?”

“You might as well try to argue with God. My papers were claimed not to be in order. It is the Jockey Club that handles all that sort of thing. This was before they started the Stud Book in 1808. They could never get away with it today. I make sure to buy only well-documented bloods. Most breeding stock is owned by members, and they decide quite arbitrarily amongst themselves what is to be called a thoroughbred. I believe the chief qualification is that the animal come from their own stud farms. They’re saying now the male line must trace back to the Godolphin or Byerley or the Darley, although it was not initially a requirement at all.”

She listened to this tale of inequity, but it was mainly the word Luten that registered in her mind. “Why do you not join the Jockey Club yourself, since you are such an avid member of the turf, Mr. O’Kelly?”

“It’s a closed club, in fact if not in theory,” he said vaguely. “There is a saying that all men are equal on the turf and under it—in death, you know—but the fact is, if your blood is not bright blue, and especially if it has a hint of green like mine, they don’t want you in the Jockey Club.”

“But that’s horrid!” she exclaimed. She went on to commiserate, believing every word he spoke, for he spoke them with such charming looks.

He shrugged and dismissed this gross inequity. “At least Sheba is fully documented. I got her from Cheveley Park, the best stud farm around, and right here, in Newmarket.”

“My friend Lord Clappet got his colt there.”

Mr. O’Kelly’s eyes glinted with interest, and his smile suddenly grew brighter, but he carefully refrained from dwelling upon the name Lord Clappet. “You will want to see where old King Canute bred his horses,” he said, and went on to explain that this was another legend she must profess to believe if she was to become a member of turfing society.

There was a thunder of hooves down the track, and they both looked to see what was coming. “Here comes my Sheba!’’ he exclaimed, and went closer to the track. Trudie went with him to see the filly bolt past at a breakneck speed. Her knotted muscles flexed in the sunlight, and her coat was as smooth as molten gold. It seemed to Trudie that she went at least twice as fast as any of the other racers. Mr. O’Kelly smiled after Sheba’s retreating form. “A winner,” he said confidently.

Just after Sheba thundered past, Trudie spotted her. brother and his friends advancing toward her across the field. They had stopped to watch Sheba. Trudie waved her hand and beckoned them to her, to introduce them to Mr. O’Kelly. “Mr. O’Kelly owns that beautiful filly you were just looking at,” she told them.

“Sheba?” Peter asked. His eyes grew wide in admiration. “What a bang-up bit of blood. I have been admiring her anytime this week. I notice you always run her alone. I expect your aim is to keep her time a secret, eh?’’ he asked knowingly. “What is her speed?”

“As you so cleverly figured out, Lord Clappet, it is a secret,” Mr. O’Kelly replied, but with none of that toplofty air that would offend. He wore a charming smile.

“Part Arabian, is she?” Sir Charles inquired.

“So her papers say. The Easterns are all double cousins. I cannot tell a half Turk from a half Arab, and neither can anyone else, unless he has it on a piece of paper. Her nose is hooked, and most of the Barbs have a little hook at the end of their noses.”

“Where did you get her?” Sir Charles asked.

“Cheveley Park.”

“I got my Fandango at Cheveley too,” Peter said, wishing to drop the name himself.

“He was gulled,” Nicolson announced happily.

“Ah, but one is gulled in style at Cheveley Park,” O’Kelly consoled. “They weren’t asking much for him at any rate. Why did you bother buying him, milord?”

“Well, he was cheap,” Peter pointed out.

“I cannot think money would present a problem to you!”

“A trifle short at the moment,” Peter admitted.

“Aren’t we all,” O’Kelly said. “This is a rich man’s game. The prices being asked this year are ridiculous. I paid—well, it is no matter, but I had to scramble to buy my Sheba. I nearly succumbed to Fandango as well, when I saw how little they were asking for him. Our tastes are similar, Lord Clappet.”

They discussed pasterns and knees and hocks for a considerable length of time. Before they parted, a wizened man in a leather waistcoat ambled by, with a basket in which rested an assortment of racing memorabilia slung around his neck. “Buy a charm?” he asked. “Racing plates worn by Eclipse, a hank of her hair braided into a watch fob and mounted in glass, the riding crop used on her when she won the Ascot in 1770.”

“That’s a dandy crop,” Peter said, lifting it to heft between his fingers.

Mr. O’Kelly shook his head in disbelief. “Eclipse must have been a walking hairstack. There are a dozen vendors hawking this spurious stuff. Why, I do believe that is the same crop was stolen from the stables yesterday morning.”

“I’ve had it for two weeks! I bought it right in town,” the man said, grabbing back his treasure to trot off at a fast pace.

“Blackleg,” O’Kelly scoffed. “You have to beware of all the touts and Greeks that hang around a place like this. Don’t put a bid to buy Newmarket Heath either, if you’re offered it for an old song,” he suggested.

There was a bout of merry laughter to show this joke was fully appreciated. “Took us for a bunch of Johnnie Raws,” Peter said in a knowing way.

“Those crooks ought to be run out of town. I cannot imagine why the law permits them to operate,” O’Kelly said. “I daresay they pay a percentage of their ill-got gains to the Jockey Club for permits to operate.”

“The Jockey Club is above reproach,” Sir Charles felt obliged to tell him. “I have applied for membership myself.”

“Perhaps you will be accepted. It is
Sir
Charles, if I remember correctly?”

“That’s right. What of it?”

“Nothing. The Jockey Club has a fondness for sirs and lords.”

There was a little more general talk, then Mr. O’Kelly took his leave.

“A knowing cove,” Clappet said. “Demmed fine mount he has there too.”

“His Sheba is a goer,” Sir Charles allowed, “but the fellow is out if he thinks there is anything havey-cavey with the Jockey Club. Top of the trees.”

“I wish I had met O’Kelly before I bought Fandango,” Clappet said, “Maybe I could trade him for a filly. I shall speak to O’Kelly about it next time we meet. Where does he put up, Trudie?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Someone at the inn will know,” Sir Charles said.

That evening, Clappet and Sir Charles did not drive out to Northfield to visit. As soon as he twigged to the reason they had not, Norman tacked up his mount and went into town to search them out. They had succeeded in discovering the lair of O’Kelly. Even better, O’Kelly had that same evening decided to remove to the Golden Lion, their own inn.

Their conversation over the next days was heavily peppered with the wisdom of Okay O’Kelly. Trudie expected every evening when Norman returned to Northfield that he’d say O’Kelly was dropping around, but he never did. It was always Norman who went to the Golden Lion, so Trudie got her news of him second-hand. Of Luten she got no news at all, and had become quite easy in her mind that that affair was over and done with.

What revenge could be bad enough for an impertinent, grasping, lying female who had not only ensnared Lord Clappet but had made a flaming jackass of his uncle as well? That was the question that bedeviled Luten as he made his preparations for Newmarket. Public exposure, preferably at a cart’s tail, occurred to him, only to be rejected as ridiculously lenient. Dunking in a pond for the witch that she was beguiled him for five minutes. The two criteria eventually settled on were humiliation and publicity. The humiliation, complete and utter, must occur in a public place, to serve as a warning to others of her sort (and to retaliate for Luten’s public disgrace at his club).

After Miss Barten’s stunt in sending him off to Tunbridge Wells, Luten was convinced Peter could not be at Newmarket, as she said. He would not dash around the countryside again, being made a fool of. Certainly not! He’d send his groom to do it for him. By the time his groom returned to London with word that Clappet was indeed at Newmarket, Luten was at his wits’ end with impatience. He set out at four o’clock in the afternoon, thus ensuring himself of an uncomfortable night at a public inn.

He arrived at Newmarket the next day before the sun had set, and had time to lay his plans. He didn’t happen to own a house near Newmarket, but hired one of the finer lodges each spring at a price that would have made purchase wiser. He drove directly to Sable Lodge, where all conveniences awaited his pleasure. His staff preceded him, going each year in March, to have the house standing ready for any chance days he might wish to spend there. After an excellent dinner, he donned evening apparel and drove into town to begin his search.

He discovered in town what inn Peter was putting up at but soon heard there that Lord Clappet was out for the evening. With the girl, then, but where? No amount of quizzing of the inn staff gave him the least notion where to look. It was Luten’s groom who learned at the stable that Clappet had left the inn in evening attire a few hours earlier, planning, he believed, to attend the local assembly. The last words were uttered with all the contempt of the city groom for provincial doings.

“At the assembly rooms at the White Hart, milord,” he finished, lips curling into a sneer.

Luten’s reply was uttered in a similar way, “That sounds a spot likely to appeal to his friend.”

Luten hastened to the White Hart, unaware that his heart was beating faster with excitement. Just so did it hammer when the fox was sighted during the chase. Revenge was at hand—and still he had no idea what form it would take.

He could have wished for a rowdier party. The patrons were displeasingly respectable. The participants were the locals, with a sprinkling of turfing society, those aficionados who came long before the races began. Several of his own friends were there, to make him welcome. He was obliged to waste several minutes in polite chitchat, even after he had spotted his nephew and the female.

While he chatted, he noticed that Miss Barten was still in her disguise as a provincial lady. She didn’t wear the white gown of a deb, but a pretty royal blue, set off with white lace and pearls. It was a modest outfit, but then modesty was a part of her act. Her curls caught the reflection of overhead lights, giving her a copper crown that was easy to keep track of as she moved about the room.

Luten was spotted by his quarry two minutes after he discovered her. She had time to seek out Nicolson and warn him the time had come to be her protector. Soon she was aware of Luten’s dark, menacing eye following her movements from across the room. She felt an apprehension of doom. He could hardly murder her in front of a few hundred witnesses, but that black scowl told her he would like to.

“Remember, Nick, you are my particular friend. We are not betrothed or anything of the sort. Just good friends,” she reminded him. As she spoke she looked around the hall for Mrs. Harrington and Norman. She wanted to keep any unpleasantness from their sight.

It proved very difficult indeed. Aunt Gertrude had spotted Luten and came darting up. “Trudie, the worst luck! That wretched Mandeville man is here, the one who didn’t pay you for the Latin lesson in London, and wanted you to go out to a play with him unchaperoned.”

Trudie willed down her fear and answered as calmly as she could, “Yes, I’ve seen him.”

“Have nothing to do with him. I mean to cut him dead if he speaks to me,”

Nicolson intercepted a worried look from his partner and jumped into the breach. “There is a rollicking country dance starting up. Shall we have a jig, Trudie?”

The dance floor seemed a safe spot. She accepted and went with trembling knees to the center of the floor, still watching Luten. He went straight to Peter. They were talking about her—there was no misreading the signs; the angry, short looks in her direction, the gesturing hands, Peter’s weak denials, indicated by his shaking head.