Six

The day of a horse race began before sunup, as Kate knew from groggy experience. Even before her maid had laced and buttoned her into her gown, Jonah and Sir William had been thundering around, alerting the whole household as they prepared to leave for the track.

Lagging a few minutes behind them, Kate gulped a cup of strong tea laced with milk and sugar. Beneath the soaring ceiling of Chandler Hall’s central rotunda, she bumped into Evan. “Ready to walk to the track?”

“Ready as I’ll be without another five hours of sleep.” He looked like himself again, Evan as she remembered him. Homespun and carefree, clad in well-shaped buckskin breeches and boots worn until the leather was supple as cloth. Wool coat and starched collar and cravat, all worn with touchable ease.

She reached toward him, fingertips brushing his sleeve. It was real. After all this time, he was part of her life again.

She drew back her hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed her silly little gesture.

Evan patted a coat pocket. “Half the servants of Chandler Hall are sending me off with their wagers.”

“Not all of them?”

“The other half will be at the track to place their own bets.”

Kate frowned. “I wonder why they did not ask me.”

“They wanted to ask me because I’m so handsome.” With a cheeky grin, he swung his hat atop his head. “Also, they didn’t want to bother you. You’ve gone into rogue housekeeper mode, you know—making up menus and telling the servants how to make certain dishes and checking on the horses fifteen times a day.”

“Only ten,” she murmured. “Though it ought to be fifteen. My father sorely needs a housekeeper and stable master.” Rogue housekeeper. The epithet made her smile. “A rogue housekeeper is the only type of rogue I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

“I don’t know about that. You look ready for anything today.”

“Do you think so?” She gave a little twirl. She had garbed herself in a riding habit and tidy plumed hat, a military look that made her want to square her shoulders and march forth.

Horses, crowds, anticipation. There was something in her blood that woke to the chaos of race day. Something she had not even known was sleeping.

“I have become a little interfering,” she admitted. “But you know I like to keep busy.”

“I know. I do too.”

This was true. She remembered that about him. How many evenings had unrolled like silk as she talked with Evan before a parlor fire? While she settled into contented stillness, he whittled wood into sleek shapes and tossed the shavings into the flame. She looked at his hands now, callused and tanned, marked and scarred.

He drew on a pair of gloves, and she was sorry to see his skin covered. “Shall we?”

She pulled on her own gloves, then rested fingertips on his proffered arm. “I don’t know which horse I’m going to bet on.” An odd flutter had taken up residence within her chest. But why? She had nothing at risk today.

“Bet on yours,” he said. “I certainly plan to.”

A rain during the night had left the ground spongy, but the chill dawn was clear and crisp. As Kate walked with Evan to the twin racecourses—so flat, yet they dominated the town—streaks of daylight-blue began to split the sky.

Strings of horses were walked toward the track, while carriages of all sizes and all levels of tonnishness were pulled by yet more. Silk-clad jockeys staggered by with their arms full of tack, heading toward the weighing room.

“Shall we try to find your family?” Evan asked. “If we can. I see Newmarket is full of early risers.”

Already, throngs on foot and in carriages gathered about sellers of race cards. Bookmakers who would later make their way to the betting post threaded through groups of spectators, their expressions avid and ears listening. Boys hawked newspapers. Broadsheets from the notable London horse dealer Tattersalls fluttered to gain notice.

“Only wait until it’s time for the races to begin,” Kate said. “The whole road will be blocked by carriages and wagons, and we’ll hardly be able to shoulder through the grounds. For now, my father and Jonah will be in the weighing room, probably.” Jockeys had to hop onto a giant balance before and after the race to have their weight recorded. Older horses were required to carry more weight than the youngest colts and fillies.

Sir William was racing two Thoroughbreds today: the infamous Pale Marauder, a swift but temperamental colt prone to false starts, and a two-year-old filly named Celeste. Kate had curried and crooned to the filly the day before. Moon-gray and light on her feet, Celeste would have her maiden race today.

For years after his legs were paralyzed, Sir William had been confined to his own lands. But after a trip to London, then Epsom, the previous year, he’d discovered that his wheelchair could be stuffed into the traveling carriage, and that losing the use of one’s legs was no reason to miss a race meet.

“Will they find a place from which to watch?” Evan asked.

“One place? I doubt it. They’ll try to watch from everywhere. If you keep to one spot, you won’t see more than a sliver of the track.”

This meet’s races would take place on the Rowley Mile. An arrow shot of manicured turf, the straight track was lushly green from autumn rains and deceptively simple in form. Kate had walked the white-railed line time and again as a teen. Here a bump, there a dip, and just when the horses were wrung and exhausted, a great hollow that had caused many a beast to stumble. Then a rise to the final post, an uphill climb on which all but the greatest of heart flagged and fell back.

Evan scanned the crowd. “Yet I do think I see your sister. Isn’t that her, tugging a bay through a puddle?”

Kate followed his gaze, spotting Hannah and a jockey in red-and-white striped Crosby silks leading a saddled bay. The colt had no liking for wet earth, evidently, for he stamped his hooves in the great puddle left from the night’s rains, bobbing his head with annoyance. Hannah laughed and said something to the jockey, and on they walked. To the parade ring, maybe, where bettors and competitors alike eyed the horses preparing to race.

“That must be her champion, Golden Barb,” Kate said. “We always used to hiss the Crosby horses. Now that Hannah has married into the family, we had better behave ourselves.”

“If a strange hissing sound comes from beside me when a Crosby horse appears, I promise I won’t look about for the source of the noise.”

“So generous,” she said.

“I know it.” Evan tucked her hand more securely in the crook of his arm, edging her past a heavyset man who appeared to be deep in his cups. “Such is the mark of true friendship. Your family is delightful, by the by.”

“They can be, can they not? That should not be surprising, as I’m one of them.”

“Did I indicate surprise? I am certain I did not.”

“No, you didn’t. You were a perfect gentleman.”

“Good for me. I managed it for once.”

“Well done.” Kate skimmed the growing crowd in vain for the black-and-gold silks of the Chandler stables. Once there had been a time she knew her father’s racehorses as well as she knew her own siblings.

“I am the one who’s surprised,” Kate added. “It’s not the same family within which I was raised. Not even the same house.”

She remembered her father as always traveling, always absent. Now he’d made a community and placed himself at its heart. It was sweet to see, but odd in its unfamiliarity.

The changes were all to the good—except maybe those Jonah had gone through. Who could be certain? He could not be coaxed to speak of his wayward wife, even to Kate. Instead, he had passed the years between Newmarket and the Chandler stud farm, where promising young horses received their first training for a life on the turf.

Kate had been trained in the same way, but she’d been less obedient than one of Sir William’s foals. Alone of the four Chandler siblings, Kate had found the people involved in the world of the turf more interesting than the horses. Because of this, she had been eager to leave Suffolk County; to meet more people and spend less of her life at the races.

At the moment, she was not sure why. A spark of excitement sang lightly over her, following her contours like a skimming hand, setting her to shivering.

“You are cold? We ought to get you indoors.”

Kate was about to exclaim hotly when she recognized the spark of mischief in Evan’s eyes. “Rotten man. You couldn’t pull me away from the track today with the promise of a million pounds.”

“I don’t think anyone will give you odds on that.” Evan touched her nose with a gloved fingertip. “Biggie.”

The touch tickled, and she batted his finger away with a laugh. “Unless you’re a Chandler, you will lose a fingertip for calling me that.”

“Delightful, did I say? I misspoke. ‘Prickly’ might be a better term.” Again, he touched the tip of her nose—lightly, this time wordlessly.

Kate’s breath caught in her chest. “It might be.” She hardly knew what she was saying. She tipped her face, letting his finger skate across her cheekbone, then trace the curve of her cheek and jaw.

A damp breeze blew, chilling cheeks grown suddenly warm. “I—” Now, what could she say?

I like it when you touch me, because you are you.

I am afraid when you touch me, because it is new and unexpected.

She swallowed her confusion. “Will you share an apple with me?”

This was not such a non sequitur as it seemed. Food sellers were setting up their goods, and the scent of roasted apples and cider sweetened the air. The warm fruit scent married with the earthy smell of horses: sweat and manure and the clean grass they ate, along with the oil and leather of their tack.

Overhead, the sky was fully blue now.

Evan dropped his hand, doffing his hat to her. “If the lady asks me to share an apple, I can only accept. But from where did she get it? I hope it was not given her by a serpent.”

“As I haven’t bought it yet, you can make certain of that,” Kate said lightly.

With Evan at her side, she threaded through the growing crush, following the scent of roasting sweetness until she reached a gap in the crowd. Here a ring of stones marked the edge of a low fire built of wood scraps and rubbish. Next to it stood a rangy chestnut horse harnessed to a farm wagon. Around the edges of the fire walked a man in rough homespun and a floppy farmer’s hat, collecting pennies from the crowd, while a stairstep of wheat-blond children held sticks on which apples were skewered. The red skins browned and split, spitting juice onto the flames with a hisss and a heavenly warm scent.

“We’ll have one,” Evan said, handing a coin to the farmer. The man nodded at the smallest of the children, whose apple was the brownest. Stick and all, the lad handed the fruit to Evan.

“For you, Eve.” As soon as they had stepped back from the ring of stones, Evan handed Kate the stick. “It’s safe to eat. No serpents in sight.”

“With this many horses about, they’d all be trod flat.” As Evan turned to converse with another vendor, Kate sank her teeth into the apple.

Sweetness flooded her mouth, then a gentle tartness. And heat, sizzling heat! Oh, the juices within were almost boiling. Opening her mouth, she fanned it with one hand as the other held the staked apple. Please, don’t let me encounter anyone I know.

Evan turned back to her, all wicked mirth. “Did someone bite into the apple right away? For shame, Eve. You’ll lose your tongue that way.”

“Iss hur-fect,” she said, still fanning her mouth. “I all-aze do this en I eet.”

“Perfect. Right. I remember the dinner parties you used to host, in which turtle soup was scalded and so were the guests’ mouths.”

Her grimace would have been much more quelling had she been able to close her mouth.

With some difficulty, Kate managed to swallow the piece of apple. “It’s good. Would you care for a bite?”

“I can’t take it from you. My hands are full of race cards.” This must have been his second transaction: Evan had got hold of the cream-colored papers on which were detailed horses, owners, trainers, and riders for each race.

“I…could feed you a bite.”

His grip on the race cards tightened. “That is true. You could.”

Which was not a no, don’t be ridiculous.

Which might as well have been a yes.

She scooted closer, into the lee of Evan’s frame, and held up the apple to his lips. He sank white teeth into the hot fruit, regarding her with unfathomable eyes the same shade as flame-licked wood.

Her cheeks went hot again. It was intimate, this feeding of a man with a plump forbidden fruit. She had not expected it of herself, or of him. She had not known it would be so difficult to look away, or to know what to do once she had shared an apple with him.

She felt naked, bared to her old friend in all her uncertainty. And with that bareness came a flicker of lust, uncurling warm and pliant as if waking from a long sleep.

“You were right,” he said, still looking at her. “It’s quite good.”

“I…thought so.” Breathless. Inane. But they were friends of long enough standing that he did not look at her oddly. He only smiled, as though whatever she did was right.

Then handed her a race card from the shuffle in his hands. “The first race of the day will soon begin. Would you and your apple like to move to a better vantage point?”

“There could hardly be a worse one,” she teased, the heat still high in her cheeks.

This was not an answer, precisely, but he took it as such, and she followed after him as he shouldered through the crowd. The racecourse was a crush such as Kate imagined a ton ballroom would be during the season, a crush such as she had not known since attending races as a girl.

Most of the steeplechases she’d known in Ireland were informal affairs, horse against horse, rider against rider, all against the unfurling of the terrain. From pub to church steeple or the reverse, there was more distance and fewer people.

Here the turf was tidy and circumscribed, and the crowds clustered at every inch. A half dozen races would be run that day, with the same number each subsequent day of the meet.

On race day, the stratified world of English society was stirred up and blended. Not mixed, precisely, for even here each group kept to its own. The Jockey Club had its own stand. The inner circle was a precious few pence more expensive. Some people sat atop gleaming carriages and breakfasted from hampers. Some ripped bites from slabs of brown bread and shared nips with dogs that inevitably wound through the crowd. The poor drank milk so thin it was blue, while the wealthy quaffed wine aged until it was garnet-red.

But the race cards were the same in every hand, as was the color of the money that slipped from fist to fist. Bookmakers wouldn’t turn down a coin, no matter its source.

That was familiar. So was the shape of Evan at her side, unyielding. Now, too, was the roasted apple she brandished at the end of a stick, like the world’s least terrifying sword. It was hers. Theirs.

He spoke to a bookmaker, making the bets for the servants at Chandler Hall. Then they followed the line of the racecourse, looking for a thin spot in the crowd. Kate hit a few people with her apple—mostly by accident, but it proved an effective way to gain them standing room. They crammed into a spot along the rail just past the treacherous dip in the Rowley Mile course. Once situated next to the track, Evan shuffled through the race cards.

“The two-year-old fillies are first to race,” he noted.

Kate peered over his arm to skim the card, then she poked through the others. Today’s other races were for two-year-old colts and for seasoned racers. There was a handicap race, plus two races staked by nobles who wanted their name on everyone’s lips. A new set of horses and jockeys would tramp to the starting line every thirty minutes, then run their hearts out for glory.

“My father’s filly, Celeste, is to be in this race,” Kate realized. “She’s carrying eight stone. Do you know the odds on her?”

“Five to one when I placed the wagers. She’s the second favorite. Her maiden race, isn’t it? She must have trained well.”

Kate agreed—though there was no denying the horses knew the difference between an ordinary gallop and a race. It was in their blood, the desire to run, to win. That vivid urge set them straining against the bit, lined up and waiting for the starter to free them.

“I would have bet on her no matter what,” Evan said. “I told her yesterday I would, when I visited the stable.”

Kate snorted. “And did she understand you?”

“She made the same noise you just did, so I believe she and I are on remarkable terms.”

“You do have a way with ladies.”

“Have I? How delightful.”

A yuuup rose above the low din, and the crowd nearest the starting line roared its excitement.

“They’re off!” Kate clutched the rail with her free hand. A swell of primal excitement buoyed the crowd: calls from many throats, following the horses down the Rowley Mile as they ran. Closer and closer came the sound, and before Kate was ready, a flash of black and gold whipped by on the back of a swift gray. Then white and blue, crimson and black, checked and patterned in a blob of color, the brightly clad jockeys on horses bunched so closely it was impossible to pick one from the next.

And then they were past, and she was leaning over the rail to see up the final climb—but so was everyone else, and there was nothing but a sea of hats and shoulders before her.

It wasn’t until the call went out from the finish that she realized the filly Celeste had won. A champion the first time she competed.

“Good girl.” Kate’s eyes prickled with moisture. “Good girl, Celeste.”

Oh, to win so quickly. To know what one wanted, and to run one’s heart out trying to reach it.

Kate had done so, for years and years. But in the end, maybe, she hadn’t chosen the right goal—to be the ideal wife and mother and countess. Daughter. Friend. Landowner. Widow.

It was too much to hope for. Yet how could she strive for anything less?

She turned to Evan, who was marking his race card with a stub of pencil. “The staff at Chandler Hall will be pleased with that race,” he said. “They’ll all get a few extra shillings in their pockets.”

“How did you do?” Caught in faraway thoughts, Kate was relieved her voice sounded almost normal.

“I put a pound on her, so now I’m a wealthy man. Once I settle up at the end of race day, I can buy you all the apples you want.” When he looked up from the card, his ready smile vanished. “Is something amiss?”

“Not at all. I’m perfectly fine. But I don’t need any more apples.” She took one last bite. The roasted fruit had grown sticky with juice, the flesh mealy as it cooled.

She was ready to let the stick fall, and the apple with it. But no; why let it be wasted? A treat such as this could tempt another. Turning, she scanned the crowd until she caught sight of the farmer who had sold her the apple—and of the raw-boned horse that had pulled the wagon of fruit to the race meeting. After a quick word to Evan, she shouldered her way through the throng toward the chestnut. Good creature. He stood calm and steady amidst the bustle, yet never got a taste of the fruit he carried. She tugged the apple from the stick and fed it to him on a flat palm, then handed the roasting stick back to one of the blond children.

There was one more role she played: horsewoman.

With an effort of thrown elbows and sheer will, she threaded her way back to Evan’s side. “What is the next race?” With both hands, she clutched the rail. “I’m ready.”

It was minutes on end before the festivities of the first race were completed, the purse awarded, and the fillies walked from the course to cool down. Somewhere, Sir William was celebrating—but not too much, for there was always another race.

The judge’s stand would be drawn further along the track now, the starting line advanced. The second on the schedule was one of the stakes races, with a plump purse collected from the entry fees of the stables that entered horses. Kate recognized the names of many owners, and even those of some jockeys. Racing was a tradition for generations on end, passing from parents to children.

Clouds covered the sky in coolness, and a light mist speckled Kate’s face. “The jockeys won’t like this,” she observed.

“Probably not. But the horses won’t particularly care.”

The crowd had never seemed to quiet once the first race was finished, yet somehow, the noise grew again. The great wave of sound crashed, as sure a marker of the race’s beginning as the flick of the starter’s flag.

Kate was ready this time, watching the track with wide eyes. A minute’s gallop brought the race before her: browns and bays, a chestnut and a white. The silks of the straight-backed jockeys flowed past in a colorful river, as the horses’ long legs ate the ground with a quiet thunder of hooves. And they were past, then, and another race was safely gone, and—

No! As the last horse streaked by, he stumbled in the hollow of the course. The colt’s quick strides went ragged, a lunatic shuffle and buck to keep his footing.

The jockey fell heavily to earth. It was impossible to hear the thud of his form over the crowd, gasping as one, but Kate knew the sound it had made. She had heard it two years before, when Con fell to his death before her eyes.

She pressed a gloved fist to her mouth, strangling her startled cry. The jockey was clad in buff and blue, and he lay still on the turf.

Buff and blue, the colors Con always wore at a steeplechase. Buff breeches, blue coat. He had lain still too, kicked and surrounded by merciless galloping hooves.

It wasn’t supposed to happen here. It was supposed to be over, done, wept for, and left behind.

There was an arm around Kate’s shoulders, a quiet voice in her ear. It’s all right. He’s all right. See, he’s already getting up. The horse is all right too. Everything is fine. Everyone is fine.

Determined, she swallowed the tightness in her throat, thinking of now. Now. She was here, and Celeste had won, and most people who fell were fine, and she was fine too.

She trembled, lost between past and present, until the warmth of the voice melted the ice about her. On and on it spoke, and finally, she realized it was right. The jockey had been shaken, but he hoisted himself upright and waved to the crowd. Shouts of delight, whistles, catcalls, and lewd offers followed. A stew of sound, relieved and grateful, happier to see the man rise safely than if there had been no fall.

He was fine. He was a stranger to her. Kate’s life would not alter again, heaping burdens on worries on uncertainties. She must pull herself together.

“He was last,” she said in a voice that hardly shook. “No one ran him over. That surely saved his life.”

“This must be the only time a jockey was grateful to hold last place,” came the reply in that blessed warm voice, and she realized it was Evan’s. Steady beside her, he had taken her into the shelter of his arm and talked to her until she came back from Ireland.

A hand was rubbing her back. Evan’s, of course. He had dropped all of the race cards in a scatter about their feet, the better to comfort her.

The better to take her, almost, into his arms.

She ought to step back, to assure him that she was fine, but she could not manage it. The sky still wept a chill mist, and she shivered as though she would never stop.

“Do you want to leave?” Evan asked. He tipped her face up, searching her features with his dark eyes. “I will see you back to Chandler Hall at once.”

“No.” She drew in a deep breath. Lifting her hand to his, where he caught her beneath the chin, she laced her fingers with his. And by God, she kept her chin up. “No. I don’t want to leave.”

But something within her had been startled loose. Shaken free. It was something that would not let go of Evan’s hand now, something that wanted to press into his side more tightly, to take the comfort he offered.

To take something new, and damn propriety, because there were so many ways to fall. Who better to fall with than a friend, who had held her so tightly?

She didn’t want him to stop holding her.

She rose to her tiptoes, speaking into his ear in little more than a whisper. “Tonight…” Her lips were dry, so she moistened them. “Tonight, I want…”

Could she say it? Could she even imagine it?

She could, and she spoke the words with a leap of faith that left her heart pounding. “I would like you to come to my bedchamber.”

His whole body jerked. “For what purpose?”

She dropped to the flats of her feet. With their laced hands, she bumped him in the belly. “For God’s sake, Evan. I asked you to my bedchamber. What purpose could I possibly have in mind?”

He was still now, and quiet as he studied her. “You are most beautiful,” he said, “when you yell at me. While propositioning me. In the rain, with the feathers of your little hat hanging over your face.”

Her heart thumped. “So…what does that mean? You don’t like my hat, or you are interested?” She swallowed. “Or both?”

“I lack the proper interest in your hat. But in you, I am interested.” He drew her hand across his belly, wrapping it within his coat. “I am decidedly interested. I am so interested that I will pretend to watch the remaining races, but I will be thinking of your intriguing proposal. When you took my hand in yours. Where you might put your hand next. Where—were you saying something?”

“Uh,” she replied with incoherent anticipation. He enfolded her in his arms, in his coat, and she felt armored for anything that might come to pass.

“Right,” he answered. “Couldn’t have put the matter better myself. Now, since we’re to stay and watch the other races, who do you think will win the third?”