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“You have passed the Saracen test,” the man called Stanhope said, a ghost of humour in his voice. “You must love horses.”
“I do. I ride quite often at home. Is he yours?”
“He will be. I am negotiating with your grandfather to purchase him.”
My image of my grandfather plummeted even further; what kind of a Philistine could sell such a beast as this?
“So he still belongs to Wentworth Hall?” I asked perhaps unwisely. “I shall have to see if I can outbid you.”
The wizened little stableman almost cringed, and even Stanhope blinked.
“And what would a lady like you do with such a beast?”
To my fury the wretch actually sounded amused! Unexpected, a long-ago memory of my mother surfaced. “You can laugh with a Wentworth, Clarissa,” she had said, “but it is extremely unwise to laugh at one.” My father had been indulgent and a jolly man, so her remark had made no sense to my infant self.
Now, as rage and affront coursed through my veins, it did.
“Ride him, of course,” I answered in patrician tones.
“Saracen won’t take no lady’s saddle,” the old stablehand said kindly.
“He’s right,” Stanhope said, an indulgent smile still hovering over his lips. “He is most definitely not a lady’s mount.”
“Good. Dare I ask you to give me a leg up, or must I mount on my own?”
All trace of humour vanished from his face. “You cannot be serious...”
Obviously, the wretch was not going to help me mount; fortunately, I had learned how to mount myself after taking a humiliating fall at our country place. Then, however, I had been (scandalously) wearing male attire and the horse had not been as big as a mountain. In my current temper though, such considerations mattered naught.
Snatching the reins from the startled stablehand, I flipped them over the horse’s head, grabbed the saddle fore and aft, and with a mighty jump and a strenuous pull, managed to get my foot into the stirrup; from there it was an easy process to swing my leg over. Or at least it should have been.
Male attire was much more suitable to riding astride, however inappropriate it might be for a female to wear. Worse, the voluminous skirts of my habit, while more than adequate for a demure sidesaddle, were nowhere wide enough for a comfortable seat on such a broad horse, and the long side train which covered my legs when mounted was suddenly transformed into a sail which flopped about everywhere while leaving my right leg exposed from the knee down.
Well, no matter. At the moment I had other worries. Stanhope, his face a hard mask of concern spiked with anger, rushed toward me even as the stablehand scurried away. He might have been wise, for Saracen was taking great exception to the situation, either from Stanhope’s precipitous approach or the flapping fabric of my skirt, or probably both. He danced and caracoled and tossed his head wildly, but I had a good grip on the reins and in spite of my unwieldy wardrobe, my knees were tight across the expanse of his back.
I had never ridden a horse so tall nor so wide, and his spirit made it both exhilarating and not a little unnerving, though I felt confident in my control of the beast. Better, he was beautifully trained and in spite of his temper, he leapt forward into a smooth gallop at the slightest command from my hands and knees. The grass flashed beneath his feet and, when a fence appeared before us, we soared over it with space to spare.
This must be, I thought gleefully, what flying is like.
We flashed down the field with Saracen’s feet seemingly never touching the ground, leapt effortlessly over another fence and were halfway down the field beyond that before I slowed him down to a gentle trot. He had worked out his first burst of energy and, while there was no way that he could be truly tired, I didn’t want to overdo it... not so much for him but most certainly not for me. My legs were already aching with the unaccustomed exercise.
Somewhere along the way I had lost my hat, a circumstance which did not distress me overmuch. I hadn’t cared for it when I bought it, accepting it only because Father had liked it, and by then he was so ill I would have done a great deal more to bring him pleasure.
The grass was thick and soft, the ground not overly hard, so the hoofbeats behind me were impossible to hear until the rider was almost upon me. He pulled alongside, and his horse - a handsome grey who would be considered to be of considerable size were he not beside the colossal Saracen – settled to a similar trot.
“Here,” Stanhope said, his face once more touched with amusement as he held out the sad wreckage of what had once been a fashionable if not very well-loved hat. “You lost this.”
I took it, ran appraising fingers down the broken plume, and shrugged before tossing it to the side.
“Pity you had to find it. I never was fond of it.”
“That is indeed a pity,” he agreed, “It was most becoming. And its current condition would not help your case.”
“My case?”
“With your family. Someone in the house saw you mount…” he hesitated at the verb, for which I could not blame him; it had been sublimely ungraceful, more of a scramble than a proper mount “…and I could hear the screaming even from the stable. When I left to go after you, I had the unusual sight of your Aunt Lucinda and your grandfather running across the lawn. I didn’t know Sir Mordecai could still run.”
He gave an embarrassed little laugh.
