The Prince of Midnight (27 page)

"I said everything in your satchel might bring four," he murmured. "You could
get—perhaps fifteen shillings, if you pawned the shoe buckles with the dress,
and a good three pounds for the pearl choker. Shall I put 'em on the shelf for
you?" he asked ruthlessly. "There's a broker just along the street."

She said nothing, but her eyes dropped.

"You could trade your diamond necklace," he said in a normal tone. "That
ought to suffice."

Her head came up sharply. "Are you mad?" she hissed beneath her breath.
"Don't speak of that!"

He smiled. "Oh, do you care for it so much?" He took her hand over his arm
and patted it. "Never mind, my dear. I can get you another where that one came
from."

"No!" she said, digging her fingers into his arm. "Stop it!"

He glanced at the man holding the horse, gave the faintest shake of his head,
and walked on. The disappointed horse coper bowed and led the mare back into
position.

The Seigneur dismissed the sedan chair and kept her arm. He stopped several
more times, causing other animals to be paraded with merely a glance. In velvet
and silk, Leigh knew that she and her escort were by far the most expensively
dressed of the shoppers. The copers began to go to lengths to attract their
attention and jockey potential purchases into good view. The circus atmosphere
of the fair heightened in their vicinity, with horses wheeling in circles and
being forced hurriedly into their best paces like troops of jugglers preceding a
king and queen.

At least one animal registered violent objections to this sudden activity. A
few yards ahead of them, just beyond a tall black gelding, a handler was
swearing at a big gray with a coat pale enough to be almost milky. The horse
lashed out with its forefeet as soon as it was asked to move forward. The
Seigneur stopped, applying a light pressure to her arm.

She was glad enough to stay at a safe distance from the battle that suddenly
erupted. The gray tossed its head savagely, hauling the handler right off his
feet. A circle opened around them. The horse fought, alternately trying to bite
and rear, while the handler hung on, yanking at the halter with what Leigh
thought was rather foolhardy enthusiasm, until she realized that there was a
chain looped over the horse's nose and through its mouth. Traces of blood
speckled the animal's lips and chest.

The handler danced out of the way of the well-aimed snap, and just at that
moment another man brought a bat down across the horse's nose. It squealed and
jerked around, eyes wild. Its head snaked out, and its teeth clamped with deadly
ferocity on the culprit's shoulder.

The man screamed and dropped the bat. Amid shouts and bedlam, the horse shook
its attacker as if he were a rat in a terrier's mouth. The man staggered as the
animal let him go, gobbling incoherently and clutching his shoulder while he
stumbled to safety. The handler had managed to knot the lead around an iron ring
in the wall and scramble out of range while the horse was occupied. As soon as
everyone cleared back, the gray horse stood still, sweating and swishing its
tail angrily. Bright blood ran down its nose.

The Seigneur moved forward, walking slowly around the horse in the open
circle that had formed surrounding it. The gray swiveled its ears back,
following his movement and breathing gustily, blowing cloudy vapors in the cold
air. It swerved away from him and cocked a hind leg dangerously as he bent to
examine its underside from a yard's distance.

"Recently cut?" He looked at a coper who was standing impassively by.

"Aye. Ye can see why. Rogue stallion—Spanish, if I was to judge." He turned
his head and spat. "Dunno where he come from, but he's made the rounds of every
stable in the countryside. Wasn't a stall that would hold him, and he ain't
never been backed. Tossed 'em all what tried." He nodded toward the man who'd
been bitten."Poor old Hopkins there's trying to fob him off now—fool thought
maybe gelding would take care of it, but as you can see, it ain't. He'll be off
to the knacker's yard—nowhere else to go after Hopkins. Nice pair with that
black, though, ain't he? They been the rounds together."

"Very pretty," the Seigneur said, looking at the second horse. "Perhaps Mr.
Hopkins will speak to me when he recovers."

The coper spat again and chuckled. "Oh, he'll recover quick enough when 'e
hears that. Jobson, say! Tell yer master to get on his feet and wait on me
lord!"

Poor Hopkins obeyed with as much alacrity as he could muster; his rather
bull-like face was chalky as he made his way toward them.

"I'm interested in the black," the Seigneur said, nodding toward the second
horse of the pair. "You will kindly show me his teeth."

Hopkins snapped at a hostler, and the Seigneur was given the opportunity to
view the horse's teeth, to run a hand down each of its legs and watch the
handler pick up its feet, to view it trotting away and back on a long lead, to
see it take a bridle calmly over its ears, and in short, have most of his
commands fulfilled with delight.

"I would like to see him ridden," the Seigneur announced.

"Surely, m'lord. I'll get a saddle fetched an' you like, m'lord. But I'm an
honest man, by the Bible, and I'd be lyin' an' I didn't tell you that this 'ere
animal, I've schooled 'im to be driven to a carriage. If it's a riding 'oss your
lordship be desirous of, I've got—"

"Never mind. I'll give you ten for him as he stands."

"Oh, sir, m'lord—" Hopkins began to swing his broad shoulders reluctantly. "I
didn't never think you 'us a man to be wastin' me time, m'lord. You're a
'orseman, sir, so's I see. You know 'e's worth a century an"e's worth a groat."

The Seigneur smiled gently. "Nothing of the sort. Particularly since I'll
have to take that evil beast that savaged you along with him."

A general chuckle broke out at this. Hopkins scowled around at the rest. "I
can see no need for that m'lord. By goles, I tol' ye I do be the honest 'un, 'oo
stands up by his misculculations. You could not give me no hamount o' money, no
sir, to let some poor innocent creature take on that rogue. I'll be seein' to
'im,
never fear."

"No doubt you will." The Seigneur shrugged. "Very well—I'll give you a
hundred for this one, then ... on the condition that I see you take him out of
the square alone. Without the rogue, my good man."

This simple request seemed to leave Hopkins at a stand. Then he said huffily,
"Do you think I'd cheat you, sir? Ye'd see me damned first! I do be 'appy to
take fifty now and fifty 'pon delivery. You just go on along to your tea, and
this 'ere 'oss will be baited at the stable of your choosin' afore dark."

"Mr. Hopkins," the Seigneur said patiently. "I've no interest in that. You
and I, and I daresay every other local man here, are quite aware that this horse
will not leave the vicinity of the other animal without creating an excessively
unpleasant scene. If I want the one, I'll have to take the other. I'm willing,
You'll won't get a penny on the pound from the knacker."

"Give over, Hopkins," someone said. "The man's got 'is eyes wide open."

"I do, you know," the Seigneur said kindly. "There's no hope of passing your
flummery off on me."

"Well," Hopkins sputtered. "By the Lord Harry!"

"I'll give you twelve for the two," the Seigneur said, "just because you're
an honest man."

Hopkins looked sullen, but he nodded. After a quick darting glare in the
direction of the bystander who'd spoken up, he stuck out his hand. The Seigneur
barely touched it for an instant and paid in Rye banknotes from his own purse.

"I'll send you word where to take them," he said, and offered his arm to
Leigh again.

"Awake upon every suit," she said tartly as they strolled away. "Quite the
horse trader. If the pair truly won't be separated, what use is the one you
bought?"

"I know horses," he said briefly. He was watching another two men arguing
over a leggy chestnut with a white blaze. It appeared that the gentleman holding
the horse's lead wished to return his purchase to the coper, vehemently
complaining that it refused to cross any body of water under any kind of duress
whatsoever—not to mention the flighty beast had backed his new curricle into a
tree in an attempt to avoid the ferry. The coper was equally vehement in denying
any intention of taking the animal back. As the level of their voices rose, the
chestnut horse danced uneasily, its ears pricked and its head lifted.

The Seigneur looked down at her. "Do you fancy him for yourself ?"

"Not at all. I fear there are a few streams between here and the north."

"I can take care of that."

She glanced at him, hardly knowing whether to believe in such simple
confidence or not.

He was watching the horse. "I like his lines. He'll carry you north, and no
mistake. That poor coxcomb who bought him's in a desperate lather. I can get him
for a whistle," he said.

Still she hesitated. The owner of the chestnut was shouting at the dealer. It
was quite apparent that the seller had flo intention of taking the animal back
at any price. "Perhaps I'll ride the stage," she said warily.

He looked down at her. "You don't believe me," he said.

"I think you're monstrous full of yourself."

He lifted one eyebrow lazily. "Would you like to place a wager on it,
madame?"

Leigh stood beside an oval paddock, shivering a little inside the Seigneur's
old buff coat, back in her breeches at his personal request. She felt more
conspicuous than before when no one had guessed she was female. But if she got
numerous interested glances from the small crowd of horse copers and farm boys
who ranged around the paddock ready to watch the show, it was worth the freedom
of wearing boots.

No one would touch her or make a rude remark, that she knew by now. The
eccentric Mr. Maitland, with his sword and his odd starts, seemed to have a
certain reputation in the neighborhood of Rye: a smuggler's town, where
audacity—and money under the table—spoke far more loudly than the law.

In the cold air, the sound of hooves beat a low, excited thud, interspersed
with the shrill call of the black that the Seigneur had purchased that morning.
It cantered recklessly back and forth in the oval paddock, neighing frantically
in the direction of a distant pasture, where the Seigneur's rogue and the
blaze-faced chestnut tore along the fence line with their tails in the air.

The Seigneur stood in the center of the little paddock with a long driving
whip. He was in his shirt sleeves in spite of the chill; his velvet coat and
embroidered vest reposed safely in the arms of a wide-eyed dairymaid sitting on
a stump. The horse completely ignored him, flinging clods of earth as it arched
its neck and dashed at a high-stepping trot from one end of the enclosure to the
other in its desperation to rejoin the other horses. It skidded to a halt at the
fence, hurled itself around, and galloped the other way.

"Look at this," the Seigneur said quietly. He addressed himself to Leigh,
disregarding the horse as wholly as it disregarded him. "Do you think this
animal's paying any attention to what I want?"

The horse chose that moment to pound past within a foot of him, snorting and
blowing frost in the frigid air.

"No," Leigh said. "I can't say that I do."

"Watch, then. I'm going to teach you something that's not
luck
,
Sunshine."

She leaned on the fence. Nemo bumped his nose at her waist, and she rubbed
his head. He sat down next to her and leaned on her leg.

"The first thing I want this chap to know," he said, "is that he's not alone
in here." He lifted the whip, which had a long, stiff shank doubled by the
length of its lash, and gave it a sharp crack. The horse flinched at the sound,
glanced at him, and continued to canter around the paddock.

He cracked the whip again. This time, when the horse came barreling around
the pen, the Seigneur took a few steps sideways, as if to walk into its path.
The animal skidded to a wild-eyed stop, turned tail, and went the other
direction around the ring. After one revolution, the Seigneur stepped forward,
cracked the whip, and changed the gray's direction again. The horse circled the
paddock, then threw its weight on its haunches, as if to stop and call out to
the others, but the Seigneur moved behind it, brandishing the whip and making a
chirruping noise, driving on the horse without ever touching the animal or even
coming close.

"Now does he know I'm here?" he asked.

Leigh watched the horse's high head carriage and plunging gallop. The sound
of its blowing was loud in the quiet air. "Barely," she said.

"Right. Watch him looking off over the fence all the time while he goes. He's
not thinking about me; he's thinking about having a champagne punch and a rubber
of whist over there with the other fellows." He stepped again to the side and
turned the horse with a cluck and snap of the whip. "I don't want the fence
holding him in—I want his attention keeping him here. How am I going to get
that?"

She frowned a little. "Are you going to whip him?"

"My sweet love—that's a stupid guess. Is he going to stay here if I hurt
him?"

She pursed her lips.

"Not if
I
hurt him, no," he said. "But if something else hurts—if
his lungs hurt, and his muscles ache—and I'm the agreeable fellow who lets him
rest . . . then we open a negotiation, hmm? We begin to communicate."

He flourished the whip and took a step, forcing the horse to turn. She could
see the relaxed concentration in his face, the way he never took his eyes off
the horse as he spoke, the familiar way he handled the whip. Every motion he
made was smooth and deliberate.

"For now, I just want to control one thing—the direction he's going," he
said. "These are the lessons for the present: he can run like the devil, the
faster the better . . . but he has to run the way I want him to go, he has to
turn when I ask, and he can't stop unless I let him."