CHAPTER SIX
Walking the racecourse, as opposed to riding over the same ground, left me more morose than ever.
“Too many trees,” I said as St. Just marched at my side down the declivity that led to the finish line. “All manner of mischief is possible thanks to the trees.”
“I like trees,” St. Just surveyed the venerable oaks, maples, beeches, and birches forming the boundaries of the race course. “What sort of mischief?”
“If you wait in a tree, you don’t leave deep depressions on soft ground no matter how long you tarry. You don’t cast a shadow. You elude a casual inspection of the hedgerow. Thirty feet up, with a spyglass, you can see much farther than anybody on the ground can see, and you can aim your guns accordingly.”
St. Just stopped and gave me a steady stare. “The activity contemplated is horse racing . No guns necessary.”
“Right.” I came to a halt as well. “So, in the interests of securing the nominal sum of, say, ten thousand pounds—which no foot soldier ever earned in uniform—you pitch a rock at the head of the horse in the lead. A pebble will do, because all you need is for the beast to flinch, to go off stride, particularly as he’s approaching a jump. A little swerve, a loss of focus. Have somebody else do it again in twenty yards.”
St. Just studied the trees more closely. “A signal mirror might do the job. Angle the surface so it flashes into the eyes of the leader as he comes around the turn. Unless another horse is right beside him, nobody else will see what caused the spook. The jockey probably won’t either.”
“Because humans look ahead, while horses have a wide field of vision to the sides. St. Just, why does anybody, ever, for any reason assume a horse race will be honestly run?”
St. Just resumed walking, and I fell in step.
“For the simple reason, that most of them are. The Regent himself was cautioned by stewards for what appeared to be race-fixing, and his sole recourse was to leave the sport permanently. If the Regent can be taken to task, so can all the little lordlings and schemers on the periphery.”
In a gesture of royal pique entirely in character for George, he had subsequently sold off his entire racing stable, from horses to hayracks. He’d abandoned the sport of kings without a backward glance. He’d also thus quit a tremendously expensive hobby while appearing to reel with injured dignity. The talk in the clubs had suggested that the race had likely been fixed, as had the prince’s excusable retreat from a sport he could not afford.
We approached the bottom of the hill, and though the course was a mere mile and a half, I felt as if I’d hiked the length of the Sierra de Gredos. St. Just looked ready to cover the whole circuit again, double time, without breaking a sweat.
He was making progress, whether he’d admit as much or not. When I’d seen him the previous year, he’d not been in nearly such fine fettle.
“Why is your stay limited to only a week?” I asked.
“I’m heading north. Off to Yorkshire, of all places. One of His Grace’s little projects. I do like these downhill finishes. Makes for blazing fast runs to the post.”
Whatever was afoot in Yorkshire, St. Just was reluctant to discuss it. “I dislike horse racing. I was neutral on the topic before—Harry seemed to think it was all great fun for a time—but I’m dead set against the sport now.”
We crossed the finish line, and I turned to study the hill we’d just descended. “If you were going to toss these races, St. Just, what method would you prefer?”
“You know the answer to that.” He stood beside me, his gaze on the rolling turf. “I’d have a list of options, from simplest to more complicated. I’d start on the simple end and, if that measure failed, graduate to the more complicated. I’d have already been contemplating my schemes for this meeting, running my slow-tops at Newmarket, where everybody could see how disappointing they were.”
“But occasionally, say on a muddy day or an early morning match, you’d run your better horse, the twin, and lay a false trail. Caldicott’s Folly has some potential—and he does well on a muddy course or in a match for morning glories—but not enough to redeem the horse’s reputation.”
“Precisely. Create credible doubt for the day when Caldicott’s Meteor wins you a packet doing his impersonation of Caldicott’s Folly. I made an early start this morning, and I could do with a nap. Let’s call this maneuver complete, shall we?”
“How early?”
He shook his head.
“You left London around midnight, when the turnpikes were finally quiet, and rode through the night. Why?” The dust on his person when he’d arrived told me he’d been riding for miles, not merely hacking over from the nearest coaching inn at the start of the day.
“I made the night journey,” St. Just said, “because I hate, with a passion known only to former dispatch riders, loitering about in a queue of carriages, pedestrians, drunks, and pickpockets when my horse could be at least trotting in the direction of my destination. Hate it.”
Or he hated nights spent lying in bed, wide awake and remembering yet again all manner of purgatories.
“I’m glad to see you, regardless, and I wish you could stay the full two weeks.”
He punched my arm, about as hard as Harry would have. Not a tap, but unlikely to leave a bruise. “You will manage. We’re walking this course by daylight, stopping periodically and pointing and discussing, in part so that anybody running a filly this afternoon can see us taking stock.”
“Parade inspection,” I said, having figured out that much. “I assume we take a protracted tour of the stable yard next?”
“You always were a quick study. I want to meet your little tiger-cum-spy and introduce you to Piggott. We will peer into figurative cupboards, I will be taciturn and disapproving for form’s sake, and you will be quietly observant while my smoldering Irish temper provides the distraction. I can be positively volcanic, you know. My legend precedes me.”
He hadn’t a temper… oh. “That business at Waterloo?”
“The last in a long line of half-mad incidents, to hear some tell it.”
What fool had wanted to ask this poor man probing questions? “I’ve been mad. I don’t recommend it.”
“You allude to France?”
“Of course France. How is Westhaven? Hyperia speaks well of your brother.”
St. Just allowed me the change of subject. He knew my past better than I knew his, perhaps because my disgraces were more spectacular than his had been. As we made our way to the stables, it occurred to me that if the race meet became the subject of scandal, that scandal would be associated with me rather than with St. Just.
He was on his way to Yorkshire, just passing through. I was the watchdog who still had very little grasp of how to identify or bring down my quarry. More fool I.
* * *
St. Just’s man, Piggott, was a wiry, soft-spoken Berkshire native who regarded me levelly, though I was a good half a foot taller than he. Groom-cum-jockey-cum-spy was my assessment, though he was friendly enough to Atticus when I introduced the lad to him.
“Carrots or apples?” Piggott asked Atticus.
“Atlas loves them both, but in a dead heat, he’ll go for whichever is fresher,” Atticus replied, which was true enough. “I like apples better myself.”
Piggott smiled, St. Just scowled, and Atticus—doubtless on the verge of a spate of juvenile loquaciousness—fell silent.
“Let’s have a look at today’s runners.” St. Just strode off down the barn aisle.
I nodded at Piggott, winked at Atticus, and followed in the colonel’s wake. He proceeded to make halfway disparaging remarks about this filly’s quarters or that one’s knees. When he came to Tenneby’s entry, he offered grudging praise for Maybelle’s well-set-on neck.
The grooms listened to all this gratuitous grumpiness without expression, but their very lack of reaction confirmed that St. Just was raising hackles. I, meanwhile, examined horses and stalls as closely as possible, even to the extent of lifting a few hooves and sniffing at feed buckets. So effective was St. Just’s diversion that nobody gave me so much as a curious glance, save Paddy Denton, who kept his mouth shut.
“You’re displeased,” St. Just said as we concluded our impromptu inspection and trooped off toward the house. “That’s a stable full of talented horses, if conformation has anything to say to it. They are all well cared for, and in good weight, for Thoroughbreds.”
“Tenneby dragooned me into attending this meet in hopes I could deter crooked behavior. Other than the confusion between Maybelle and Cleopatra yesterday, I haven’t seen anything to indicate there’s a cheater in the herd.”
“Because the proof will be in the race results. I see your dilemma, but happily for you, the racing will start in a very few hours. While I catch forty winks and a bath, you can get a feel for the betting. Starting with the fillies was a shrewd choice on Tenneby’s part. The wildest gambling is always reserved for the colts. With the females, the wagers should start off with some restraint.”
“Which means I am once again unlikely to see any patterns that would point me to guilty parties. Enjoy your damned bath, St. Just.”
“Cheer up,” he said. “The human fillies are likely to take an interest in this afternoon’s contest as well, and their company makes any occasion sweeter.”
Said a man with—I mentally counted—five sisters. “Valid point.” And a reminder that I had yet to confer with my dear Hyperia, whose ability to gather intelligence among the distaff far exceeded my own on my best day.
I found my intended at the piano keyboard in the music room, rehearsing a trio with Miss Evelyn Tenneby on the violin and no less personage than Lord Wickley on the violoncello.
“I don’t suppose you’re musical?” Lord Wickley asked. “Mozart had a love affair with speed that my fingers do not share.”
“Then dodge around the allegro assai and play the rondo,” I suggested. “Ladies, good morning.”
“You know this piece?” Wickley’s tone suggested I’d somehow cheated.
“My sisters performed it regularly,” I replied. “The B-flat major is his earliest trio.” And it did begin with a ripping-fast allegro, which the ladies had treated as something of a horse race. “Miss West, I was hoping you’d come with me to select a spot from which to view this afternoon’s races.”
My ploy was meant to be obvious. If I’d cared to choose such a spot, Hyperia and I had viewed the entire racecourse on horseback only a few hours earlier.
“While I was hoping Lord Wickley would introduce me to his filly,” Hyperia said. “Perhaps you might explore vantage points with Miss Tenneby?”
Ah. We were to divide and conquer. Neatly done. “Miss Tenneby, as a resident of the Acres, you will know all the best vantage points. Might you do me the honor?”
She curtsied with a flourish of her bow, as if concluding a performance. “Gladly. Herr Mozart and I were never the best of friends, and I agree with Lord Wickley. One wants fingers of flame to play the faster passages, and mine, alas, do not qualify. Meet me on the terrace in five minutes.”
“We could all stroll to the stable together,” Wickley suggested, setting his ’cello on its side atop the closed lid of the pianoforte. “A pleasant morning for such an outing.”
Wickley no more sought to stroll in my company than I sought to play whist with his horse. “I’ve already admired your Cleopatra, and I’m sure Miss Tenneby has as well. Colonel St. Just pronounced your filly a bit over at the knee, but he found fault with just about every beast in the stable. He did have some praise for Maybelle. Liked how her neck was set on.”
Wickley’s diffident-gentleman act came to an abrupt conclusion. “St. Just is here? Colonel Devlin St. Just?”
“The very one, though I don’t believe he has any runners, and he’s not staying for the full two weeks.”
Hyperia rose from the piano bench and closed the lid over the keys. “I will be so glad to renew my acquaintance with him. Such a droll wit, and the equine never had a more devoted champion. Come, Lord Wickley, let’s repair to the stable with all possible haste.”
Wickley looked like he was about to recall a pressing need to confer with his valet.
“St. Just has gone in search of a bath and a nap,” I informed Wickley. “You won’t find him in the stable yard at this hour.”
“Very well, then we must make our obeisance before my fair Cleopatra. Miss West, shall I await you on the back terrace?”
“Please.” She dismissed him with a smile, and he stalked off after treating me to a brooding perusal.
“I’ll find you at luncheon,” Hyperia said. “Please try to be good company for Evelyn. She’s had to put up with Pierpont and Wickley’s strutting and pawing, and the poor lady is quite out of patience.”
“One sympathizes.” I did not dare risk a kiss to Hyperia’s cheek with the parlor door wide open. “Try to find out if Wickley owes St. Just money.”
She stepped close enough to pat my lapel. “His lordship was less than pleased to hear of the colonel’s arrival. Well done, Tenneby.”
“Well done, me. I asked St. Just to attend, but I could not loiter at the Hall to await news of his availability. He rode through the night, Hyperia, and claimed he was avoiding the heaviest traffic.”
“Hence the nap. Wise man. Is there anything else you want me to ask Wickley?”
“Is he genuinely fond of Miss Tenneby, or is he using her as a pawn in his ongoing competitions with Lord Pierpont? How are his finances generally, and why isn’t he in Mayfair doing the pretty?”
“Hiding from creditors?” Hyperia asked, stepping back. “That would make sense.”
“Creditors rank well ahead of matchmakers as blights on a bachelor’s existence, and they would find it difficult to chase him down here at a private residence.”
“Whereas at Newmarket, Wickley would be in plain view. If he’s rolled up, he has a motive to cheat, Jules.”
I mentally cursed the open door. “Try to get a sense of how he’s betting, then, and let’s plan on sharing a picnic blanket at lunch. A discussion of the particulars and possibilities with you is clearly in order. I suspect half of those who own racehorses are rolled up most of the time, and for the other half, simple greed might inspire them to cheat. The combination makes me uneasy.”
Hyperia traced the graceful curve of the f-holes on Lord Wickley’s ’cello. “You can spot the indications of poverty about a person’s attire and habits, in the usual course. Greed and blind ambition aren’t as easy to pick out, not in a crowd like this. The guests are all quite fashionable, and they can all legitimately claim a desire to win.”
Good camouflage, to use the French term, and another daunting thought. “Until luncheon, my dearest. And, Hyperia?”
“Jules?”
“Be careful.
She nodded. “You too. Don’t underestimate these people simply because they are turf mad. Madness of any stripe can be dangerous.”
She did not need to remind me of that, but I was pleased that Hyperia was also taking the situation seriously.
* * *
Miss Evelyn Tenneby did not appear to take the race meeting or any of its attendees at all seriously. “Pierpont and Wickley are two among a herd of strutting nincompoops, my lord. Wickley expects me to be agog at his title, and Pierpont supposes that his brooding stare will set my heart aflutter.”
“Most women would be agog to have a young, handsome earl in thrall,” I replied, “and Pierpont’s dark good looks, whatever his other failings, are all the current rage.” May he and his curls rot in some poetical dungeon.
She grinned up at me, a russet-haired pixie poking fun at a gormless mortal. “Are you jealous?”
“You try having hair that makes you look like some sort of exotic badger. I used to have locks only a little darker than your own, Miss Tenneby, and I never appreciated how precious an unremarkable appearance was until I became something of a freak.”
“Not a freak,” she said, humor disappearing. “A casualty of war. You didn’t die, but some of your innocence surely did. Never a pleasant experience. Let’s admire the view from the folly, shall we?”
She took off up the hill that formed the center of the whole racecourse, an oblong swell of ground that rose a good forty feet at the center. Miss Tenneby negotiated the climb easily, suggesting a countrywoman’s stamina and a sensible lady’s approach to stays.
Atop the hill, some previous Tenneby earl had built a wooden structure larger than a gazebo and smaller than a cottage, most of it a terrace, though the center was under a high arching roof. The orientation gave excellent views of the start, finish, and long sloping straightaways, though portions of the sweeping curves were obscured by trees.
“Lovely prospect,” I remarked when I arrived, puffing only slightly, at the top. “Somebody chose well.”
“The present earl,” she said. “Uncle pretends all his racing days are behind him, and he’ll be least in sight at the formal suppers, but he was mad keen for the turf in his youth. If Clary had asked for an archery tournament or house party, the answer would have been no, but for the horses… his lordship is sentimental.”
“What do you make of that business at Epsom several years ago?”
She took a seat on a bench facing away from the house and its outbuildings. The rolling Berkshire downs stretched green and glorious to the horizon, crisscrossed by lanes and wooded hedgerows. Unlike other parts of England, few sheep were to be seen here. The grazing livestock in this vista were mostly horses, including a liberal number of broodmares and gamboling foals.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Miss Tenneby said, untying her bonnet and putting it on the bench to her right. “Do have a seat. My brother and I are yet merely gentry, my lord, and impoverished gentry at that. No need for Mayfair manners. You ask about Epsom.”
She was soon to be an earl’s sister, and a simple writ would give her a lady’s title for life. “All I know is that Tenneby’s prodigy of a colt inexplicably ran out of puff when it counted, and neither Tenneby nor his jockey has any explanation. Many of the same cast are assembled here, and this course could be Epsom’s twin. I’m concerned that a similar farce will play out again. Tenneby expects me to prevent that.”
She patted my hand. “Clary sees the best in people, and if he’s asked you to keep the weasels from getting into the henhouse, he’ll put eggs on the menu every day, because he’s that confident you will succeed. He was the same way when I made my come out, certain I’d bag a title, certain all of Mayfair would fall at my dainty feet.”
She held up her feet, clad in boots for the occasion.
“Very diminutive.” The lady herself stood no more than five feet and a couple inches, and while her contours were far from boyish, she was slender. “I gather Mayfair missed its cue?”
“I like horse races,” Miss Tenneby replied. “You know who wins, unless it’s a dead heat, and then you can do a rematch, and that will decide the matter. At Almack’s, you think that quiet fellow lurking among the potted palms must be some dowager’s penniless nephew dragged forth and kitted out on a hopeless quest for matrimony, and then you learn he’s a hard-of-hearing duke and a confirmed bachelor.”
His Grace of Devonshire was well liked, but he did find shouted public conversations tedious. Hence the lurking.
“You did not take?” My question was arguably rude.
“I received plenty of invitations—Auntie did her best—but as soon as it became known that my settlements were as diminutive as my feet, my dance card became populated by widowers and old soldiers. Many of them were quite dear.”
“Were you tempted?”
She considered her feet again. “Sometimes I still am. I’m a burden. I know it, and yet, Clary is such a good brother, he claims he’d be lost without me. For a while, we hoped Pierpont might come up to scratch—he’s bearable in small doses—but then he went to that race meet at Epsom rather than court me, and I realized that Clary was the attraction for Pierpont. I was just… a pair of pretty ankles.”
Blessed Saint Eclipse. “Are you telling me that Pierpont paid you his addresses in order to learn more of your brother’s racing ambitions?”
She twitched at her skirts. “Not his addresses, not in the manner your tone implies. He was friendly and flirtatious, and I was stupid.”
And now she was sadder and wiser? “You doubtless chattered on and on about dear Clary’s wonderful colt and his wicked-fast fillies, and all the while Pierpont encouraged you?”
She frowned at those small feet. “He did. He comes across as charming and dimwitted, but Lord Pierpont Chandler is accustomed to getting what he wants. Like anybody bitten by the racing bug, he wanted to best Clary at Epsom, and he succeeded.”
“I’m sorry.”
She tried for a smile. “Sorry Excalibur lost? So is Clary and so am I.”
“Sorry Pierpont betrayed your trust and that you must extend the hospitality of the Acres to him now.” How that must gall. “Shall I plant your brother a facer?”
“Why bother? Clary is right: I have to confront these people sooner or later, and another Season in Town—another expensive Season—is not how I’d prefer to do it. Then too, this group has money, and Clary needs them to bet that money against his stallion, or I truly will be a spinster for all the rest of my impoverished days.”
He needed them to bet that money and lose it—to him .
“Speaking of the betting, what have you heard regarding this afternoon’s inaugural match?”
“Put your money on Cleopatra.”
“The opposition? Miss Tenneby, surely you blaspheme.”
“Most of the fillies will run three times during this meet, and if I know my brother—and I do—he will give Maybelle an easy outing the first time ’round. Let the others try to impress with their initial performance, let them fall prey to vanity. Clary will instruct the jockey to make a good effort, but without exhausting the horse. The purse isn’t worth the cost of an all-out effort.”
“How much is the purse?”
“A thousand pounds.”
Ye gods and little fishes. A small, thrifty family could live on that sum for twenty years, provided some interest accrued.
“That suggests,” I said slowly, “that stakes will rise to celestial heights as the meet progresses. While the other fillies are recovering from a strenuous effort, Maybelle will still be fresh and ready to run her best. Why won’t every owner instruct his jockey to take the same tack?”
Miss Tenneby rose and collected her bonnet. “They might, but one of the group will also reason that his filly will never win a race run at proper pace. She’s too young, she’s too slow, she’s fast enough but lacks that winning drive. Her only chance for victory—which increases her value as a broodmare—is to take the opportunity presented today by all the watch-and-wait strategists.”
Miss Tenneby shaded her eyes and regarded the course’s starting line. “That mare, the mediocre talent, will be given her head, and the rest will want to catch her. Then any attempt to hold the other horses back becomes hard to disguise. The stewards would certainly question a jockey who obviously wasn’t riding to win. It’s a devious game, my lord, but I’m betting against Maybelle today.”
I got to my feet as well. “Who took your bet?”
“Pierpont doesn’t have a runner in this race, so he backed Maybelle, knowing she made no journey to reach the meet, and she has trained on this very turf. His reasoning makes sense, but he’s also twitting Wickley.”
My temples were beginning to throb from all the bright sunshine. Blue spectacles went only so far against Berkshire’s golden sun, much less against all the intrigue possible around a seemingly straightforward horse race.
“I will suggest that Miss West back Cleopatra,” I said, offering my arm. “I’m not betting myself.”
“Very wise of you, my lord.” She slipped her hand into the crook of my elbow. “Shall we return to the house?”
“You don’t want to put your bonnet on first?” The same sunshine annoying my eyes would delight in causing the young lady the dreaded scourge of freckles across her cheeks.
“Why bother? I am not on offer here, the horses are. Clary has the best string of any of the owners. I know that, but this is not a sport where the best athlete reliably wins.” She escorted me down the hill—or so it felt—a lady resigning herself to a dispiriting fate, though, in fact, she was much too fine for the likes of Lord Pierpont.
She should be comforted by that knowledge, but I suspected revenge for past insults would comfort her more.