Page 2 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Mummy? What’s wrong?’ Chloë asked.

Molly Sands had put both hands to her head. Now she opened her large, pale blue eyes, and took a shaky breath. ‘It’s all right. I’m all right,’ she reassured automatically.

Chloë continued to look at her anxiously. ‘Is it a headache?’

‘No – not … I just felt … I don’t know. Strange. As though …’ It had been as though she was falling – a black, swooping sensation. But it was momentary, and she did not like to see her daughter alarmed. She grew brisk. ‘It’s passed now, whatever it was. Begin again, please, from the triplets.’

Chloë didn’t immediately obey. She and her mother were very close; and there were just the two of them. They lived in a small but comfortable way on Mrs Sands’s earnings as a piano teacher. If anything happened to her mother …

‘Mummy?’

‘It was nothing. A moment’s dizziness. I’m quite all right now,’ Mrs Sands said firmly. ‘Begin, please.’

The music resumed.

The earl’s groom, Archer, following his master on the second horse, Tonnant, saw Jupiter’s knees strike the dense top of the hedge. Recently cut, it was bristly and unyielding. The enormous impetus of his jump flipped the horse over in a complete somersault. The earl went flying off. Archer jerked Tonnant away and aimed him at a spot further down the hedge, to avoid landing on whatever might be on the other side. The hedge was lower here, and Tonnant cleared it easily. His blood was up and it took half a dozen paces before Archer could check him and turn. By that time, Jupiter had already struggled to his feet, and was standing, trembling, one forefoot held off the ground, the saddle twisted round under his belly.

Beyond him, the earl was lying in a crumpled heap, unmoving. He was an experienced rider, hunted three or four times a week, had taken hundreds of tumbles in his time. He knew how to fall, should have got straight up. Must have winded himself, Archer thought, sliding down. And yet he knew. Something about the stillness of the body, the awkward angle of the neck … A cold dread settled in his stomach.

Tonnant was excited, threw up his head, snorting, would not be led nearer. But two other riders came over the hedge where Archer had jumped – Mr Whitcroft, a local farmer, and his son Tim.

‘What the—?’ Whitcroft exclaimed, pulling up so sharply that Tim’s horse cannoned into him. Both men quickly dismounted. Whitcroft took Tonnant’s reins from Archer and cried, ‘Go to him!’

Archer knelt on the bumpy grass, feeling strangely remote, as though the world was at the wrong end of a telescope. The earl must have hit the ground at an awkward angle. His head was twisted to one side, and one blank eye seemed to peer up at the sky. There was nothing to be done. He was gone.

Archer stood up shakily, met Mr Whitcroft’s gaze, and shook his head. Tim looked from one to the other and said, ‘He’s not—?’

‘God rest his soul,’ Archer replied, and Tim gulped.

Whitcroft turned to his son and said sharply, ‘Ride to the Castle, quick as you like, raise the alarm. Bring help.’

Archer roused himself. ‘Take Tonnant,’ he said. ‘He’s faster’n your plug.’

The boy looked white and shaken, but he had wits enough to obey, to separate out Tonnant’s reins, and cock his knee for Archer to leg him up. He was away while still feeling for his off-stirrup, Tonnant leaping straight into a gallop, still excited, eager to be moving again. Archer hoped the boy could stick on. Maybe he should have gone himself. But he couldn’t leave his master.

‘Shouldn’t we straighten him out?’ Whitcroft said, the shock evident in his voice.

Mr Whitcroft was right, Archer thought. You couldn’t leave the earl all bunched up like that. ’Twasn’t respectful. He straightened him out as best he could, then rose again awkwardly. Whitcroft took off his hat, and Archer followed suit. Must see to the horse, his groom’s instincts told him, but this moment had to be observed.

‘It’s the way he would have wanted to go,’ Mr Whitcroft offered tentatively.

‘Yes, sir,’ Archer said again. It was true, he thought. Not old and feeble in his bed, but with a horse under him and the damp winter air on his lips.

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The head man, Giddins, took charge when the sweating Tonnant skidded into the yard and his rider almost fell off, babbling his news. By the time the butler, Moss, had been summoned, Giddins had sent off four men to bring back the body and two to help with the horses, and was ready to cut through Moss’s immediate paralysis with urgent, respectful suggestions.

‘Doctor’d better be sent for, Mr Moss.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘And the undertaker.’

The word shocked Moss. ‘But we don’t know that he’s dead yet!’

Giddins gave him a steadying look. Archer was no fool. He’d seen dead men before, and dead horses. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that. ‘Better Mr Folsham’s on hand when he’s wanted. Nobody upstairs needs to see him waiting.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Moss said.