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Her face creases for a second, but she rights herself. “So?”
“Lolly, this is crazy.”
“Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing. Looks like a sad sack standing in a barn in Gloucestershire, pimping himself out to the highest bidder after failing to bed a woman with an unlimited checkbook. Or bedding her and still failing to secure the necessary funding.” She has tears in her eyes. Over something that didn’t happen. It’s infuriating. I hate that this could be cleared with a single, honest conversation, but how do I convince someone who refuses to be convinced? “The picture said it all, Mariano. A thousand words, at least. Compounded by your failure to tell me…”
I reach for her, but she flinches away. “That’s not what happened. I never…”
She turns and heads for Rum Punch’s stall. This newest mare is barely out of training and given to wild bursts of energy and erratic fits of temper. While any horse might become impatient at the slowness with which our groom, Peter, tacks up the horses, Rum Punch has more spirit than most. She has repeatedly made her opinions known, trapping Peter against the wall with an ominous swing of her hindquarters that means a kick shall shortly be delivered. She has fight—a desirable trait among polo ponies—but it is not yet properly focused.
“Has she been turned out?” I don’t want Lolly to have any difficulties, least of all a fall.
She whirls, her eyes wild with fury. “You think I can’t handle her?”
“Not at all… That’s not what I…” But she doesn’t wait to hear what I have to say. She’s checking Rum Punch’s girth strap and leading her out of the stall, the dark gray filly only too happy to head to the field where the students are already assembled.
“Today, to further prepare for our exhibition match with theGolden Horseshoes, we’re going to be pairing up and practicing riding with another rider close by.” Lolly’s voice is a click too loud, as if she is making a point of showing me she is moving on with her work and has no further time for me.
“When do we get to play? With a mallet? On a horse?” Alan is up in Lolly’s face. “Because that’s what I signed up for.” Alan smacks Rum Punch on the rump, as if to punctuate his irritation.
Rum Punch responds immediately, letting loose a double-barreled kick that looks more like an ancient warfare tactic, only narrowly missing Alan. He stumbles backward with a yell, while Lolly tries to calm the filly. I want to run onto the pitch and take this threataway from her, but that would be a terrible message to send to the group, especially when the instant she’s settled the horse, she launches into an explanation—patiently and kindly given—of why no one should ever slap a horse on the rump. As if there is any question now: horses are unpredictable and dangerous. I have no doubts about Lolly’s skill—she’s one of the best horsewomen in the world, and she barely knows it. I’m kicking myself for allowing her to think otherwise. I only meant…
“How’s things going, soldier?” Pippa slaps me on the back, which, given that I am shirtless, echoes through the barn and down to the pitch.
Rum Punch flinches as if she might spook again, or worse, and Lolly turns but whirls away just as fast. Great, now she thinks either I’m trying to sabotage her, or I have something going on with Pippa. “She still mad at you?”
Word has spread, though you’d have to be a dunderhead—a word I picked up when talking to my British teammate, Mick Anderson—not to have noticed that Lolly of the Laughter laughs no more and Mariano Arias is a miserable SOB. But even when Lolly’s angry, she’s beautiful. Somehow managing to keep Rum Punch at a safe distance with only the reins looped over one arm, she gives Alan a leg up on Sapphire, the sweetest, most tolerant of our polo string. Then, in one fluid motion, she mounts Rum Punch from the ground, easily weaving around and through the students, encouraging them to get close to one another, discussing safety, urging them to try trotting while she effortlessly guides her own horse, keeping the impatient mare busy and active and moving at all times—exactly what the horse needs to be calm in her mind.
“No word yet on the sender.” Pippa startles me from my admiration, and it takes a moment to process that she means she’s already begun her search for the person who tried to make me out as some kind of gigolo (admittedly, after I’d decided that life wasn’t for me). She’s fast. “But the bouncing IP address didn’t stop my chaps from finding out that the leak was a single source.”
“Single?”
“Yup. Whoever sent the picture of you in the lift and the car also hacked Gordon’s cloud and downloaded the pictures from the opening gala.”
“Mariano!” Johannes uses my shirt as a flag. “Let’s see if this will work?”
But the shirt-as-flag has done more than capture my attention. It startles Sapphire, Alan’s mount. Sapphire is as bombproof as can be expected of any horse, but her smallest of spooks unseats Alan.
“Sit up! Sit up!” But Lolly could repeat that advice a million times, and it would never do Alan any good. It is already too late for Alan to sit up. He is either going to fall, or something much worse. Time slows as if I am watching match footage frame by frame as Alan’s legs swing, pitching him farther forward.
I run for the field toward where Peter is holding Whiskey.
Lolly calls out more impossible orders to Alan. “Pull on one rein! Turn her!” But Alan has thrown his arms round Sapphire’s neck, the reins dangling dangerously.
Her orders aren’t all fornada,because the other students, whose horses are also becoming agitated, manage to circle and keep their horses under control. That is a lucky thing, as is the fact that Alan manages to force himself more upright. He stays aboard Sapphire, but in the process he makes the mistake of every beginning rider the instant they lose their balance: he grips with his legs. His clutching sends her forward, tells her thatsí, there is something about that shirt waving in the air that should terrify her. His frantic yelling at her to “Stop! Woah! Woah!” does not help either.
If I were a few moments faster, I could catch Sapphire’s reins. But I am not so fast on foot. The split second when all of this could become a good save and we could pat Alan’s back and tell him “well sat!” ends the moment Johannes, who has the instincts of a journalist and the horse-sense of anaguaymantoberry, throws down my shirt to snatch up his camera with itsteleobjetivo gigantelens. The mare catches the movement out of the corner of her eye and does what any horse with no trust for its rider would.
She bolts.
Sapphire springs with the cattiness and speed polo ponies are prized for and charges down the pitch as if she were blasting for a goal.
Pippa has only just finished telling me that this man is integral to whatever the government has planned for this country, and now he is hurtling across the field on an ex-racehorse in flight mode. Alan leans first to one side and then flops to the other, his body’s jerking motions not boding well for his muscles tomorrow. And the faster Sapphire goes, the tighter Alan grabs with his legs—sending her even faster.
“Todos los estudiantes! Dismount!” I shout it at the same instant I am leaping aboard Whiskey.
Lolly’s head whips toward mine and understanding ignites between us in a blink. We and our mounts are again four minds with a singular goal. Lolly crouches forward as a jockey might, and Rum Punch leaps forward. Whiskey is fast—the fastest of our lesson string—but Rum is fresh and young, and she responds to Lolly’s urging.
All the while Alan shouts as if he is riding a roller coaster he wants to get off.
