An Angel for the Earl (12 page)

“What?” Kerry couldn't think. Johnny looked at him slantwise, then started to repeat his pig lecture.

Midway through, an exasperated Lucy shouted, “Hire him, you looby!”

A smile started to break across Lord Stanford's face. “Can you ride, John?”

“Well enough. I won't be doing any steeplechasing the way we used to, but I can get by.”

The smile was now a grin, lighting Kerry's whole face. “Tell me, my friend, do you believe in heaven and hell?”

Norris shrugged. “Hell was Waterloo. Heaven is every day I'm alive.”

So Kerry had a steward. And a secretary. According to Lucy, that clerk by the fireplace, Jeremiah Sidwell, had been dismissed from his recent position for reporting his superior's errors to their employer, who happened to be the superior's father. He was homeless, friendless, and a financial wizard. Just what a penniless earl needed.

Chapter Thirteen

The Earl of Stanford awoke in a better frame of mind in a too-short bed in a guest chamber, but at least the fireplace there worked. He threatened the butler and two footmen with instant dismissal if the chimney in his own room was not repaired by nightfall, he demanded an interview with his mother for that afternoon, and he sent a frigidly formal note to Goldy Flint via his new secretary, requesting an accounting. And all of this before his kippers and eggs. The earl was ready to greet John's brother Ralph at nine in the morning. In London he'd never be out of bed, sometimes not yet in bed.

He took a deep breath on his way to the stables. Yes, even his head was clear. What a relief it was just knowing Johnny was going to be there to help with decisions, Sidwell to handle the details, and Lucy to…well, be Lucy. He was used to her, kept peering around corners and sniffing the air for a hint of her presence.

Ralph Norris was thrilled with the idea of owning Stanford's hunters and was prepared to come down heavy for them. He'd even brought cash. The grooms paraded each of the horses out of the stable block and around the ring, and Ralph turned down only a chestnut gelding that had shown some swelling just that morning.

“Save that one for when you hunt with Westcott,” he advised Kerry. “The man's hunt-crazy. That's the way to get to his girl.”

“I'm not interested in getting to any—” Kerry began, but Ralph wasn't listening. He was staring at the bays, the perfectly matched, record-setting, bang-up-to-the-bits pair that drew the earl's rig.

“I've got to have them, Stanford. And the curricle. I promised the wife we'd go make a stir in London after the baby's born. We had to cut the honeymoon short. Morning sickness, don't you know,” he said proudly, making sure the earl was aware he'd gotten his bride in her current interesting condition on their wedding night.

The bays were just what Ralph needed, he decided. The price he offered was hard for a badly dipped man to refuse, especially when Ralph hinted he mightn't take the hunters if he couldn't have the bays.

Kerry looked at his bays again, and then at all the grooms standing about with long faces as they watched their positions being sold off.

The earl could do some bargaining of his own. If he was going to see his horses go, he may as well see the end of some other mouths to feed. “I'll part with the bays, Ralph, on one condition: you take on the stable staff that I won't be needing. You'll require extra men now, and you'll have to have them bring the horses over anyway.”

No amount of bargaining or blackmailing could get Ralph to make the mixed breed Lucky part of the deal. The untrained mutt kept jumping up on the earl, leaving stable-dirt footprints on Kerry's Hessians. The dog's barking disturbed the horses and interfered with negotiations, and he chewed up Ralph's gloves when he put them down to write a bank draft for the curricle and pair.

“Take him now or I'll give him to your son as a christening gift,” Kerry threatened, to no avail. At least Lucky wasn't as expensive as all those stablehands.

* * *

Ralph's check went to Sidwell for the bank; the cash went into Kerry's locked desk, not the vault whose combination was known to the countess.

“We'll decide on expenditures after Johnny and I make a more extensive survey of the estate, and after I hear from Gideon Flint.” Kerry wasn't even trying to keep his personal affairs secret. Why should he bother in the house when the county knew? Furthermore, the man was already conversant with the earl's financial embarrassments, having gone halfway through the past five years' estate ledgers before breakfast. Kerry checked; they were indeed the same record books he could barely decipher.

There were still hours to go before luncheon—Kerry had never realized how long the day was when one met it before noon—so he decided to make the tour with Johnny, before taking on Lady Stanford. Leaving Sidwell happily making notations, Lord Stanford returned to the stables, pleased with the day's accomplishments.

Until he realized he'd left himself nothing to ride. Johnny was astride a sturdy, well-mannered gray, and grinning. The old head groom, who was staying on along with Lady Stanford's aged coach driver and two young boys, scratched his head. The gelding had poultices on its leg. The carriage horses were placid, plodding beasts who had never been ridden. And Aunt Clara's old mare was as old as Aunt Clara. If the pony from Cook's cart could bear Kerry's weight, his feet would touch the ground.

“There's a horse fair in Farley today,” Johnny offered helpfully, still smiling. Kerry allowed as how it wasn't gentlemanly to knock a one-armed man off his horse.

The cash drawer was unlocked; Sidwell made more notations; Johnny would use the time to move his traps into Wilmott's cottage; and Aunt Clara's mare was saddled.

Lucy didn't even come keep the earl company on the long, slow, bumpy trip to Farley. Of course not. A curricle was exciting, fast, and flashy. A tired old nag was beneath Miss Faire's dignity. Now whose value system was suspect?

* * *

He'd be late for the interview with the dowager. Kerry was sure she wouldn't mind. He'd also be late for lunch by a few hours, so he bought himself a meat pasty to eat as he walked from paddock to paddock of the horse fair. In Farley at last, the earl vowed to walk home if he couldn't find a suitable mount. It would be quicker.

He needed a horse, but he needed money for hogs. Therefore he bypassed the front lines of horses on display, those he might have considered at Tattersalls. He also once considered a thousand pounds a reasonable price for a colt with potential. Those days were gone, so he tried not to look at the blooded cattle, the prime bits all curried and braided and prancing through their paces. The next ranks of horses were bound to suit his purse better, if not his taste. Meat pasties and someone's breakdowns, he reflected. How the mighty were fallen. Except he didn't feel diminished in the least; he felt more carefree than in years, almost boyish, dripping juice down his chin and planning to bargain like a rug merchant.

The problem was he couldn't find a horse worth considering. If the price didn't start too high, the horse was too old, too flashy, or too light for his weight. That one might be pretty in the park, but would tire under constant hard riding. This one was too excitable to be trustworthy anywhere outside a ring. One was a cribber, another was weak-chested, a third had a bad hitch.

Kerry did ask several grooms to put their horses through their paces, but none showed well. One rider even confessed his horse couldn't jump, when Kerry asked the lad to set him at a fence. Fine mount that one would be to get around land with fallen trees, streams, and hedges.

One horse did catch his eye, a chestnut mare with a white blaze. She had an intelligent look to her, and a nicely compact but graceful body. She just wasn't big enough for him. The mare would make a fine lady's mount, he judged. Too bad he wasn't in the market for one. Lucy would like how the mare came right over to have her ears scratched.

“Lookin' fer a nice ride fer yer wife, gov?” the eager horse coper asked, noting his interest. T'mare's trained to sidesaddle, she is.”

“Sorry, I'm not married.”

“Yer sweetheart, then. Fine gent like you has to have a sweetheart. Yer lady friend would look an angel on this pretty horse.”

Kerry answered, “My lady friend already is an angel,” and walked on.

“That was lovely,” Lucy told him, putting her arm through his.

The earl realized that patting an arm no one else could see must look ridiculous, but he did it anyway, hoping for the warm shiver her touch usually brought. “It was the truth.”

“The angel part isn't, and you know it, but I meant how nice that you consider me a friend.”

A comrade wasn't at all what the horse dealer had meant by lady friend, but Kerry didn't tell her so. He only repeated that of course they were friends.

Lucinda knew exactly what the trader meant; she simply chose to ignore it and be pleased by the earl's words. Smiling, she told him, “I am so glad. I have never had a friend before.”

“What, never? Not in the village or at school?”

“My father did not consider the village children fit company for me, and he believed that too much education is bad for a woman, so I was taught at home. You are my first friend.”

“Gads,” he said, jaw clenched, “I'd like to give you back what you've missed, show you some of the world.”

Lucinda only laughed. “I've seen more of the world in your company these past few days than any gently reared female sees in a lifetime! Gaming hells, bachelor quarters, taverns, bordellos, horse fairs. That's the real world, not balls and Venetian breakfasts.” She waved her hand around. “This is the real adventure and, look, there are no other women.”

That served only to remind him that she didn't belong in a rough place like this with men shouting who-knew-what back and forth across the aisles between makeshift stalls. Thank heaven none of the louts could see how charming she looked this morning, with a wide-brimmed bonnet trimmed with artificial cherries. There was even a lace overskirt to her gown, which was ridiculously out of place here amid the piles of manure.

The sooner he found a suitable mount, the sooner they could leave. Kerry approached the next row of horses with a less critical eye. He'd have to be blind to buy any of those, however.

Lucy must have wandered off while he studied a dappled gray that appeared passable, for she was back and trying desperately to get his attention over the surrounding noise while a groom led the gray around on a lead.

“Over here. Come on.” She urged him on to the corner of the next row, where high fences had been put up around a grassy area. Men were sitting on the fence or leaning against it, yelling encouragement or derision to whatever was going on inside. When they got closer, Kerry could see that a door, brass knob and all, was propped against the fence. Rudely lettered on the door was the legend: STALLION FOR FREE IF YOU RIDE IT. 20S. A TRY.

“You can't mean me to wager on this swindle, Lucy. They find a horse that's unrideable, then make a fortune at these country fairs off the cabbageheads who are vain enough to try. Next day they move on to the next gathering of gullible gape-seeds. Half the fence-sitters are in on the hoax, making side bets about how long the rider stayed aboard, how many bones were broken. They even keep the door handy to carry away the casualties.”

“Come closer, he's a real beauty.”

The huge black stallion was magnificent except for the mud and blood on his sides, the sweating, heaving flanks, rolling eyes, laid-back ears, and flaring nostrils.

Kerry stepped back from his position along the fence. “Lucy, he looks like the meanest brute in creation. No one is going to ride that bonebreaker. It's a waste of coin to try.”

“You could.”

He laughed. “I thought we were friends. Thank you for the vote of confidence, but this time I'll pass.” Kerry looked around at the crowd of men along the fence. “I see a lot of gamecocks cork-brained enough to try, but not one I'd lay my brass on.”

“I don't want you to bet against the horse. I want you to buy him!”

“Perhaps you didn't understand the sign. You pay just to try. No one gets the horse, because no one rides him.”

“Stop being so patronizing. Just because I cannot pick up a rock and throw it at you doesn't mean I cannot understand the King's English.
You
can ride the horse, therefore you can own the horse.”

“Lucy, that is the most foul-tempered animal I have ever seen. Why would I want to own him in the first place? I wouldn't wish that widow-maker on Gideon Flint. In the second place, I thought you wanted to keep me around for a few more days.”

“He's mean only because the owner beats him. The poor thing is frightened half to death.”

“Is that supposed to make me more eager to get in the ring with him? It doesn't.”

“But when the owner can't find anyone else to try riding him, he'll kill the poor thing.”

Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. He looked away. “That's what they do with man-hating horses, Lucy. It's the only solution.”

“But he's one of God's creatures.”

“So am I, and I don't want you shedding any tears over me, so I'll just keep looking for a nice horse that doesn't kill people for a living. Besides, this is gambling.”

“Not if it's a sure thing, it isn't.”

A sure thing, eh? Kerry walked around until he spotted the scurvy cur who seemed to be in charge.

“Had many take your challenge today?”

The man spat off to one side and jerked his head toward a bucket on the other. The bucket was almost filled with coins, most silver, some gold.

“That many fools, eh? And you still own the horse?”

The fellow spat again.

Kerry reached for his purse, then put his hand in his other pocket, the one with his lucky coin. “Do I get this back if I win?”

A tobacco-juice-dribbling nod was his reply.

“Then count in one more fool.” Kerry tossed his coin into the bucket and asked, “What's the bastard's name anyway?”

“Hellraker.”

“It figures.”

When Kerry turned from draping his greatcoat over the fence, Lucy was in the pen with the great hulking beast, stroking his nose and whispering in his ear. The stallion seemed to be soothed somewhat, to his lordship's amazement.

“He can hear you and see you?” Kerry asked without fear of being overheard by the screaming gallery of oddsmakers and wagerers.

“I told you, he's frightened nearly to death, that's why. Now, go on, get up.”

Kerry did, with the stallion's quivering acceptance. “Nice Hellraker, good Hellraker. Listen to Lucy, boy. We all do.”

The black let Kerry walk him forward a few paces, Lucy's hand on the bridle.