To Win the Lady (4 page)

‘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
suppose. 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.’