None of the participants, none of the attendees, none of the trainers, particularly Meggie, had any idea at all of what was going to happen.
Madeleine yelled, her hands cupping her mouth, “FREE THE CATS!”
They were off, at least five of them were, Miss Crittenden among them, thank the good Lord else Meggie’s credibility would have been sorely in question. She was running behind Jubilee, a howling black beast with witch green eyes, from Jenny Malcombe’s new, exclusive training mews, who was running straight and fast.
Meggie felt a moment of base envy. Jenny shouldn’t know success this quickly, it wouldn’t be fair, not after all Meggie’s work, all her dedication.
Meggie yelled, “Run, Miss Crittenden! Get Jubilee, pull him down, chew his neck! Run!”
The crowd, until this moment, not really knowing what to do, took up chants for the racing cat each of them was rooting for to win.
The noise was deafening. This was both good and bad. The noise made Jubilee and Miss Crittenden run all the faster because Meggie had shared with Jenny that they must accustom the cats to cheering, and so they had until all the stable lads were hoarse.
Two of the cats, calico sisters, nearly three years old and fast, suddenly stopped dead in their tracks, sat back on their haunches, stared a moment at all the ridiculous shouting and jumping people, and began licking each other, even though their ears were forward, taking in all the cheering. Meggie knew this was their way of coping with this unexpected chaos.
Butch, a lean and hungry black-and-white spotted mouser from the Witcherly mews, suddenly rose straight in the air, his hair sticking up, an impressive distance up since he was a longhair, and fell flat onto his side, evidently insensible from all the excitement.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, came Brutus, Thomas’s dog. He burst onto the track, right behind Miss Crittenden and Jubilee. Both Jenny and Meggie were now standing at the finish line, frozen in horror as Brutus caught up with Miss Crittenden, grabbed her tail in his teeth, and hurled her a good six feet off the track.
No one had thought to mention that a dog anywhere near a cat racetrack wasn’t to be allowed.
Thomas shouted at the dog, but Brutus wasn’t about to stop this new sport.
Thomas shook his head, looked toward his appalled wife, and said, “Oops.” He ran after Brutus.
Jubilee, an intense, sober cat, saw the dog’s shadow, knew time was short, girded her loins, and leapt—at least six feet off the track to land on top of small Liam MacBail’s back. Brutus was blocked by Liam’s mother, who smacked him in the head. Jubilee jerked her claws out of Liam, ran back toward the track, then stopped, confused, until she heard Jenny’s voice yelling, “Come to me, Jubilee, you can do it, come to me, run, you little critter!”
As for Miss Crittenden, she was flailing her tail about, thankfully still attached, back on the track now and running straight at Meggie, who appeared to be her only savior amid the chaos and the wildly barking dog she heard behind her.
Meggie hated to admit it, but this was a new training technique to be carefully considered. A dog chasing a cat. It did add motivation. In this case Miss Crittenden had never run so fast in her life.
Brutus was panting, his tongue lolling, hurtling down the track after her, shaking his head now, doubtless to clear it from the smack he’d gotten from Liam’s mother, Thomas right behind him.
Miss Crittenden leapt the last four feet, sailed high in the air, and landed right into Meggie’s arms, nearly knocking her backward. Brutus barked loudly, and before Thomas could stop him, leapt at Meggie.
Everyone went down in a welter of arms and legs, flying fur and yowls.
Brutus was licking Meggie’s face, then barking, then licking some more, then eyeing Miss Crittenden and barking even more loudly, as he tried to get to her.
Madeleine shouted, cupping her hands over her mouth to be heard, “Miss Crittenden is the winner!”
Thomas managed to pull a very excited Brutus off Meggie, peel Miss Crittenden from beneath Meggie’s arm, and helped his laughing wife up, whose face was shiny from Brutus’s licking.
Meggie looked around at all the loudly cheering crowd of neighbors and villagers. There were yells and shouts; some people were laughing so hard they were holding their sides.
She hugged Thomas to her. She was grinning so wildly her face threatened to split. “Our first cat race. And there was an actual winner. Isn’t this splendid, Thomas? Our Miss Crittenden won, she really won. She beat Jubilee, and let me tell you, I was worried about that cat.”
He couldn’t help himself. He lifted his wife and whirled her around him. Meggie suddenly yowled as loud as any racing cat. Miss Crittenden was climbing her skirt, fast.
“No obstacle is too great,” Thomas said as he eased both his wife and Miss Crittenden down, “for a true racing cat to surmount.”
Madeleine yelled out, “The soon-to-be legendary prize for the winner of the quarter-of-a-mile race, is a magnificent set of collars, handmade by none other than the other dowager countess of Lancaster.”
More cheering.
Libby bowed and walked sedately to where Meggie had finally gotten herself together and was holding a more composed Miss Crittenden in her arms.
Jenny was standing beside her, holding Jubilee, who looked disgruntled, occasionally spitting toward Miss Crittenden, a very natural thing, Meggie assured her even as she was grinning like a fool. William was patting Jenny’s head in commiseration, in much the same way as he patted his new wife’s growing belly in pleasure.
“Very easy for you to say since you’re the winner,” Jenny said. “That damned dog just about scared Jubilee out of her fur.”
Brutus sat on his haunches, his tail a steady metronome, fluffing up dirt, Thomas holding him firmly. He was eyeing the cat collar as Meggie fastened it around Miss Crittenden’s neck. There were small emeralds sewn into the collar, as green as Ireland’s hills after a summer rain.
It was a beautiful day on the coast of southwestern Ireland, the first day a cat race had ever been run there. It wouldn’t be the last.
And luckily, there had actually been a winner.
Dear Reader:
Are you ever in for a reading treat—Jaclyn Reding’s The Pretender. You’ll meet Douglas MacKinnon, an earl on the Isle of Skye, the first of three Highland Lords you’ll read about in the Highland Heroes Trilogy.
We’re back in 1746, after the Battle of Culloden. Douglas finds himself married to an English duke’s bluestocking daughter, Elizabeth, and the chances for peace and harmony in this mismatch, don’t look so good.
You will really enjoy The Pretender. Write yourself a reminder so you don’t miss it when it comes out in March 2002.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com
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