Cut Throat (7 page)

His stomach had tied itself into knots and he had had to force himself to eat a reasonable breakfast, knowing he would need the energy later. A supportive team would have been a great plus, but Ross had the uneasy feeling that neither Leo nor Bill would be too devastated if he made a fool of himself. At present, Leo sat beside him in unfriendly silence.

‘What's the time?' Ross asked as they slowly began to gain speed on the main road, ears attuned to the muffled thuds in the back as the horses shifted to maintain balance, and one eye on the video monitor that allowed him to see in black and white miniature how they were travelling.

‘Haven't you got a watch?' Leo returned cockily.

‘Sure, but I can't find it . . .' Ross' voice tailed off and he glanced sideways at Leo, who wore what could only be described as a smirk.

‘Have
you
got it?' he demanded.

‘What would I want with your watch, Yank? I've got one of my own.' He pushed up his sleeve to reveal an extremely expensive-looking timepiece.

Ross wasn't sure what to think. He had taken the watch off while he washed the stable stains from Cragside's pale grey coat and could have sworn he'd put it on the shelf above the sink in the tackroom but it wasn't there when he went back. It hadn't occurred to him before that anyone might have taken it, but now . . .

If it had indeed been Leo, then it seemed that that one act of revenge had satisfied the groom, at least for the time being, for when they reached the showground he became a model of efficiency. He unloaded and tacked up the horses as they were needed, folding and tidying rugs and leg protectors ready for reuse, and even warmed up King while Ross walked the course.

Once in the saddle, Ross' nerves evaporated. This was his job. He knew exactly what had to be done and he would do it. Lifted by Ross' confidence, King's Defender took his first class easily and added a fourth place later in the day.

Cragside, the Colonel's big, solid grey, jumped a slow but careful clear in both his classes but lost to far faster animals, and Simone rounded the day off with a first and a third in her speed classes.

Colonel Preston had arrived shortly after ten o'clock, driven by Masters, and watched the proceedings with every appearance of satisfaction. Even Bill Scott looked a little less sour as the day wore on.

The Colonel appeared in the horsebox park as the horses were being loaded for the return journey.

‘All well?' he asked.

‘Sure.' Ross heaved up the spring-loaded ramp with Leo's help and secured it in place. ‘Simone's nicked the inside of her knee somehow but it's nothing much. I'm pleased with them – they all did well.'

The Colonel nodded. ‘You didn't do so badly yourself,' he said. ‘For a Yank.'

‘Thank you, sir.' Ross smiled, well satisfied.

The next day the ground began to crumble under his feet.

It was Monday, officially the yard's day off. Leo and Sarah were free to do what they pleased and Bill looked after the horses with help from a local farmer's daughter, mucking out and feeding, then turning the resting horses out to grass to relax for the day. Bill's rest day was supposed to be Tuesday, but according to Sarah, he seldom took it.

Ross rose later than normal, but out of habit went down to the yard to help, unable to remain idle. The day stretched ahead of him uninvitingly, and over breakfast he voiced his intention to ride some of the horses that had missed out on exercise the day before. He wondered aloud whether Bill fancied joining him but the older man muttered something about having work to do and disappeared into the stable office, shutting the door firmly behind him. Shaking his head, Ross turned to collect the first saddle and bridle.

After working Bishop in the arena for an hour, he saddled Ginger and set off to explore the countryside, thankful to be free for once from Sarah's nervous awkwardness and Leo's sullen presence.

He made his way down the lane behind the Manor and past some farm cottages. When a heavily built German Shepherd came leaping and snarling to the end of its chain as he passed, Ross instinctively tightened his grip on Ginger, remembering her sudden panic with Sarah. But nothing seemed further from her mind today. She remained docile, almost lazy, her long ears flopping back and forth with the movement of her stride. This was how she normally behaved. Even when jumping she was scarcely more animated, clicking her toes over each fence, often bringing a light pole down as she skimmed over.

Ross relaxed and turned his attention to the beauty of the Wiltshire countryside. It was early summer and the leaves still looked fresh and new. Birds sang and the sun was warm. After the vast unchanging tracts of land in parts of his native America, impressive as they were, England's leafy lanes, copses and green fields enchanted Ross. They seemed somehow intimate; they narrowed life down to more manageable proportions. Lindsay had often said that America made her feel insignificant, like looking up into the night sky. With a surprising twinge of loneliness, Ross realised how much he was missing her and wondered how soon she would return to England. She still had three months of the planned year to run, but had mentioned the possibility of cutting her visit short.

As he rode down a narrow bridleway and into the shelter of a valley the sun became quite hot and flies began to buzz around both horse and rider. Ross broke a whippy branch from a willow tree and used it to fan his face. Ginger swished her tail and shook her head.

‘The flies bothering you too, girl?' he asked, and leaned forward to flick the leafy branch round her ears.

She stopped dead, her body taut and quivering.

‘What the . . . ?' Ross laughed. ‘Come on, girl. Stop messing me about.'

Ross didn't normally carry a whip out hacking, he didn't find it necessary, but now he wished he had one. In spite of his urging her with legs and voice, the chestnut mare refused to budge. Exasperated, he stung her with the twig in his hand.

With a high-pitched squeal the mare bolted.

When a horse is hell-bent on running there is little any rider, however strong, can do to stop it. Ginger was no exception. Catching him unprepared, she ripped the reins through his fingers and ran. The bottom of the valley was reached in no time and she floundered in the boggy stream that ran through it, almost pitching Ross over her head. He threw his weight back and she leapt clear of the soft ground, heading at top speed for a copse halfway up the valley side. Ross searched ahead desperately for a gap in the trees large enough to admit a horse and rider at speed, and found none. Ginger showed no sign of stopping.

Ross contemplated baling out, but thoughts of several thousand pounds' worth of showjumper charging riderless through the countryside and his own aversion to walking home kept him in the saddle. He abandoned attempts to slow the mare, throwing all his weight on to one rein instead, in an effort to turn her. Gradually she came round, and without slackening speed tore down the valley side again, through two gorse bushes without seeming to see them, and plunged into the bog once more.

At this point, lower down the valley, the bog was deeper and wider and as her forefeet sank into the mud, her momentum carried her body up and over to land heavily on her back. Ross was catapulted clear, hitting the soft ground with his shoulder and rolling to his feet, the reins, from long practice, still gripped firmly in his left hand.

Ginger regained her feet swiftly and lunged clear of the marshy ground, dragging Ross with her for a few feet before stopping. Her ears were flicking back and forth in agitation and her whole body was coated with a mixture of foaming sweat and peaty mud. Her lungs worked like bellows driving air through scarlet-lined nostrils, and she shook with the violence of her heartbeats.

‘Steady, girl. Easy does it.' Ross kept his voice low and steady, trying to convey a calmness he was far from feeling.

Ginger stared past him with white-rimmed eyes, her attention apparently focused on some terror he could not comprehend. Then, suddenly, she heaved a shuddering sigh and was quiet.

Ross stepped closer and patted her. She seemed relaxed now and very tired.

He automatically straightened the saddle and picked bits of moss out of her muddy mane, then leaned weakly against her neck with his eyes closed and began to shake uncontrollably.

Ross suffered no physical ill effects as a result of his fall and neither, as far as he could tell, did the mare.

The yard was deserted when he returned and he was able to clean up Ginger and her tack, as well as changing his own grass-stained clothing, before Bill appeared to do the midday feeds. He apparently noticed nothing amiss and Ross did not mention the incident, feeling that admitting the mare had bolted with him would do little to enhance the stable manager's already doubtful opinion of him. He would make sure, though, that Sarah didn't ride the mare out again.

That night the nightmares returned with a vengeance.

Tuesday dawned clear and sunny. Ross trudged downstairs and out into the yard feeling as though he hadn't slept for a week. He paused at the water trough halfway to the stables and sloshed ice-cold water over his head, gasping as it ran down his back, inside his shirt. He knew he would have to ride Ginger again, later, but worked mechanically through the usual tasks, trying not to dwell on the fact until gradually his natural resilience began to reassert itself.

After breakfast he rode Flowergirl out in the fields with the others and survived a spirited attempt to buck him off when he gave her a pipe-opening gallop. He rode back to the yard still buoyed up by the exhilaration of their headlong charge and half-believing he had imagined his fears of the day before. If only he could get the picture of Ginger's wild, unfocused stare out of his mind . . .

He passed the brown mare's reins to Sarah and went to get a beer from the refrigerator in the stable office next to the tackroom. When he returned, Bill was leading Ginger out into the sunshine. The mare was due for a schooling session as she was entered in an evening show the following day, and Ross wasn't sure whether to be pleased that he was riding her within the confines of the arena or unhappy that Bill would almost certainly be watching him.

Once aboard, any apprehension he may have had vanished. She was just a horse, like many others he had ridden; no more or less dangerous than King or Bishop. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that she was a chestnut mare, as Vixen had been. Vixen had had a brain tumour; a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Ginger was just a little moody, as redheads often are.

The schooling session went smoothly. Ginger did all that was asked of her obediently, if not exactly eagerly. Bill seemed pleased, which was unusual for him.

‘Perry Wilson used to say that mare would be good one day,' he told Ross. ‘Douglas didn't like her, but she seems to go well for you.'

Ross thrust his doubts aside. ‘She can certainly jump when she feels like it,' he agreed. ‘Let's hope she feels like it tomorrow.'

Bill nodded. ‘Mr Richmond has just arrived. He's brought Peter with him. He's got a day off school. I think he's hoping to see you ride Clown.'

Peter, Ross had learned, was Franklin Richmond's twelve-year-old son, whose developing passion for horses had been rewarded by the birthday gift, some months before, of Clown, an extravagantly marked skewbald. Stephen Douglas had apparently made no headway at all with this exuberant youngster, who, at six, was just being introduced to serious training.

Leo had brought Clown out and as Ross relinquished Ginger to Sarah, he could see Franklin running knowledgeable hands over the horse, watched by Bill and a slim, fair-haired boy. Clown was an eye-catching animal, which was probably why Peter had chosen him, with irregular splodges of white on a shiny brown coat. He was tall and a little narrow with bright, eager eyes. Ross liked him.

‘Morning, Ross.' Franklin turned to meet him with a smile. ‘Shame about that horse on Thursday, wasn't it?'

‘Yeah. Good-looking but devious,' he agreed, straight-faced. ‘I told Bill he didn't miss much. Not his sort at all.'

‘Anyway, this is my son Peter, who's got a day off school today,' Richmond said, putting his hand on the boy's head. ‘Peter owns Clown.'

The boy glowed with pleasure and held out his hand to Ross, a touch of shyness in his serious grey eyes.

‘Hi, Peter. That's a fine animal you have there.' Ross shook the small hand solemnly.

‘He's out of a Grade-A jumping mare, by the son of a Grand National winner, so he should jump.' Pride echoed in every syllable of Peter's voice.

‘Oh, he will,' Ross assured him. ‘Once we get him settled and his mind on the job.'

The schooling session went well, on the whole, although it was Ross' third ride in quick succession and his knee was beginning its familiar dull ache of protest. Clown put on a rodeo act to the delight of his youthful owner. Ross stuck with him, a little embarrassed at his inability to get him settled, but eventually the skewbald had worked off his high spirits and began to work quite sensibly.

It was clear, as he rode up to the gate at the end of the session, that Clown's exhibition had done Ross no harm in Richmond Junior's eyes. He regarded Ross with something akin to hero worship as the American leapt down and offered the boy a ride back into the yard.

Ross was dog tired that night and rolled into his bed and a deep slumber that neither unpleasant dreams nor the discomfort in his knee could disturb.

Ross encountered Stephen Douglas for the first time at the Lea Farm indoor show the next evening. The Oakley Manor horses were in sparkling form. Ross was accompanied once more by Leo, who was in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. He managed the horses with his usual rough-edged efficiency and Ross found himself wishing, for the umpteenth time, that the groom was a little easier to get along with. They could have made a good team.