Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [71]
For a few minutes fear, confusion and even grief itself were swept away in the sunlight and the rush of cool morning air against my face. I hardly needed to touch the rein because Rancie seemed responsive to my very thoughts. When the others drew up panting at the end of the gallop, her breath was coming as lightly as at the beginning. I found myself grinning with delight at one of the other riders, a red-haired lad with a pale face and no front teeth. He grinned back, saying something about her being a winner. I just remembered in time not to reply, and to pull the cap well down over my hair. We turned back to the stables in a line, some of the horses jogging and fidgeting from excitement, but Rancie walking calmly like the lady she was, between hedges thick with honeysuckle and clamorous with blackbirds.
Amos was waiting outside the gate, looking down the lane for us. He walked alongside as we came back into the yard and caught me as I slid down from the saddle. My head only came up to his chest, and I was half smothered in the hay and fresh-sweat smell of him.
‘Best get her inside her box quickly, with all this pother going on.’
The stableyard was in confusion. A large travelling carriage had arrived, dust covered and with candle-lamps still burning, as if it had driven all night. Four fine bay horses were being unharnessed from it and could hardly walk for weariness. The nearside front wheel was off and leaning against the drinking trough, its iron rim half torn away and several spokes broken.
‘What happened?’ I asked Amos, as we went across the yard.
‘Hit a tree a mile up the road. Driving too fast, he was, and …’
He went on telling me, but I wasn’t listening because I’d noticed something on the door of the coach. An empty oval shape, framed with a wreath of gold leaves, waiting for a coat of arms to go inside it.
‘What’s the trouble, lad?’
I suppose I must have stopped dead. Amos pushed me gently by the shoulder. Once the half-door of the loosebox had closed on us, he was all concern.
‘You look right dazzed, miss. Are you not well?’
‘Mr Legge, who does the carriage belong to?’
‘Two gentlemen from London, wanting to get to the hall. The fat one’s in a right miff because there’s nobody to get the wheel fettled. The guvnor’s sent a boy galloping for the wheelwright, but that’s not fast enough for him.’
‘Is he a very fat man, like a toad?’
‘If a toad could wear breeches and swear the air blue, yes, he is. You know him, miss?’
‘I think I might.’ I was sure of it, cold and trembling at the thought of being so near him again. ‘I don’t want him to see me. Where is he?’
‘In the guvnor’s office, last I saw. He was trying to convince the guvnor to take a wheel off one of his own carriages to put on the travelling coach. The guvnor offered him the use of his best barouche and horses instead and said he’d send the coach up to the hall later, but that wouldn’t answer. It’s the travelling coach or nothing.’
‘So he could be here for hours.’
And me trapped in the loosebox in my boy’s clothes, with Betty and the rest wondering what had become of me, probably being found out and dismissed. All the time, Amos Legge was untacking and rugging up Rancie.
‘I’ll have a look for you, while I take this over. If he’s still going on at the guvnor, you can slip out like an eel in mud and he won’t notice.’
He left with the saddle and bridle and I cowered back into the dark corner by the manger. He’d mentioned two gentlemen and I assumed the other one was the man who called himself Trumper. I feared him too, but not a fraction as much as the fat man.
There was still a lot of noise and activity going on in the yard and a sound of hammering.