‘Did you see any of them again?’
‘No. Next morning your father met me downstairs at the hotel and took me round the corner to where the horse was kept. It was just daylight. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before, so likely he hadn’t gone to bed.’
It was indeed quite likely.
‘And there seemed nothing strange about him?’
‘Nothing at all. Happy as a lad on a day’s holiday, and pleased with himself on account of the horse. So we went to the stables and I took her off to where the cart was waiting.’
‘And that was the last you saw of him?’
‘Waving us on our way, yes.’
He asked if I wanted a proper look at the mare. My tearful reaction had clearly disappointed him, and indeed it was poor recompense for having brought her so far. We crossed the yard to the corner loosebox and he put a headcollar on her and walked her into the sun.
‘Well, miss?’
No tears this time, but precious little breath to answer him. You know sometimes when you see a special picture or hear a few bars of music you feel a shock to the heart, as if you’d just breathed in frosty air, a delight so intense that it feels like fear? Well, that was the way I felt seeing the mare. She was a bright bay, not tall, no more than fifteen and a half hands at most, clean legs and a long build suggesting speed, broad chest for a good heart. Her eye was remarkably large and intelligent, ears well shaped and forward pricked, small white blaze shaped like a comma. Above all, from the way she was standing and looking at me, she was used to admiration and knew she deserved it. Ton, the French call it, the highest praise for a fashionable lady or a dandy. The mare had ton enough for ten. She moved a step towards me, took the fabric of my sleeve very gently between flexible lips as if testing it, seemed to approve. I took off my glove and ran a hand down her neck, over her firmly muscled shoulder.
‘Who is she?’
It seemed fitting to ask it that way, as if she were a person.
‘The papers are here, if you want to see.’
When Amos had gone for the headcollar he’d also fetched an old leather saddlebag. There were two papers inside. One, dated the day before my father’s last letter to me and written on a leaf torn from a pocket book, made over the mare, Esperance, to T. J. Lane Esq, in quittance of all debts incurred. The other was her pedigree. Now, as far as human lineage was concerned, my father was the least respectful person in the world and would sooner take off his hat to a crossing sweeper than a royal duke. Horses were a different matter. His friends joked that he could recite the breeding of any racehorse that ever ran, right back to the two that Noah took into the Ark. I unfolded the paper and …
‘Oh Lord.’
‘Something the matter, miss?’
‘She’s a great-great-granddaughter of Eclipse. And there’s the Regulus Mare in there, and she’s half sister to Touchstone that won the Ascot Gold Cup last year and … oh Lord.’
The more I read, the more my head reeled. I looked at the mare, half expecting a pair of silver wings to sprout from her withers. She looked back at me, gracious and affable.
‘He reckoned she was a good horse,’ Amos said.
The flies were gathering and he said he’d better take her back inside. I followed slowly, trying to get back some composure. We were standing in the shadowy box, watching her nosing at the hay in the manger, when a dark shape came hurtling out of nowhere so fast I felt the wind of it ruffling my hair, making straight as a lance for the mare. I shouted, moved to protect her, but the thing was too fast and landed on her back. Amos laughed.
‘Don’t worry, miss. It’s nowt but her cat.’
A cat like a miniature panther, sleek black fur, golden eyes staring at me as she stretched full-length along the horse’s back. Rancie hadn’t moved a muscle when she landed. Now she simply turned her head as if to make sure that the cat was comfortable and went back to her hay. The cat set up a purring, surprisingly loud for a small animal, that made the inside of the loosebox vibrate like a violin.
‘Won’t go anywhere without that cat,’ Amos said. ‘We tried chasing her out of the cart when we left Paris, but they made such a plunging and a caterwauling, the two of them, we had to bring her into the bargain.’
I ran a hand along the cat’s velvet back.
‘What’s she called?’
‘Lucy, I calls her.’
We watched horse and cat for a while, then went out into the sunshine. A man with white hair and a red face was standing outside the tack room, pretending to saddle-soap a pair of long reins on a hook, but looking our way.
‘The owner,’ Amos said, with a jerk of the head and a grimace.
I’d been thinking hard.
‘That money my father gave you to bring her over – I suppose it’s spent by now?’
He looked unhappy.
‘I can account for every farthing of it, if it hadn’t been most of it foreign, that is. But it was all spent on her.’
‘I’m sure it was. But it’s gone?’
He nodded.
‘And the owner’s watching us in case we flit with the mare?’
Another unhappy nod, along with a look of surprise. Amos didn’t know it, but it wasn’t the first time in my life I’d seen that look – halfway between obsequious and hostile – of a man doubting whether he’ll be paid. My father always did pay, though, as soon as the cards came right.
‘So we owe him for her keep. How much?’
‘Two pounds three shillings, he says. He reckons it would have been more, only I’ve been helping him out a bit.’
I slid the cameo ring from my finger and put it into Amos’s large palm.
‘Would you please sell that in the town for me and pay him what’s owed. If there’s any over, keep it for your trouble.’
He looked at me doubtfully.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘I should be most greatly obliged if you would.’
His reluctant fingers closed over it.
‘What do you want me to do with Rancie, then?’
I said I’d let him know as soon as I’d decided, as if there were a world of possibilities open to me. He insisted on seeing me back to the door of the Heart of Oak, touched his hat and walked away.
I went straight up to my room, took off shoes, dress and stays, and lay down on the bed. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘so what are you going to do with her?’
Instead of answering that very reasonable question I fell into a day-dream, thinking of the way she’d looked at me and soft-lipped my sleeve, murmuring the syllables of her lovely French name, Esperance. I thought of what Amos had said about my father wanting me to see her. He hadn’t mentioned her in his letter, so as not to spoil the surprise. Then she’d turned out to be the last of his many presents to me. Esperance, meaning Hope. And then a hard little bit of my mind, not daydreaming at all, said, ‘At least a thousand guineas at Tattersalls.’ There was no ignoring it. I was quite sure that my father – having nothing in the way of property – would have left no will. Therefore all his possessions would go to his only son, Thomas Fraternity Lane. Only Tom was many thousands of miles away, not yet twenty-one, so I was, in effect, his agent.