Page 76 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

‘But it is! Mother wouldn’t have Rachel marry a mere baronet’s son, and Sir Gordon wouldn’t have Angus marry a girl without a fortune. Folly and vanity! Now he’s dead, Mother’s married and gone, and the marriage will go ahead anyway. Unless Angus comes to his senses and realises he could do a great deal better than my silly sister.’

‘Oh, don’t say that!’ Kitty breathed. ‘If you’d seen how happy Rachel was to see him! She’ll be a good wife to him, now she knows how much she loves him.’

‘Now he’s come into a fortune,’ Giles amended. ‘Well, no need to find a dowry for her, then – he can take her off my hands for nothing.’

‘I wish you would be a little pleased,’ Kitty complained.

He patted her arm. ‘I am pleased – and relieved. I hope they will be very happy. When are they planning to wed?’

‘The first week of October – and, Giles, this is Rachel’s home. Girls get married from their home.’ She looked at him anxiously.

‘Of course she can have the wedding here. Do you think I would deprive you of the pleasure, little wife? I will give her away, as head of the family, and Mrs Terry shall make the wedding cake. She shall have four white horses to draw her carriage to church, and a wedding-breakfast to remember afterwards. I’ll even pay for it all. When it comes down to it, he’s taking her off my hands, and the wedding will cost less than her keep for the next forty years.’

‘You’re very unkind,’ Kitty rebuked him, but she was laughing now. Then her eyes widened. ‘Oh dear, I’ve just had an alarming thought: we’ll have to ask your mother to the wedding, won’t we?’

‘An even more alarming thought,’ said Giles, ‘is that she might accept.’

When Alice arrived in the stableyard, Josh greeted her with the sour look laced with pleasure that usually accompanied his delivery of bad news.

‘Pharaoh’s got a bit of heat in his near fore. You’ll have to rest him today, if you don’t want him dead lame.’

Alice went straight to her horse, found him tied facing outwards in his stall. He whickered a greeting when he saw her, and nuzzled her shoulder as she bent to feel the leg, and found, yes, a warmth in the cannon.

Josh, standing behind her, said with satisfaction, ‘Told yer!’

Alice stood, feeling guilty. She had been riding him hard almost every day. ‘What did I do to you, old boy?’ she murmured, stroking his nose. He nudged at her and sighed deeply. ‘What are you doing for it?’ she asked.

‘Only just found it,’ Josh said. ‘I’ll take him out and soak it in a bit, and put a bandage on. Then we’ll see.’ In a kinder voice he said, ‘Why not take Queen Bee? Save me exercising her later.’

Bee was fresh, threw her head about and shied at ghosts in hedges. Alice drove her into a canter up the hill to ‘take the ginger out’, as Giddins, who was groom to her and Rachel when they were little, used to say. She didn’t like riding Bee very much – the mare’s cadences were not good like Pharaoh’s, and she lurked behind the bit, which made controlling her shying difficult. Alice could understand why Giddins had always insisted she was well exercised before her mother took her out. She supposed it was a sort of tribute to her horsemanship that Josh felt she could ride Bee with the ginger still in.

At the top of the hill she turned along the crest and settled into a walk and her thoughts. She was feeling disturbed because Richard had read out an item from the newspaper at breakfast about an excursion bus crashing on the notoriously steep Handcross Hill, killing ten people and injuring twenty-six. ‘It seems to be a bad year for public transportation,’ he commented. ‘It’s not two weeks since that rail crash at Salisbury.’

A fast train had derailed while running through Salisbury station, killing twenty-four passengers and four railwaymen.

‘And our own crash is still fresh in the memory. One hardly dares leave the house, these days, for fear of runaway machinery.’ He had nodded at Alice and said, ‘You’re wise to stick to horses.’

It was four years since Richard had been involved in a motor smash, but his arm would never be quite right again, which perhaps explained why the item had caught his attention. But it had brought back memories for Alice, and she rode Queen Bee automatically, her mind troubled, filled with unwelcome images.

As she was crossing the broad track from the Carr, she saw a wagon coming up the hill, and recognised handsome blonde Della, Axe’s Suffolk Punch. Her heart jumped. Axe had seen her, and it would have been churlish, if wise, to ride on. Pharaoh would have been whinnying his silly head off by now; Bee only goggled and snorted and palpably considered bolting from this new hazard.

‘Stand still,’ Alice told her, checking her. And then the wagon swung onto the track and Axe halted it. ‘Hullo!’ she said, and was greeted by an eager bark from Dolly, who was riding on the seat beside him. In the back of the wagon was a load of logs. ‘Who are they for?’

A certain tension seemed to go out of Axe, as if he had not been sure of a friendly reception. ‘Topheath,’ he said. ‘I persuaded Hugh Marbeck it makes sense to get your winter logs in in the summer, and not wait until you need ’em.’ He wound the reins and got down. ‘Give Della a breather,’ he offered in explanation. He looked at her carefully. ‘Want to get down?’ he asked diffidently.

The jump of her heart now made her stomach contract. She nodded, and he came to help her. Queen Bee foolishly jerked her head away from Axe’s hand, but she quieted when he stroked her. ‘Riding your ma’s horse,’ he commented.

‘Pharaoh’s got a bit of a strain,’ she said. She freed herself from the pommel, and he put his hands up to her. Her breath quickened as she leaned towards him and his strong hands took her by the waist to jump her down. And didn’t immediately let go of her when her feet touched the ground. For an instant she was standing so close to him she could feel his heat and catch his scent.

‘Been riding him a lot lately,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Seen you about.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

His look was the only answer.