The Favoured Child. Philippa Gregory

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      Richard’s convalescence from the fever and the mending of his collar-bone and arm progressed without any problems. The surgeon came from Midhurst again to make sure the break was healing and he told Mama he would not need to call again. Richard was irritable during the days when he was cooped up in his tiny low-ceilinged bedroom, but once he could come downstairs for his meals – looking very grand in Grandpapa’s old jacket for a dressing-gown – he became his old sweet-tempered self. I thought that his short temper over Scheherazade had come from the fever and the pain and the very great blow it had been to his pride that I should be seen riding a horse which had just thrown him.

      Bearing that in mind, I was discreet in my visits to the stables with crusts of stale bread for Scheherazade. I did not dream of riding her again, and I scowled at Dench when I met him chatting with his nephew Jem in our stable yard and he told me of a ladies’ saddle he had found which was being sold cheap.

      ‘I am not allowed to ride her,’ I said as I might have said, ‘Get thee behind me’ to my greatest temptation. ‘She is Richard’s horse, not mine.’

      ‘He can’t ride her,’ he said frankly. ‘He was always afraid of her, she was always unsettled with him. Tell him that you’ll ride her for him while his arm’s mending. Jem’ll give you a few hints on how to manage her.’ Jem beamed at me and nodded. ‘She needs exercising,’ Dench said. He made it sound as if I would be doing Richard a favour instead of giving myself the greatest joy I could imagine. ‘No horse likes to be neglected. She’ll get bored and fretty locked up in the stable all the time. Tell Master Richard that she needs to go out. He can watch you ride himself if it makes him feel any better.’

      ‘I’ll tell Mama she needs exercising,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to ride her.’

      ‘Pity,’ he said succinctly.

      Jem nodded. ‘You should stand up for yourself, Miss Julia,’ he said. ‘You’re the Lacey, after all.’

      I said nothing.

      ‘D’you want to lead her down to the orchard?’ Jem suggested.

      ‘Oh yes!’ I said. Jem turned to fetch her from the loose box and she came out in a rush. Dench stepped quickly aside and put a hand up for her head collar, but I stayed still. She stopped before me, as though it were me she had been in a hurry to see, and she dropped her lovely huge chestnut head to sniff at the front of my gown. I held her soft nose and laid my cheek along it.

      Then I saw a movement at the library window, and I froze. Richard was watching me. As soon as I saw him, I moved, instinctively, away from the horse, ashamed as if he had caught me rifling his possessions or reading his private letters. I lifted my hand in a little wave, but Richard did not respond. He stepped back from the window before Jem and Dench had turned to see who was there.

      ‘Richard was watching,’ I said feebly. ‘I won’t take her to the orchard, Jem. You do it.’

      Jem made a hissing noise through his teeth and clipped a rope on to the head collar. He and Dench exchanged one sour look, but said nothing.

      ‘I must go,’ I said, and turned away from the horse, the lovely horse, and went back to the parlour.

      It was a quiet day, like all the other days, and the only excitement of the afternoon came when Richard and I were playing piquet at the parlour table and I won one hundred and fourteen pounds in buttons. Richard declared himself bankrupt and ruined and tossed down the cards. He glanced across at my mama, sitting at the fireside, and asked her, as if he had just thought of the question, ‘Mama-Aunt, what is Lord Havering going to do about Dench?’

      ‘Dench?’ my mama repeated in surprise. ‘What about Dench?’

      Richard looked blank. ‘Surely he has been reprimanded,’ he said, bewildered. ‘After taking such dreadful risks with Julia’s safety that day?’

      Mama paused. ‘I was very shocked at the time,’ she said. ‘But when he brought you home, I was so relieved to have you safe that I said nothing. It was all such a rush!’

      ‘I would have expected you to be more concerned about Julia,’ Richard said, still surprised. ‘Didn’t she faint when she got home?’

      ‘Yes …’ Mama said.

      ‘If she had fainted on horseback, she could have fallen and broken her neck,’ Richard interrupted. ‘Dench should never have put her on Scheherazade. She could have been badly thrown. Scheherazade had just thrown me, and I had been well taught and riding for months.’

      Mama looked appalled. ‘I should have thought …’ she said guiltily. Then she turned to me. ‘But you seemed so confident,’ she said, ‘and you rode her so well! You could obviously control her. I just assumed you had been riding her around the paddock when Richard’s back was turned!’

      ‘No!’ I said at once. ‘I never did that. I had never ridden her before. Dench told me to get on her, so I did.’

      ‘It was very wrong to send Julia off on a big dangerous horse for her first ride alone,’ said Richard. ‘Astride too…and through Acre!’

      Mama frowned. ‘I have been careless,’ she said. ‘I did not think about it once I had you both safe home, but you are right, Richard. I shall speak to Mama about it.’

      She shook her head with worry and bent to snip a thread from her sewing. When she looked up, she smiled at Richard in gratitude. ‘What a good head of the household you are, Richard!’ she said. ‘You are quite right!’.

      I smiled too at the praise for Richard, and Richard sat back in his chair and beamed at us both with confident masculine authority.

      We saw Lady Havering the СКАЧАТЬ