by Mary Nichols
‘He has been acquired by Lord Cedric Barbour and I need a replacement.’
Georgiana felt unaccountably angry with the young man for parting with Warrior’s half-brother but glad that the brave horse had not died in battle as so many others had done. Perhaps, as a returning soldier, his pockets were to let and he had been forced to part with him but, in that case, he could hardly afford to replace the stallion with anything like the same quality.
‘Come with me,’ she told him, and led him past the main stable-block to the paddock, where several horses grazed. ‘Take your pick,’ she said. ‘They are all prime animals.’
‘I said a replacement for Victor, not a mount for a gentle hack in the country,’ he said, hardly sparing them a glance. ‘It is obvious you do not know the difference and I would do better to take my custom to someone who can appreciate my requirements.’
‘That, sir, is your prerogative,’ she said, then, remembering that pride did not put money into the household coffers and would not pay for Felicity’s come-out, relented. ‘I am sorry, Major Baverstock; I had thought the best might be above your touch. Please come with me and I will endeavour to find something that will suit.’
She led the way across the yard and into another enclosure which was surrounded on three sides by loose boxes. Horses looked out over open doors and he was forced to admit that they seemed alert and interested in what was going on about them. On the fourth side was a small parade ring where a young groom was patiently lunging a strawberry roan on a very long rein, round and round, getting the young colt used to obeying the pressure on its mouth. Richard noted that the commands to go left or right were gentle and that the animal did not seem distressed, before turning his attention back to Miss Paget who was leading a stallion from the first of the boxes.
‘This is Paget’s Pegasus,’ she said. ‘Sired by a half-brother of Bucephalus. His dam was one of Eclipse’s granddaughters.’
It was a beautiful grey, nearly seventeen hands, not quite up to Victor or the horse she had been riding, but it was well-proportioned, with good sloping shoulders, a shortish back, powerful hindquarters and a good depth in the girth. He observed it from a little distance before approaching it quietly and walking slowly round it, feeling the tendons in its legs and looking into its eyes and mouth. Its good breeding was obvious and it looked well-groomed, but only a horse trained, fed and exercised properly would have the speed and stamina he required. With Sir Henry gone, had the stables kept up to the mark?
‘Four-year-old?’ he queried, patting the horse’s neck.
‘Yes, not quite in his prime, but on the way to becoming a good goer. My father bought him as a two year-old and brought him on to ride himself. He turned down several offers for him.’
He was aware of a wistful note in her voice and found himself suddenly feeling sorry for her - and that would not do at all. He thought he could guess at her character well enough to know that she would hate that. ‘As good a recommendation as any,’ he said. ‘Sir Henry would ride only the best. But why sell him? Do you not want him to...?’ He stopped suddenly, remembering that for all her male garb she was a lady and he ought not to offend her sensibilities by speaking of breeding.
‘Put him to stud?’ she queried, laughing.
‘Yes. Why not?’
‘I have. He sires good solid workaday horses, but they are not outstanding, in spite of his pedigree.’
‘Surely it is good solid workaday horses which are the bread and butter of the stable? The outstanding ones provide the cake.’
‘Do you want to buy him or not?’ she asked, made uncomfortable by his questions. It would not do for it to become known how low in funds she was. The only way to keep the stables going was to sell some of her stock, but even that was not easy when so few customers came to Rowan Park since her father died. She had sent one or two horses to Tattersalls but she hated doing that because, apart from the fact that he took a percentage - which he had every right to do - it made people wonder why she was obliged to do it. And selling stock was not the long-term answer or she would have nothing left. And, looking up at this big handsome man, she knew he could read her thoughts as if they were written on her forehead and she did not like the feeling at all.
‘I should like to ride him out. May I?’
‘Of course. You will find him a little frisky: he hasn’t been out today.’
His saddle was transferred from the hired hack while Georgie ordered a fresh mount to be saddled for her and they set off for the gallops at a smart trot which soon became a canter as the horses warmed up. She was right - Pegasus was spirited and anxious to have his head, but Richard held him in check for a couple of miles before he allowed him to gallop, and when he did let him go the stallion moved freely and had an easy, ground-covering stride. Half an hour later, they drew up at the boundary fence at the limit of the estate.
‘Well?’ Georgie asked, pushing back a tendril of hair from her cheek. ‘What do you think?’
‘Not Victor, of course, but a sweet goer and well up on the wind.’ They turned and walked the horses side by side towards the distant buildings of Rowan Park. ‘Are you sure you will not sell Grecian Warrior instead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then Pegasus will do me very well. Let us go back and you can take me to your man of business.’
She laughed. ‘There is no such creature. I strike the bargains at Rowan Stud, Major Baverstock.’
He turned to look at her. Her cheeks were pink, her hair wind-blown and the hands that held the reins so easily were brown and work-worn. What in God’s name had her father been thinking of to allow her to become such a hoyden? If he had any sense he would not encourage her by doing business with her, but he doubted he would find a better mount and no doubt she was in need of the money. But if she were not very careful she would soon lose the whole farm. He wondered idly if it would go piecemeal or as one lot and then found himself wishing she might succeed in spite of everything.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Name your price.’
Before another hour had passed, Richard was forced to admit that Georgiana Paget knew more than most men about horses and she was also a hard-headed business woman. When he left he had paid top price for his hunter, had agreed to give her exclusive stud rights for the next five years and, besides that, had acquired, at an astronomical price, a superb two-year-old filly called Bright Star, with which he had an idea that he might be able to revenge himself on Lord Barbour. Leading his hired hack, he rode away on the grey, leaving the filly with Miss Paget. He did not want to take delivery of it and advertise its presence in the Baverstock stables until he was ready, and against his better judgement he had allowed her to persuade him to let her train it.
He didn’t know how that had happened; he was not usually swayed by female guile. But in truth there had been no guile; she had simply stated that she knew what she was about and he had believed her! What a flat he had been! He all but turned round and went back, but knew that would make him feel even more foolish. He might as well give her a chance; her man, Dawson, whom he knew to be very knowledgeable, would keep her on the right track and he would go back in a couple of weeks and take the filly to a reputable trainer. He would race it against Barbour’s best and this time he would not lose.
But he reckoned without Miss Georgiana Paget.
She was elated. Dawson, who had been witness to the transaction, was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Well done, Miss Paget,’ he said as soon as the man and horses had disappeared. ‘You are your father’s daughter and no error. But do you know what you have taken on with that filly?’
Did she? It was one thing to watch her father at work and listen to his theorising, quite another to put it into practice, but the opportunity had been too good to miss. Not that she hadn’t nearly sunk it at the start. Fancy assuming that just because a man rode a hired hack he knew nothing! She should have taken note of his buckskin breeches and well-tailored riding coat, not to mention the
top-boots! Only an experienced servant could have put the shine on those. And the hack had sported a beautiful military saddle.
But she had seen none of that at the time because she had been overwhelmed by the man himself, like a silly miss at her first coming-out ball. Anyone would think she had never beheld a man before. And that was patently untrue because there were always men visiting the stables - or had been when her father was alive. All manner of men, too - old and young, fat and thin, greedy men, easygoing men who thought nothing of losing a thousand guineas on a wager, desperate men selling their horses to pay their debts, cits and mushrooms, farmers and aristocrats and, in the old days, royalty.
When she was small they had patted her head patronisingly and said what a knowing little miss she was, but when she had grown tall, taller than most of them, they had treated her with polite indifference. And since her father’s death all but a few had stopped coming. She knew it was because she was a woman, and women were certainly not considered capable of horse-trading, not even in workaday farm animals and carriage horses and certainly not in hunters and racehorses, which were the main stock-in-trade of the farm. And as for training a racehorse, that was lunacy. She had to prove she could do it and Major Baverstock had given her the chance. Did he know what a gamble he was taking? she wondered.
‘I certainly mean to give it a try,’ she told Dawson. ‘But I shall need all the help you can give me. Will you do it?’
‘Of course, Miss Paget; you do not have to ask. And that goes for everyone else in the yard. But...’ He paused.
‘You have doubts?’ And when he hesitated she added, ‘Come, Dawson, you can speak freely.’
‘I was thinking of Mrs Bertram, miss. She gave me a fair old dressing-down when she first arrived for allowing you into the stable during a foaling. She would not approve...’
Her laughter pealed out. ‘No, she wouldn’t, would she? But you must leave me to deal with my aunt. At the moment she is fully occupied looking after my sister. And as I have promised to join them for a few days we will postpone discussion of how we will bring Bright Star along until I get back.’
Dawson had been at Rowan Park, man and boy, for almost half a century and he knew Sir Henry’s methods as well as anyone. If anyone had the training of Bright Star it would be him, but he knew his place, and besides, Miss Paget was a brave, resourceful girl and he would do all he could for her, as he had done for Sir Henry. ‘Miss Paget, Mrs Bertram said I was to drive you to London.’
‘So she did. I had forgot. I’ll drive myself.’
‘Miss Paget, begging your pardon, that won’t rightly do and you know it.’
‘Oh, very well,’ she conceded. ‘Tom can drive me.’ Tom was his son, a strapping boy of eighteen who had been working at Rowan Park almost since he could walk. ‘Very well, Miss, I’ll give him his instructions.’
‘You know what to do about Bright Star while I’m gone?’
‘Yes, Miss Paget - gently does it for a week or two,’ he said with a smile. If, while she was away, she were to find a nice, easy-stepping husband, with a well-lined pocket and a liking for horses, then no one would be more pleased than Bert Dawson.
But it was not prospective husband which filled Georgie’s mind as she journeyed to London the following day, but impatience to keep her promise to her aunt and return as soon as possible to making Bright Star famous and vindicating herself.
She arrived late in the afternoon to find her aunt and sister in her well-furnished though by no means opulent drawing-room taking tea with Lady Hereward and Mrs Melford. They were busily engaged in discussing the age-old subject of husbands and the getting of them. And Felicity, clad in newly purchased sprigged muslin, was listening silently with something like awe.
‘If only you had come earlier,’ Lady Hereward said, addressing Felicity. ‘Such loveliness would have taken the ton by storm a month ago. Now those young blades already betrothed will be cursing their haste.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘But let us not give up, for I am sure we can contrive to find a handful who are not already spoken for. I will go over my invitation list again and see whom we may present to you.’
‘Oh, I wish you would not,’ Felicity said, squirming uncomfortably. ‘I would not like to be thought forward...’
‘Nonsense, my dear,’ her aunt said. ‘It is the way it is done. Has no one instructed you on how to go on?’
‘No,’ Georgie put in. ‘For there was never anyone to do it.’
‘Oh, you poor dears!’ exclaimed Lady Herward. She was a very tall, angular woman, made to seem taller by the high feather which swept up from the crown of her bonnet. ‘Harriet, you never told me. We must remedy the situation at once.’ She looked from Georgie to Felicity and then back again and Georgie almost laughed aloud because it was obvious that she did not think anything could be done for her.
Georgie was dressed in a double-breasted caraco jacket, trimmed with braid, over a simple dove-grey carriage dress, and though it was not the height of fashion she would certainly not have described it as dowdy. It had hung in her closet unworn since her father’s death, when all visiting had ceased in the light of her mourning and the need to keep at work. She was, she knew, becoming something of a workhorse herself, and a few days in London, shopping and paying calls, would have brightened her life, if only she could have spared the time. She returned Lady Hereward’s smile, surprising that good lady into realising that the girl was very far from plain.
‘Do not think of me, my lady; I must return to Rowan Park almost immediately...’
‘Oh, no, you do not,’ interrupted her aunt. ‘You must stay at least until after Lady Herward’s ball. It would be churlish to refuse. And besides, it is your duty to your sister. I have a young man in mind for her and you must meet him, seeing as your bufflehead of a father stipulated that you must approve of the man your sister marries.’
‘Oh, please stay,’ Felicity pleaded. ‘I really do need you, for I am nervous as a kitten.’
Georgie stilled her conscience over Bright Star by telling herself that Dawson knew what to do and once she returned to Rowan Park there would be no release; she must work and work, with no time for anything else, and a few days of enjoyment would set her up for that. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll bear you company for a se’nnight.’
Felicity clapped her hands delightedly. ‘Oh, we shall have such fun! I have been learning to waltz, you know. Apparently it is permitted since Lady Jersey allowed it at Almack’s. You will have the waltz, Lady Hereward, won’t you?’
‘Of course; all the young men expect it, though there are some dowagers who disapprove of a young man putting his hand about a lady’s waist.’
‘Oh, I think it does no harm as long as the couple stay a good foot apart,’ Mrs Melford put in. ‘John dances it very well.’
‘Is John looking for a wife, Melissa?’ Mrs Bertram enquired. ‘I collect he is a good-looking boy.’
‘And that is all he is,’ his mother said sharply. ‘A boy. He needs another year at least before he settles down. And then we have expectations that he will offer for Juliette.’ She smiled at Lady Hereward as she spoke; Juliette was Lady Hereward’s daughter. ‘It has been understood since they were children.’
‘And what does John say about that?’ Mrs Bertram demanded.
‘He adores Juliette, has done since they were both in leading-strings.’ She paused. ‘But Baverstock! Now there is a young man who needs a wife.’
Georgie, with a swiftly beating heart, found herself listening intently as the three women began discussing Richard Baverstock just as if he were a yearling in one of her father’s sales. She felt suddenly angry, but she could not for the life of her have said why.
‘He is Viscount Dullingham’s only son,’ Mrs Melford said, addressing Lady Hereward, knowing that Mrs Bertram was already aware of the young man’s history because he was one of her husband’s officers. ‘It is said he quarrelled with his father years ago, which is why he bought into the regiment.
He is a major now.’
‘Has his father cut him off?’
‘It was rumoured so, though I cannot believe he really did it, but the Major is already nine and twenty and still unmarried. What father of any note would allow such a situation to continue? You may take my word for it, he is in want of a wife.’
‘He is a very handsome man,’ Harriet put in. ‘A trifle large, but he carries it well. He distinguished himself in the Peninsula and was mentioned in Wellington’s dispatches.’
‘Ah, but does he know how to go on in Society? Some of these young officers are a little wild, you know.’
‘He will settle down,’ Mrs Bertram said complacently. ‘He is a gentleman and it goes without saying that he knows how to behave.’
Georgie looked from her aunt to her sister. Felicity’s face was alight with anticipation; she could just imagine her falling for the gallant major. She did not know why she did not tell them she had already met the gentleman, but somehow she thought it might put a damper on Felicity’s pleasure, and besides, her sister must make up her own mind and not be swayed by anything she had to say about him. Once she knew Georgie had met him, she would bombard her with questions, and, however carefully she considered them, her replies were bound to colour Felicity’s own opinion when she met the young man. Suddenly Georgie felt blue-devilled and could not explain why.
‘I will invite him to my ball,’ Lady Hereward said. ‘Do you have his direction?’
‘I believe he has gone home to Cambridgeshire,’ Mrs Melford said. ‘I do not know if he can be prevailed upon to return. Lord Dullingham will perhaps want to keep him by his side after so long an absence.’
All the ladies became silent at this news for it was a considerable stumbling-block and, except for Georgie, all had set their hearts on making the match. Georgie did not know why she had reservations.
‘I will send the invitation anyway,’ Lady Hereward decided. ‘There is plenty of time for it to reach him. And if I also add a note that I shall be mortally offended if he refuses, it might bring him back.’