BLINDFOLD (33 page)

`Don't be daft. I don't mind. Anyway, it's nice to see there's a soft and sentimental centre to that tough, practical shell.'

Fifteen minutes later and considerably wetter, Gideon and Pippa shrugged off coats and wellies in the washhouse.

`You don't really think I'm tough, do you?' she asked, almost anxiously.

`As old boots,' Gideon joked. `No. Perhaps I should have said business-like.'

`I know I made a fuss about the pups not being pedigree, but I love them just the same.'

`I know you do. I was teasing,' he assured her.

They went back into the kitchen where Mrs Morecambe had appeared and was rattling pots and pans in a busy manner.

`Are you staying for a meal, Gideon? This silly child hasn't eaten yet, so busy she was, mooning over what couldn't be altered.' `I'm sure Gideon would love to stay. I've never yet known him turn down the offer of a meal,' Pippa said with a sidelong glance. Gideon acknowledged the truth of this and within minutes Mrs Morecambe had magically produced hot soup, warm bread, sausage rolls, ham, pickles and flapjacks.

As they ate, Pippa told him that Rachel and Giles had gone to see a film together, which caused him to raise an eyebrow, speculatively.

`You don't mind, though, do you?'

`Mind?' Gideon queried. `No. I should think they'd be safe enough there.'

`No, I mean they seem to be seeing quite a bit of each other and, well, she is pretty.'

Gideon stared at her, tragically. `You don't mean ... ? Oh, no! You don't think Giles is being unfaithful to me?'

Pippa treated his play-acting with the contempt it deserved. She rolled her eyes heavenwards and then helped herself to a flapjack.

`So what are you saying? You think Giles is serious?' Gideon asked after a moment.

`I'm not sure. Would you mind very much?'

He bit into another sausage roll. `I think she'd be good for him,' he said. `But I'd miss having her around. What's that song called? "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face". Perhaps I should put up a fight. What d'you think? I'd hate to have to cook for myself again!'

`I don't think you're in any imminent danger. At the moment, I think she regards Giles in the light of a big brother. You're her all-conquering hero.'

`What a weird feeling! I've never been a hero before,' Gideon said thoughtfully.

`Oh, I don't know. You've always been mine.'

Gideon laughed. `Yeah, right! So how did your date go last night?'

`My date? Actually it was better than a date. I had a meeting with a course designer. Giles has offered to build me a crosscountry course here on the estate. Isn't that brilliant?'

The telephone rang, saving Gideon the necessity of responding, and Pippa jumped up to answer it.

`Oh, heavens! I expect that's Stephanie. Stephanie Wainman - you remember her. I told her to ring tonight because I knew I'd be seeing you. She wants to know if you'll come and sort out her horse. What shall I say?'

`What horse? The one you sold her?'

`No. That stallion I told you about, Whitewings. He's getting out of hand, apparently. What shall I say?'

`Oh, God,' Gideon groaned. `Okay. For the horse's sake, say I'll come.'

`When? Do you want to speak to her?' Pippa paused with her hand on the phone. `Quick!'

Gideon made a face. `Not really. Tomorrow, if she wants.' From what Gideon could hear as he polished off two more sausage rolls and a flapjack, Stephanie did want, and Pippa confirmed it when she came back to the table.

`She says she'll be in all morning,' she reported. `Actually, she sounds really desperate. I always thought that stallion would be too much for her but she would have it. I think it's a kind of status symbol, you know, like owning a Rottweiler. He's always been a handful but apparently he's got worse and worse. According to her, they can hardly get near him now.'

Gideon groaned once more. `Why do people leave it until things are totally out of hand before they ask for help?' he wanted to know.

`Pride?' Pippa suggested. `Or ignorance? But to be fair, Stephanie did get a behaviourist in a few months ago. Obviously it didn't work.'

The meal was completed in companionable silence and was followed by Irish coffee, served sacrilegiously in mugs instead of glasses. Gideon sat back to enjoy it in drowsy contentment, and if the Tom Collins affair nagged at the back of his mind, he lazily pushed it away. It had been a long day. Time enough for problemsolving tomorrow.

`I suppose you'll be wanting my car again,' Pippa remarked presently.

`Well . . .'

`Would you mind if I came too? It's a while since I've seen The Master at work.' She gave him a coy, sideways look.

`You can come if you promise not to mention the words "Horse Whisperer",' Gideon said severely.

Pippa laughed. `Okay. I promise. Guide's honour.'

They arrived at Stephanie Wainman's Chilminster home shortly after ten o'clock the following morning. The house was not as large as Graylings Priory but a great deal more self-important. Whereas the Priory had the look of having evolved comfortably over the centuries into its present sprawling, haphazard form, the Wainmans' residence had all the pomp of some Georgian architect's ego, and stood foursquare with Doric columns flanking the front door and twin flights of steps leading down on to an immaculate, pea-gravelled drive.

Gideon thought it exactly fitted the first impression he'd formed of Stephanie herself expensive-looking but lacking depth.

. The stables were situated at a short distance from the house, round a brick-paved courtyard with a central flowerbed. Pippa parked her car outside and they walked in under an arch with a clocktower, to be faced with a scene straight from a manufacturer's brochure. Even in the rain the place looked spotless. Paintwork gleamed, the bricks underfoot were swept clean, each stable bore the name of its occupant over the door, and there was not a rug or tool in sight. Even in the flowerbed, winter pansies obediently bloomed in regimented rings.

As they entered the yard, a long grey head appeared interestedly over one of the shiny painted doors, trailing a mouthful of hay. `He'll be out on his ear if he drops that!' Gideon murmured to Pippa whose mouth twitched.

They were met by a tiny, middle-aged man who identified himself as Mick Winters, the groom, and told them that `Miss Stephanie' would be down shortly.

,Miss Stephanie' appeared on cue, less than a minute later, accompanied by two cocker spaniels and driving what looked like a covered golf-buggy, even though the walk from the house could have been no more than fifty yards. She disembarked at Gideon's feet.

`I'm so pleased you could come. You're a real life-saver!' she declared with her best smile and an outstretched hand, apparently forgetting that she'd barely acknowledged his long-haired presence on their last meeting. `And, Pippa darling! How lovely to see you. You must come and say hello to Sebastian in a minute.' She kissed Pippa on both cheeks and hugged her, before turning back to Gideon.

`I do hope you can sort Wings out. Daddy says if you can't then he'll have to go, and that would be such a nuisance when I've got him this far. He cost a small fortune, you know. He's full brother to Popsox, the Olympic showjumper. I expect you've heard of him? Everybody has. Winters, have you got his bridle?'

`Yes, miss,' Winters said gloomily as they began to walk across the yard. `I haven't tried to put it on him though, and neither will LU

'Winters got bitten last week,' Stephanie explained. `And last month Wings knocked him out and got loose. We were away at the time but luckily he didn't go far. Winters found him down by the lake in the morning. But it's gone on long enough, this business. He's got completely out of hand.'

She stopped by the closed doors of a large loosebox that stood on its own next to what looked like a storage barn. `Well, here he is. Winters has the bridle.'

`Is the top door always kept closed?' Gideon wanted to know. `This side is, but he can see out of the back, into the field. If we leave this one open the mares call to him and he gets randy. It makes him even more difficult to handle.'

`You don't use him as a stallion, then?'

`No. We were hoping to but at the moment we can't trust him.' Winters held a stallion bridle towards Gideon but he waved it away. `No, thanks, Mick. Just a rope or lead rein will do.'

`You be careful then, Mr Blake,' the groom said, looking doubtfully at Gideon. `He's a real devil, he is! Evil!'

`Oh, I doubt it,' Gideon said lightly. `I expect he's just got his problems, the same as the rest of us.'

`Oh, stop fussing, Winters! He'll be all right!' Stephanie stated impatiently. `It's what he's paid for.'

You're all heart, lady, Gideon thought as he moved towards the stable door. Stephanie made to follow him.

`I'd like a little time with him, if you don't mind,' he said. `Alone.'

`Okay. Whatever,' she declared airily. `Be all mysterious.' Gideon decided to ignore the taunt but Pippa was cross on his behalf.

`Oh, for heavensakes! It's not that at all. Sometimes it's the owner themself that's part of the problem, so it helps to see the horse on its own first.'

`Oh, it's all right, darling. I was only teasing. Gideon knows that, don't you, Gideon?'

`Oh, sure,' he responded blandly.

`So, Pippa and I will go and see Sebastian. And I'm sure Winters has plenty to do,' Stephanie said briskly. `We'll leave Gideon to his whispering.'

As they moved away, Gideon opened the stable doors just wide enough to slip inside and did so, closing and bolting the lower half behind him. The stable was lit from the opposite corner by an open half-door that looked out over fields, which was exactly what its occupant had been doing before he turned to look at Gideon.

Neither of them moved a muscle.

In the yard outside, Stephanie's carrying tones could clearly be heard. `I wish I'd sold him two years ago. I had an offer, you know. But he was all right then, and I'd got big plans for him. He was going to take me to the Olympics. If I'd known what trouble he was going to be . . .'

Her voice faded as she moved further away, but Gideon was no longer listening anyway, his mind already completely taken up with a far more compelling matter: the instantaneous and unshakeable certainty that he'd at last found the mystery stallion he'd been searching for.

He looked quite monstrous as he stood across the stable from Gideon. Over seventeen hands tall at a guess, and in the light from the open door his coat shone a deep copper chestnut, but it was neither of these things that triggered the recognition. The horse emanated a buzz of energy, or personality, that identified him to Gideon as surely as if he had been labelled.

There was no aggression in his body language as he turned to look at the man who was invading his space, merely curiosity and a thread of anxiety that made his ears flick to and fro a time or two. He was a stunning-looking horse, and with his colouring and the long white stockings that gave him his name, it would have been impossible to have mistaken the identity of his famous brother, even had Stephanie not named him.

With an effort Gideon strove to push away the muddle of questions and thoughts that were crowding into his mind. He needed a clear head to focus on the stallion's own problems. He knew how dangerous this horse could be; he still had the fading bruise on his shoulder from their first encounter to remind him. The horse was quieter this time, of course, not stressed-out as he'd been before, but even so he began to show signs of agitation as Gideon watched, shifting his weight and raising his head slightly, nostrils flaring.

Keeping his own body language submissive and nonthreatening, Gideon moved closer.

It was the best part of twenty minutes before he opened the top door on to the yard and nodded to the others, who were waiting a little way off.

`It was so quiet, we thought you were either doing well or else he'd murdered you!' Stephanie remarked as they approached. She didn't look as though she'd been unduly worried, to Gideon's eye. `No, we're both okay.'

`So, what's the problem? Have you sorted him out?'

Gideon gave her a withering look. `You've been having trouble for how long? Six months? A year? You can't seriously expect me to sort it out in twenty minutes! I'm a behaviourist, not a bloody magician!'

`There's no need to be rude!' she said, her eyes flashing dangerously. `Christ! You may have a way with horses but you certainly haven't got much of a way with people!'

Gideon looked up into the drizzle and took a deep, steadying breath. `You're right. I'm sorry, okay? Now, about Wings. Do you always bridle him when you do anything with him?'

'We used to,' Stephanie said, a slight pout suggesting she still hadn't entirely forgiven him. `He won't let us catch him now.' `How on earth do you manage? Mucking out, grooming and such?'

`Winters puts hay out in the field in the morning and opens the door to let Wings out. Then he cleans the box out and Wings comes back in for a feed in the evening.'

`So you don't handle him at all?'

`Up until a month ago we did,' she said defensively. `But he's got so much worse lately, and Winters won't touch him since he got knocked out.'

`I'm no coward!' the groom put in hastily. `But he's a big horse and he goes mad. I'm not gettin' myself killed for nobody!' he finished, with a defiant look at his employer, who ignored him.

Gideon was standing just inside the loosebox with a rope held loosely around the stallion's neck. He rubbed his hand gently in a circular motion along the horse's powerful crest, and although Wings kept a wary eye on him, he seemed fairly relaxed. In spite of this, Gideon wasn't fooled. He knew that the closer his hand strayed towards the stallion's head, the tenser he would become.

`He's certainly not evil or mad,' he told them. `What he is, is very uncomfortable. He's in pain from his mouth - teeth, I should think, or a tooth. Anyway, he's terrified of being bridled. I should imagine it's become agony to have a bit in there. He's obviously come to associate human contact with having a bridle on, and he knows that hurts. Before long the bridle doesn't even come into it. In his mind, humans mean pain. Has he lost weight lately, or is he normally lean like this?'