Highest Stakes (26 page)

  "By all newspaper accounts, our forces soundly routed the French," Charles remarked.

"Indeed so, and had the advice of Lord Stair prevailed, we should have pursued them back to France with their tails between their legs."

  "I wish I had been there," Charles said wistfully. "When do you return?"

  "Devington and I report back to Whitehall within the se'nnight, and I anticipate preparations for the spring campaign to hastily ensue, lest the French take obscene advantage of our absence. I expect our troop transports will embark by mid-April."

  At this moment, Beatrix appeared, feigning a search for her fan. "War again! Have you ever encountered a more ponderous household, Major? Papa thinks of nothing but his blessed horses, and Charles of nothing but the war. I fear I shall die of sheer tedium!"

  "My frivolous sister gives no thought to such weighty matters," Charles remarked disparagingly, "even when thousands of Englishmen shed their blood."

  "Englishmen shed blood? Why should you imagine such a thing, Charles?" she replied indignantly. "We are fighting Frenchmen, after all; how difficult can that be?"

  Philip suppressed a chuckle. "One should never underestimate one's adversaries, my dear, even those more disposed to food, frippery, and fashion than fighting."

  "But why should they not be? All the best styles come from Paris."

  "Is this a confession, my lady? Have a care, lest I detain you for purchasing contraband French goods."

  "I confess nothing, for fear of the reprisal," she teased.

  Master of this particular dance, Philip didn't miss a beat. "As a British cavalry officer, I well assure you of reprisals, my lady."

  "Indeed? And precisely what should you do with me, Major?" she taunted.

  "Do you truly wish me to elaborate?" He spoke
sotto voce.

  Regarding him coyly, she placed her hand intimately on his arm. "You must enlighten me, lest I be tempted to commit any shamefully illicit act."

  An interesting choice of words. The chit was wading deep now, but the question remained whether she actually knew how to swim.

  His interest was piqued, but a change of venue was in order. "Perhaps I could elaborate… with a stroll?"

  Beatrix acquiesced with a knowing smile, and the pair quit the morning room through the French doors, wholly intent on exploring the delights of her garden.

Robert hailed Charlotte as she completed Mars's second training run on the heath. "You are managing him too heavily from his mouth," he said.

  "What do you mean?" she asked a bit defensively.

  "You are holding him too fast, which puts his frame all wrong and makes him heavy. Though any Newmarket jockey would advocate holding a horse fast in his running, I say it encourages him to run with his mouth open and in a fretting, jumping attitude, like a stag, with his forelegs pointed and head in the air. A horse that runs in this fashion works to excess. He strains his sinews, and his wind becomes locked. He will be used up early."

  "What would you have me do differently?" she asked.

  "Run him light in the mouth, and he will be willing and at ease and respond readily to your cues. His legs will be more beneath him, and his sinews less extended. He will be relaxed, exert less, and have freer wind, enabling him to run faster when you call upon him. Hold him, Charlotte, as if your reins were a silken thread as fine as a hair that you are afraid of breaking.
This
is how you should ride."

  Charlotte absorbed his words intently and thenceforth gave the stallion a free hand.

  Robert was immensely pleased with their progress. Charlotte had quickly learned to rate the horse, and he had run superbly, but the horse still needed a capable jockey. Robert struggled with his dilemma: Who would ride the horse in tomorrow's race?

  Philip was an able horseman in his own right and might have ridden for Robert, but his size and weight of over twelve stone, compared to the average jockey groom at nine stone, was prohibitive. Jeffries would have been Robert's first choice, but he could not go against his employer. He would no doubt ride for Sir Garfield. Jemmy was among the best exercise riders but hadn't the experience to ride a true race. Though Robert racked his brain, he could think of no other competent rider with whom he could entrust his future.

  He needed someone like Charlotte. She was barely eight stone and a crack rider, but women were strictly excluded from racing. He watched her dismount and continued to turn this over in his mind. Technically speaking, it was not a sanctioned race. He and Sir Garfield had settled on the terms without any specifics as to the jockey.

  Unlike most gentleman of the turf, Sir Garfield was encumbered by his sheer girth and never rode his own horses. Charles had failed him in the prior run, thus his mandate for a hired jockey.

  Though Robert heartily doubted Philip would embrace the idea, he was utterly convinced that Charlotte should ride. It was their best hope to win, but also at their greatest peril.

  They arrived at dusk and located the stable block farthest from the track, where they could avoid unnecessary contact with others and reduce Charlotte's exposure.

  Once their horses were comfortably settled, Robert found a wooden crate to use as a table and unpacked their saddlebags. Letty, in her foresight, had provided them a small meal of bread and cheese, as well as a flask of wine for their supper. After their brief repast, Robert gathered up a large pile of clean straw into a makeshift pallet and covered it with the woolen blanket from his equipage.

  Exhausted from the day, he carelessly stretched out upon it, and Charlotte joined him, snuggling up against his side with her head resting on his shoulder. They lay quietly together for some time before Charlotte's whisper broke the silence.

  "Robert, what will happen after tomorrow? When we win the race, that is? What will we do?"

  He answered while hypnotically stroking her hair. "We'll begin our life, my love," he said simply. "We'll take the mare and the winnings and buy a plot of land. Mars and Amoret will be the foundation of our own racing stud. And with the sale of my commission, we shall purchase the best lot of broodmares we can find."

  "Do you know so much of breeding to make a go of it?"

  "I have my own theories, though some run contrary to the practices of most breeders."

  "In what way?"

  "Most men believe the quality of the get is solely determined by the sire. Although a number of stallions have proven exceptionally prepotent, I tend to believe the mare has an equally important role."

  "What do you mean by
prepotent
?"

  "Ah, 'tis a term I learned while working as a stud groom in the North. Namely, it describes a sire's ability to breed consistently true to type, to stamp his offspring with a high degree of desirable characteristics. In running bloods, this premise of prepotency is impossible to dismiss; however, many foolishly breed a quality stallion with an indifferent mare in the erroneous belief that she is only the vessel. I, however, have a strong notion that coupling such a stallion with a superior mare would produce the best possible result.

  "Just look at the top horses of our day. Virtually all of the best runners have sprung from a very limited number of families, begotten by an even more elite group of sires. The Byerley Turk strain is probably the oldest of these lines. When bred to mares of no great quality, there were a few good horses, but when his blood was crossed with that of a well-bred mare of pure Eastern blood, the result was a filly named Bonny Black, who at fours years old beat thirty others at Black Hambleton and repeated the performance the next year. This
mare
later challenged any horse in England four times round the King's Plate course at Newmarket, with no takers.

  "The offspring of this cross was the best possible combination. It is then hard for me to believe that one should disregard the importance of the mare, but I digress."

  "You were speaking of the most prepotent sire lines," Charlotte prompted.

  "Ah, yes. The second great sire line comes by the Darley Arabian, a horse that was also nicked with mediocrity until the fair Betty Leedes."

  "I know this story!" Charlotte declared. "Betty Leedes brought forth the famous Flying Childers, and then through her second breeding to the Darley, produced Bartlett's Childers, who was Amoret's sire."

  "Indeed, Charlotte. Amoret has exceptional lineage, precisely why she must be our foundation broodmare. Now as to the others we need for our harem, I would have a mind to also seek out mares of Byerley blood, as well as daughters of this Godolphin."

  "You mean El Sham," she corrected.

  "El Sham, eh? I surmise that Jeffries has entertained you with
his
version
of this soon-to-be legend's history."

"Indeed he did! 'Tis such a romantic story, don't you think?"

  "Perhaps it is all in the telling, dearest." He chuckled and stroked her cheek.

  "Then perhaps I shall recount
my version
to you."

  "Pray do so, my sweet." He smiled indulgently.

  Bright-eyed, Charlotte began. "The story starts ten years hence. It is a dark, dreary, and rainy morning. An emaciated brown horse strains through the streets of Paris, pulling a water cart. The carter plies the whip to the poor beast, who is too weak to take another step and stumbles to his knees. The man raises the lash again, but the poor horse is too feeble and his knees too ravaged by the cobbles to pull himself up. Observing the incident, a passerby, a foreigner, stays the whip hand of the brute."

  "And instead shoots the horse to put him out of his misery," Robert interjected.

  Charlotte glares in indignation. "I thought you wanted to hear my story?"

  "A million apologies, my sweet." He brings her hand to his lips. Charlotte frowned but was mollified. The tale continued.

  "The foreigner is an Englishman and a Quaker, with business in Paris. His heart goes out in sympathy for the poor animal. He offers the carter three gold louis to buy the horse. The carter agrees, in the belief it will cost him more to dispose of the body. He unhitches the cart, and the Englishman, Mr. Coke, leads the horse back to his filthy stable, where to his immense surprise, he finds a blackamoor groom and a large gray cat.

  "'What is this?' asked Mr. Coke of the carter.

  "'It is a madman, a groom who accompanied the stallion from his homeland and is avowed never to leave his side.'

  "'Never?'

  "'Never, Monsieur. Queer beliefs have these Moors.'

  "'And the cat?'

  "'A curiosity. It rarely leaves the horse's side. So for three gold louis, Monsieur, you are now the owner of the horse, the groom, and the cat!'

  "Poor Mr. Coke was quite stunned at first, but he did acknowledge the need of a groom to help nurse the poor creature back to strength. After several days, as the animal begins to improve, the gentleman realizes this is no ordinary horse. As poor as he appears, he is possessed of a beautiful conformation. He is exquisitely proportioned, with a small head on a well-arched and heavily crested neck. He is short-coupled with large hocks, tremendous quarters, and a high-set tail. But although he is of incomparable beauty, the stallion is fiery and headstrong.