Cut Throat (37 page)

Bill Scott swore under his breath and for once Ross was inclined to agree with him.

Completely dwarfing the man who held him, Telamon the failed racehorse marched purposefully down the ramp and shrieked a challenge to the world.

From the stables, half a dozen excited voices answered him.

Bill swore again. ‘Shit! That's all we need. A bloody stallion!'

Ross glanced at Roland and was amused to see a look of almost comical dismay cross his face. Could it be that for once the Colonel's son had failed fully to appreciate all the aspects of a situation? As swiftly as the expression had touched his face it had gone. The upper-class idiot returned.

‘Well, can't it be muzzled or something?' he enquired with wonderful innocence.

Ross smothered a laugh.

‘It's not a bloody dog,' Bill observed witheringly, including the American in his disapproval.

Roland looked hurt. ‘Of course not. He's Ross' battle charger.'

‘Most likely break his neck!' Bill grunted, ever the pessimist.

‘Ross'll manage him, won't you, Ross?' Danny stated with easy confidence.

‘Oh, sure,' he said lightly. ‘No problem.'

Roland beamed happily.

His charge duly handed over, the box driver lost no time in getting on his way. Probably, Ross thought, afraid that they would change their minds and decide to send the horse back.

After discussion, Telamon was installed in one of two empty boxes on the opposite side of the yard to Bishop and Flo.

Roland seemed anxious to see the horse ridden and reluctantly Ross agreed to try him that evening. Reluctantly because he guessed that the event, having been announced in advance, would inevitably attract all the Oakley Manor crew and he would far rather have had a chance to become acquainted with the horse in private.

As he had feared, when Ross accepted a leg-up from Bill at half-past seven that evening, the rails of the school positively bristled with interested onlookers.

Not only had Roland reappeared with his father, but Lindsay and James had also come with them. Sarah had returned to the yard after going home for her tea and was accompanied by Darcy Richmond, with whom she was apparently spending the evening. Even Maggie had come out, a fluffy pink cardigan buttoned over her apron, and to cap it all Danny was there with his video camera to record the event for posterity.

‘Shoulda sold tickets,' Ross observed to Bill as he settled into the soft leather of Butterworth's temporarily redundant saddle.

The stallion, which had proved surprisingly quiet to handle in the stable, sidled restlessly beneath him, back hunched and tense. He proceeded across the yard to the school on legs which punched the ground like steel pistons. With jaw set, he tossed his head, anticipating resistance from Ross.

Ross sat quietly, trying not to interfere with the big chestnut more than was necessary. Only in Bishop had he ever felt anything approaching this power, but whereas in the German horse it was controlled and smooth, in this animal it was raw and rebellious. Ross felt his own adrenalin begin to pump as a thrill of excitement rose in him.

As soon as he heard the gate click shut behind him he sent the chestnut on, sensing the frustration and bottled energy that would have to be released before he could even hope to communicate with the horse.

Telamon hesitated fractionally as his head was set free. A succession of riders who had strapped him down ever harder in an attempt to control his wildness had left him unprepared for this abrupt change of tactics.

Then, with a squeal of pure pleasure, he erupted into the centre of the school and proceeded to buck himself almost inside out. Ross stayed with him, gripping hard with his long legs and letting his body follow through. The stallion reached the end of the school and turned, still bucking, to make his way back.

Unsure how much longer he could cling to the wildly lurching horse, Ross sat down hard, pulled its head up and drove it forward. Gradually the leaps levelled out and the chestnut began to run.

Ross let him go. From Telamon he received no feeling of hysteria. This horse, though unruly, was not about to do itself any harm. Sure in this knowledge, Ross relaxed and began to enjoy himself.

The area was too small for the stallion to reach any great pace and after four or five circuits he started to steady. Ross steered him towards one of the low schooling fences and he skipped over it, barely bothering to break his stride. Encouraged, he inclined him towards the big parallel bars in the centre of the school. The jump was five foot square and had been erected when Ross was schooling Woodsmoke earlier in the day. It was not something Ross would normally have asked of a comparative novice but he wanted to see how the big chestnut would react.

Telamon flicked his ears forward, snatched at the bit and forged fearlessly ahead. Ross let him go, and as the massive hindquarters bunched and lowered, threw his weight forward. The red and white poles flashed by a good twelve inches below the stallion's hooves and the landing was smooth and effortless.

A cheer broke from the lips of those watching and Telamon shied violently and bucked again, almost catching Ross out. One more circuit of the school and the horse allowed Ross to slow him to a trot and finally to a halt by the fence.

The American's little crowd of supporters looked as excited as he felt. He patted the arching chestnut neck and slid off the horse. Telamon turned to eye him, froth cascading from his chomping jaws, but the expression held no malice. Ross had the distinct impression that the horse was very satisfied.

‘I've never seen anything quite like it!' The Colonel was the first to find his voice. ‘What do you use, Superglue?'

Ross grinned. ‘I did a lot of horse-breaking in the States,' he said. ‘They weren't all like that, of course – these days we try to do it gently – but occasionally you come across a bad one. It's just practice and a measure of luck.'

‘Play it down if you like,' the Colonel said, ‘but I don't know of many riders who could have stayed on that or who would have cared to try.'

‘Well,
I
knew he could do it,' Lindsay said smugly. Her protégé had proved himself.

‘He's far from gentled,' Ross cautioned them, mildly embarrassed. ‘It'll be a whole different ball game when we get him to a show.'

‘Nonsense! I shall expect you to win at Brockenhurst,' Roland stated confidently. ‘He's entered in the Open, you know.'

‘Oh, boy!' Ross said with feeling, thinking of Ginger. ‘That should be quite a class!'

‘Wicked!' Danny agreed.

Ross decided it was time the stallion was put back in his box. It would be best to wait until the horse had settled in before he tried turning him loose to roll in the sand. As he ran the stirrups up and loosened the girth, Darcy and Sarah took their leave. Darcy clapped the American on the back.

‘Uncle Frank will be sorry to have missed that,' he said. ‘Quite a performance.'

‘I've got it on video,' Danny reminded him. ‘Peter will enjoy it too. He's some horse!'

‘He is that,' Ross agreed.

Lindsay and James drifted off with the Colonel, and as Ross led the horse back to the yard, Roland fell in beside him.

‘My dear papa was convinced I was trying to murder you when he found out about Telamon,' he told Ross, who reflected that the thought had crossed his own mind. ‘But I told him it was just what you needed to revive your tattered reputation.'

‘My battle charger?' Ross remembered, amused.

‘Exactly,' Roland said.

As Ross settled the stallion he pondered Roland's real reason for buying the horse. It would be easiest to take him at face value and believe that the huge, powerful chestnut had appealed to him and that he had bought it on a whim with no thought for the possible consequences, but this Ross couldn't do. Surely a man with Roland's past experience of horses couldn't fail to see what a potential minefield of problems having the stallion might entail, not least the difficulty of riding him?

‘You made a good job of that.' Bill had come up, unseen. ‘D'you think you can cope with him in public?'

Ross finished rubbing Telamon down.

‘Well, we'll have to see, won't we?'

He shut the door and stood looking at the stallion for a moment. He was a magnificent beast. Not beautiful, his frame was perhaps a little too angular for that, but his chest was broad and deep, his legs strong and clean, and his hindquarters immensely muscled. He turned, munching hay, to glance curiously at the two men. His long head wide between the eyes; plenty of room for brain.

‘I wasn't sure you'd ride him,' Bill said after a moment, and Ross knew he meant that he'd doubted Ross' nerve, not his ability.

He didn't say anything.

‘I suppose you had to, with everybody watching like that.'

That's right, don't make the mistake of paying me a compliment, Ross thought with wry amusement.

‘I suppose I could have said I had a headache,' he said aloud. ‘Damn! Why didn't I think of that?'

The stable manager regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Is the mare really unsafe?' he asked, in the manner of one reluctantly relinquishing a long-held belief.

Ross looked at him, surprised. ‘
I
believe she is,' he said quietly. ‘But I guess I can't prove it to you.'

He switched off Telamon's light.

‘See you later, big fella,' he murmured, and started back across the yard with the saddle and bridle.

‘He'll never be up to much,' Bill said mulishly. ‘He's too full of himself. He's a waste of money.'

‘It's Roland's money,' Ross observed mildly.

Bill grunted and moved away.

Ross shook his head, smiling in the half-light. He supposed it had been an olive branch of sorts. Not much of one, admittedly, but then Noah's dove had only managed a twig.

‘Ross Wakelin!' a voice said forcefully, just behind him.

It was Saturday. He was near Guildford at a novice show with Clown, Barfly and the new horse, Saxon Blue. So far, things had been going well.

He turned with interest but no premonition of disaster, to find himself looking at a face he'd hoped very much was firmly in his past.

‘Mrs Faulkner,' he acknowledged without much enthusiasm.

The woman looked older, thinner, and if possible, even more bitter than the last time they had met. Once an attractive woman, the accident that had maimed her only daughter had twisted both her features and her mind.

She hated Ross with an unflagging vigour, blaming him completely and utterly for the child's paralysis. She had written him dozens of poisonous letters and called him countless times with ugly threats, even once trying to run him down in her car. Then, by chance, Ross' father had found out and used his legal connections to force her to stop, threatening her with a charge of harassment.

Hers was the face that had swum in and out of his nightmares, relentlessly accusing. Hers, too, the face he thought he'd seen at the ringside the previous weekend.

His heart sank.

He needed Diane Faulkner like he needed a contract placed on him by the Mafia. She could mean nothing but trouble.

He was on his feet temporarily, taking a rest between rides, and now searched the crowds hopefully for a sight of Danny with his next mount.

‘I didn't believe it when I heard,' Mrs Faulkner said, shaking her head to support her statement.

Ross regarded her warily. ‘I'm sorry?'

She didn't leave him long in the dark.

‘How can you live with yourself? My poor baby is in a wheelchair, crippled, her life ruined, and you're back playing your games as if nothing had happened!'

If only you knew, lady! he thought bitterly. He edged away, still looking for Danny.

‘I thought you'd quit. I thought you'd finally done the decent thing. I suppose you thought I wouldn't find you if you ran away to England? But I did find you and now I'll tell everybody! People should know. You shouldn't be allowed to carry on. You're a murderer!'

Nobody had died, logic protested, but Ross didn't think it would help his cause to point that out.

He stopped edging away. The only obvious effect it was having was that of encouraging her to speak louder, and that he could do without. He knew from bitter experience that reasoning with her was useless. Diversion was his only hope.

‘Who told you where I was?'

She was not noticeably put off.

‘Someone who recognised you for the louse you are!' she said, stepping closer. ‘Someone who knew –'

‘How is Naomi? Is she with you?' Ross cut in, trying again. Diane Faulkner's voice had a distressingly carrying quality, accentuated by its being broadly American in a very English crowd, and many of those in the vicinity were beginning to take a more than covert interest.

This time it worked. She stopped in mid-sentence and stared at him.

‘You bastard!' she hissed, and dealt him a stinging slap across the face.

She was not a big woman but hatred lent her strength and the unexpected attack rocked Ross back on his heels. He gasped and caught her wrist firmly as she swung at him a second time.

She tugged back ineffectually.

‘Take your filthy hands off me!'

Suddenly a camera flashbulb went off somewhere close to Ross' left shoulder and he turned, astounded. With a grin of triumph, the photographer pressed the shutter again.

‘Gotcha!' he said.

Ross cleaned tack with absentminded thoroughness in the yellow light of the tackroom that evening. The yard was quiet. Only muffled sounds of munching and snorting disturbed the warm stillness. Occasionally, from the other side of the yard, he could hear bursts of canned laughter and clapping from the open window of the Scotts' cottage. He supposed the Colonel and Roland would be getting ready to go to Lindsay and James' party. The thought did nothing to improve his mood.