CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I thought you fellows who went off to lark about in Spain would become inured to the heat,” Healy West said. “You don’t look very inured, my lord.”
He was “my lording” me. A combination of pleading and exhorting regarding some aspect of his cork-brained scheme with St. George was doubtless to follow. I wasn’t in the mood for either.
“Spain was nearly three years ago, West, and it might surprise you to know that particularly in the mountains—Spain has many—the weather can be as bitter as it is dry. If you don’t mind, I’m overdue for both washing up and lying down in anticipation of the evening’s socializing.”
“I thought only ladies napped, Caldicott. Ladies and infants. Put off your slumbers for another moment and heed my request.”
He was Hyperia’s only sibling, and soon—pray heaven—to be my brother-by-marriage. I scraped together an iota of manners from the dregs of my exhausted stores.
“Let’s sit, shall we? The view from the bottom of the garden is pleasant, and I trust the topic you contemplate will benefit from being aired at some distance from the house.” The garden itself was going a bit droopy. The petals of the potted geraniums were brown at the edges. The tulips were listing hard to port, their greenery pale and wilted.
“Some distance…?” West eyed the house. “Oh, right. By all means, let’s find a garden bench. I see Tenneby has turned off the fountain. Saving water, poor sod. This weather does not bode well for the harvest hereabouts.”
The chief crop exported from the local surrounds was racehorses, but for Berkshire in general, the comment was valid. Horses needed nice big haystacks to get them through winter, and if the drought didn’t break soon, haying and planting were both imperiled.
“Rain is on the way,” I said, navigating the steps a bit stiffly. “That is the prognostication according to every bad knee, sore hip, and bum shoulder in the stable yard.” I found a bench, sat, and placidly contemplated spending the rest of my days in that very spot. I was reaching the stage of fatigue characterized by a sort of beatific detachment that could shade into silliness or melancholy all too easily. “Speak your piece, West. I have promised your sister my company at supper.”
“About my sister…”
“Who is also my affianced bride.”
He sat beside me, knees spread, gaze on the crushed-shell walkway. “Hyperia, dear to both of our hearts.”
Where on earth was he going with these peregrinations? “The light of my soul.”
“And the best of siblings, but she does take a dim view of anything less than parsimony when it comes to investments.”
Ah. He needed a loan. Of course. I had all but predicted this. “Most prudent people mind their pence and quid.”
“Which is all well and good if those people are spinsters or vicars or bachelor uncles. A young man, the head of his family, a gentleman, must be allowed some daring maneuvers in his personal business.”
“You refer to the extravagance that is St. George. You’ll have to hire a groom who can keep him fit, you know. The fellow you’ve picked up for this meeting probably won’t be content to muck stalls the livelong day if he can earn more at the larger jump races.”
“Barrington is a good lad,” Healy retorted. “Stable name Bear, and he was recommended to me by George’s former owner. He’ll stay the course, I’m sure.”
Oh right. He’d be back to Newmarket to chortle into his beer with his coconspirator in the ongoing rig that was St. George Goes to the Races.
“West, might you get to the point? My stamina is not what it once was, and the heat is taking a toll.”
“Very well, blunt speech it shall be. I’ve laid a few wagers with the other owners, wagers on my George. Sporting wagers, as one does. He’ll run again Monday, and then he has three match races at the end of the week. Today’s steeplechase was just to limber him up, of course, to let him see the countryside and put his mind on racing.”
The steeplechase that Excalibur had won handily. “I wasn’t aware that St. George was competing today.”
“I added him at the gate, so to speak, and Bear and I agreed that today was for exercise, not for any great exertion. We’re of very similar minds when it comes to training and conditioning the beast.”
How much did you lose? “I did not see the finish. I trust St. George comported himself admirably?”
“Very admirably, for a fellow who wasn’t asked to exert himself at all, I’d say. Sixth out of a field of fourteen.”
Well out of the money. “Then you accomplished the goal for the day, didn’t you? George should have his mind on racing and on winning when he competes next week.”
“I’m sure he will.”
I was nearly falling asleep where I sat, a talent one developed in the military if not at public school and university.
“West, whatever you have to say, please say it. I promise not to explode into vitriol—I haven’t any vitriol left, at the moment—and if I did, I’d save it for whoever is rigging these races.”
“Don’t say that. The races are not rigged. The weather is to blame, is all. The weather and everybody who wants Tenneby to shut his mouth about what happened at Epsom.”
“But it’s happening again here, isn’t it?”
“Julian, mind what you say. If it is happening, most people assume you are to blame. I do what I can to scotch the rumors, but at every turn, you provide more evidence to fuel their conjectures. You aren’t rigging the races, are you?”
If I said yes, West would ask me to rig George’s races. I knew that the way a mother knew when her darling prodigy was lying. The situation must be beyond dire for him to risk that sort of request.
“I am not rigging any races, and I won’t call you out for asking. Hyperia frowns on dueling, and both Sir Albertus and Lord Wickley would cry foul if I met you over pistols when I have declined to meet them. I’m in demand as a dueling partner, you see, but I have turned away all comers. Sir Albertus is sufficiently frustrated with my unavailability that he’s promised to dispense with the Code Duello twaddle and beat me to a pulp instead—have me beaten to a pulp, rather. That approach wants imagination on his part, but it does speak to some determination.”
This oration was met with a brief silence, then West shifted on the bench. “Are you working up to one of your forgetful spells, Julian?”
“A spell of cursing, perhaps. Say what you have to say, West, before Morpheus snatches me away to the land of Nod.” Mixing metaphors. Truly, I needed rest.
“Very well. I’ve placed a few wagers on St. George, as stated, but Wickley asked me who my backer is. Seems it’s the done thing to have a guarantor for more sizable wagers, if one is new to the turf and without an established reputation. Pierpont didn’t contradict Wickley or intervene in any way, so I assume this is simply a bit of holy writ I haven’t come across yet. New to the business, my first runner, and so forth.”
“West, you didn’t.” Was this Wickley’s revenge upon me for another defeat?
“Well, yes, I did— discreetly, of course. I didn’t name you specifically. I alluded to a ducal scion with military experience and a great fondness for horses, meaning you, but not naming names. I was afforded a bit of gentlemanly discretion, because racing demands civility among the owners.”
Even in my reduced state, I grasped the magnitude of this latest disaster. “You have just destroyed my repeated insistence to all and sundry that I am disinterested when it comes to the outcomes of the races. I am ostensibly here to enjoy Hyperia’s company, not to waste a fortune on either luck or cheating. Damn you, West. I’m already the object of rumors and threats, and now you’ve made a liar out of me.”
That last part—being held up as dishonest—bothered me sorely. The rumors and threats were merely annoying.
“You are approaching a vitriolic state, Caldicott. One must note the obvious.”
“You are approaching an interview with Saint Peter, West. Your sister is already furious with you for risking funds you cannot afford to lose.” Her funds , though I did not disclose that I knew the depths of his perfidy. “Now you add insult to foolishness and drag my name into your schemes.”
“Not schemes, for pity’s sake. You make it sound as if I’m doing the rigging, and I assure you I am not.”
He wasn’t smart enough to carry off an extended, devious scheme. But I was supposedly smart enough to foil such machinations.
Think, lad. The voice in my head was Harry’s, who’d excelled at charming and bamboozling his way out of tight corners. He’d once told me that every problem had a solution, if one looked hard enough and long enough. I would never regard his death as a solution to the problem of captivity in French hands, but perhaps at the time, Harry had.
How I wished St. Just were still…
“I am not your backer.” I pushed to my feet, which caused my ankles and hips to ache. “You must make that very clear.”
West trotted along after me as I trudged toward the house. “I know that, and you know that, but I’m asking that you humor me with a very small fiction. I haven’t a backer, of course, and I won’t need one, because George is the best jump racer here.”
“He’s a ruddy morning glory, West. The whole meeting doubtless knows it, as does Hyperia. Your backer is St. Just. You will hint as loudly and often as you can that you went to St. Just because you knew I was too high a stickler to involve myself with wagering when I’d already refused to join that affray. Do you understand me?”
He stopped at the foot of the terrace steps. “Devlin St. Just?”
“Ducal scion, military experience, devoted to horses. Of course, St. Just. Could not stay to watch George compete, but knew a winner when he saw one. Repeat that until you have it memorized.”
“Oh, I see. Devlin St. Just . Colonel St. Just, why yes, that will serve. Should have thought of it myself. The simplest thing in the world. A relief, actually, because now we needn’t tell Hyperia about this slight departure from strictest fact, need we?”
I stared at the steps rising before me like the cursed slopes of Monte Perdido. “I will not lie to my intended.” Hyperia sought to know even my memories, good and bad. She would sniff out prevarication at twenty paces if I even attempted such measures.
Besides, I did not want the burden, the taint, of colluding with Healy West in any regard, much less in deceiving his sister.
“Then don’t lie,” West said, “but don’t quibble over a harmless fiction. For pity’s sake, Caldicott, show some fraternal regard.”
I started up the steps. There were twenty. I knew that because I’d been a reconnaissance officer, and measuring distances, heights, and travel time between locations was second nature to me.
“I will inform Hyperia regarding this harmless fiction you are perpetrating so that she will not be ambushed by gossip and innuendo. In the alternative, you may apprise her of your foolishness.”
“It’s not foolishness, Caldicott. George will win me a packet, and you’ll have to eat your lack of faith when he does.”
We gained the summit, or so it felt. “Do you tell her, or shall I?”
West sent a fulminating glance at the house, then turned his gaze on me. Oh dear. He was unhappy with me. I was beyond furious with him but too tired to ring the peal he deserved. Soon enough. St. George would bring him to ruin, and then I could ring all the peals I pleased.
“I’ll tell her.” His aggrieved air was worthy of the great thespian David Garrick. “You would muck up the business and put me in a bad light. I’ll see you at supper, if you can remain awake that long. Do wash up, though. You are overdue for a thorough reacquaintance with soap and water.”
He stalked off, and I envied him his energy. As I navigated the journey to my quarters, my temper cooled, and I sent up a prayer that St. George, for just this one meeting, could defy his reputation as a morning glory. I wanted Healy West on sound financial footing. I wanted Hyperia’s settlements earning their humble way in the cent-per-cents, hale and whole.
I wanted whoever was rigging the races to go straight to hell, none of which was within my power to bring about apparently.
When I saw my bed, the covers smooth and tidy, the pillows neatly stacked, I pulled off my boots and granted myself the one boon it was within my power to grant and very nearly slept through the third dinner bell.
* * *
As the stifling Sabbath wore on, I realized that my intended was again avoiding me. Hyperia took a tray in her room at breakfast and attached herself to Pierpont on the walk to divine services and to Wickley for the stroll home. I was relegated once again to the company of Miss Cornelia Reardon, Sir Albertus’s sister, who nattered on about bloodlines and broodmares until my head swam.
“Did the ladies enjoy yesterday’s outing to the weekly market?” I asked.
“We’re a small village, my lord. Our market is modest, but one doesn’t want to sit about the house with a lot of bored males who’d rather be getting muck on their boots and draining their flasks up on the Downs. The ladies made a tactical retreat and took the occasion to appreciate the innkeeper’s lemonade. Albertus is still beside himself over Juliet’s loss. He had almost reconciled himself to Dasher’s poor showing, and then the filly failed him too. He blames you, you know.”
“He has made his suspicions clear to me as well.”
“No fool like an old fool.” Miss Reardon marched along, no rancor in her tone. “Juliet was coming in season, no doubt. Leave it to a man to forget the imperatives of nature. Sheer folly, housing fillies and colts in the same yard, but then, much about horse racing is folly. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look up the pedigree of Pierpont’s Minerva? She’s about as perfectly bred as a filly can be, and that’s saying something, but then, all of Pierpont’s runners are related to royalty.”
Miss Reardon chattered on, like an endless artillery bombardment. When we reached the manor house, I excused myself on the pretext of minor ablutions and went in search of Hyperia.
I was informed that my darling was having a lie-down.
Instinct told me her bare feet were propped on an obliging hassock while she enjoyed a book borrowed from Tenneby’s library—a book I should have been reading to her. She pleaded a megrim at the supper buffet, which was mildly worrisome. Hyperia was not prone to megrims.
Her continued absence earned me matching smirks from Wickley and Pierpont and a sympathetic smile from Miss Tenneby.
I thus rose Monday morning in a foul mood. My intended was playing least in sight. Sir Albertus was still muttering foul threats into his port. The day was, if anything, more stifling than its predecessors, and the expensive races were scheduled to start that afternoon.
The heat should have thinned the crowd, but the rumors of foul play had instead swelled the ranks. The viewing hill was a carpet of picnic baskets, gently waving fans, and gentlemen sweating under their hats.
The first race was another outing for the fillies, and it went smoothly enough. The favorite—one of Pierpont’s string—won in a close finish, which the crowd appreciated loudly. In the lull before the second race, I caught sight of Hyperia strolling arm in arm with Miss Tenneby.
If Hyperia saw me, she was ignoring me. My puzzlement and concern acquired an edge of frustration.
A blast of beery fumes on the humid breeze announced Sir Albertus’s presence. “You are not absolved of all suspicion just because one race delivers an expected result. My Dasher runs in the next race, and by God, he had best prevail, my lord, or you will rue the day.”
He shook a riding crop at me, right there in view of the other spectators.
I stepped closer and kept my voice down. “Tell me, Sir Albertus, how exactly am I rigging these races? Caleb Bean will assure you the feed has not been tampered with. Every horse running has been marked for identification in some indelible manner. No ringers allowed. The ne’er-do-well who attempted to add midnight gallops to the program was foiled—by me, I might add. The nasty mischief perpetrated against Blinken was also exposed—by me. What possible scheme does that leave? The horses are not drugged, according to all knowledgeable sources, and the jockeys are riding honestly. Enlighten me, please, as to what, besides heat, possible overtraining, and hard terrain, is yielding all these suspicious results?”
He burped audibly. “You agree the results are suspicious! You know I’m on to you. Doubtless that little sly boots you’ve dispatched to the stable is in on the mischief somehow. Taking advantage of a mere child, sir, is beyond contemptible.”
“You’d best see to your runner, Sir Albertus. The starters will scratch him if he’s not ready to go on time.”
Sir Albertus wheeled unsteadily and tottered down the hill. His bellicosity struck me as out of character. One week ago, he’d been civil, if not quite congenial, and now he was openly threatening me and overimbibing in public.
“What did he want?” Pierpont asked, a tankard of cider in his hand.
“To accuse me again of rigging the races, though he was at a loss to describe how I’m perpetrating my crimes.”
“One explanation for the results we’ve seen is that bad luck just seems to follow Tenneby, my lord. He’s a good fellow, means well, does right by his horses and grooms, but he’s a slow top, for all that. He’s prone to holding low cards, and the progress of this meeting thus far is not that different from what one should have expected. We’ll do what we can for him when the inevitable occurs—discreetly, of course.”
Down the hill, the runners for the second race had begun to assemble, though if a thunderbolt from on high had landed behind the starting line, I would not have ventured into the ensuing chaos. The starters were shouting, the jockeys cursing, and Sir Albertus was making everything worse by grabbing Dasher’s bridle and delivering a sermon to the jockey despite other horses needing to get past him to the starting line.
Bad luck and heat—or something—was taking a toll on everybody’s nerves.
“What can you do for a man who has raced his way to the edge of ruin?” I asked as Corrie, the groom, came up on Dasher’s offside and gently tugged the horse forward. Dasher was bearing the confusion reasonably well, but then, perhaps he was growing accustomed to it.
“If Tenneby cannot swim free of his debts, we’ll take his cattle off his hands, promise them good care, and try to mean it. If they were first-rate runners, Tenneby wouldn’t be in the situation he’s facing. We’ll spare him having to watch them go for a pittance at auction, at least. We know any one of us might be the victim of bad fortune. Take this weather, for example. It’s nobody’s fault, and yet, the farmers will suffer for it.”
“Why not let Tenneby win a race or two, if the brotherhood is that sorry for him?”
“Wouldn’t be sporting, and every jockey would have to agree to the outcome beforehand. Hard to keep that sort of thing from starting rumors, and there’s always one high stickler in the bunch, or one fellow who can’t rate his horse closely enough to make the victory seem credible. Interesting question, though, from somebody who claims not to know a thing about horse racing.”
He sauntered off on that gently accusatory note.
The starters gave the signal, the second race commenced, and I took advantage of the spectators’ interest in the competition to make my way to the punchbowls.
“Lord Julian, good day.” The Welsh footman who’d been so solicitous toward the old earl was serving the libation. “Gents or ladies for you, my lord?”
“Ladies, and a full pint, please. How fares the earl?”
“Heat’s hard on him, sir, but the cold is worse. You might stop up and let him know how things are progressing, if you’ve a spare moment.” He handed me my drink.
“When does his lordship receive visitors?”
“Mornings are best, sir. After breakfast, before the heat starts to build. I can pour you another if you like.”
“No, thank you, this will do. I will make it a point to look in on his lordship before the meeting breaks up.”
I should have taken two tankards, but that would have left me wandering the crowd, ostensibly carrying a drink for my lady, who was having no parts of me.
I sipped my drink and watched the race from the viewing platform while the crowd around me ignored my existence. To be fair, they were watching the race, but the ladies were also whispering behind their fans after glancing my direction, and the gentlemen were offering me some sort of oblique half cut—not quite acknowledging me, not quite snubbing me.
Tenneby, mine host, was outside the rubbing-down house, lecturing a much shorter fellow who gestured grandly in the direction of the village. Hyperia and Miss Tenneby were across the course in the shade of the hedgerow, both of them using field glasses to watch the field gallop the final stretch.
As the horses thundered down the hill to the finish, Dasher was in the lead by a neck. Just as he ought to have been exerting himself to the utmost to hold his lead, he took a step out of rhythm. The colt beside him gained a few inches, and Dasher’s jockey applied one smart whack of the crop.
The finish line was mere yards away when Dasher took another false step. The jockey was ready with another whack, and the finish looked to me to be Dasher by a nose. The stewards agreed, and Sir Albertus strutted into the circle where winners were congratulated at length. He bowed extravagantly, waved a handkerchief at his well-wishers, and made a general fool of himself, but one forgave him.
Dasher had likely salvaged Sir Albertus’s finances by inches and, more importantly, salvaged his owner’s dignity. The horse himself stood, head down, sides heaving, just as he had on the occasion of last week’s defeat.
“Does that look odd to you?” Healy West appropriated my tankard, found it empty, and scowled. “I mean, aren’t the horses supposed to know when they win and prance about and lord it over the other fellows?”
West, like the proverbial blind hog, had a point. “The stultifying weather is taking a terrible toll,” I said. “The runners are shut in their stalls at night, and those stalls aren’t nearly as cool as even a dirt paddock would be.”
“The stalls aren’t sweltering either. Stone barns tend not to be, according to Bear. George is running in today’s steeplechase, and this time, I’ve told Bear to make an effort. My boy has had his sightseeing tour, and it’s time to show these plowboys how to cover some ground.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“Not enough. Why?”
“You ran that horse on Friday, West.”
“A practice outing, no more strenuous than a romp on the Downs, which he was spared that morning because it was race day. He’ll show ’em what he’s made of today, trust me, and by Friday, you will be singing a very different and more humble tune, Caldicott.”
“You’re running him again on Friday?”
“And Saturday. Match races, though I might put him in the over-fences heat as well. That is his forte, after all.”
“You are asking for a bungled jump, West, and the final jumps on this course are downhill, which means you could well bungle your horse to death.”
West shoved my empty tankard back at me. “You ought to be in Mr. Johnson’s lexicon under the definition of spoilsport.” He stomped off toward the punchbowls, where a long queue had formed.
I made my way to the rubbing-down house and met Joe Corrie leading Dasher past the brick structure.
“Congratulations. Your charge distinguished himself.”
“He did, didn’t he?” The groom patted the horse’s sweaty neck as they walked along. “Knew he had it in him, though that was a close one.”
“Was it too close?”
Corrie glanced over his shoulder and slowed his pace. The horse, still breathing heavily, slowed with him. “What’s that supposed to mean? He won, and Sir Albertus is over the moon.”
“He nearly did not win. He ran out of puff again and stood in the winner’s enclosure like a horse ready for last rites.”
“Don’t say that. I mean, please don’t say that, milord. He’ll come right. He just had to work a bit for the finish.”
“The race was rigged, Corrie. I know it, you know it, and half the spectators might be coming to the same conclusion. They expect a winner to act up amid all the congratulations and well-wishes, but Dasher has the same look about him that he had last week.”
“Sir Albertus won’t want me to be seen talkin’ to you, milord. No disrespect. Dasher won fair and square, and there’s an end to it.”
We’d passed the place where Corrie had circled Blinken during our previous tête-à-tête. Corrie did not want to be seen talking to me, and I was reluctant to cause problems for the lad.
“What was different about Dasher’s routine today, Corrie?”
“Nothin’, and that’s the truth. He had the small serving of oats that he gets on race days, and I took him to find some grass by the river, but that’s what I allus do the morning before a race. Your lordship had best be getting back to the course. The steeplechase will be starting any minute. Wouldn’t want to miss that, if I was you.”
“Corrie, if you recall anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, no matter how small, please pass it along. You can tell Atticus, and he’ll get word to me.”
“I’m not to speak to him either. He said that weren’t no matter. No hard feelin’s. Owners can be contrary.”
“I’ll leave you to tend to your horse, but do not relax your vigilance. Dasher has twice been the victim of rigging, though today he was lucky.”
“He were lucky, true enough. I’ll be glad when we’re home, I will.”
Joe Corrie would have walked clear to Hampshire to get shut of me, so I returned to the rubbing-down house and stepped around to the back as if heeding nature’s call. The talk from inside was desultory, not the usual banter and teasing I expected on a race day.
The grooms had reached the same conclusion I had: The rigging was still going on, not as successfully as before in Dasher’s case, but successfully enough that the horse’s victory was attributed much more to luck than ability.