Riding In the Sky Page 8

  She was sure that he suspected she was putting on an act for his benefit, so she said quickly,

  “I do mean it. I would much prefer no one to notice me – and thank you for – arranging that I could – borrow your sister’s gown.”

  “It certainly becomes you,” the Marquis said, “as I expect a great number of people will tell you before the evening is finished.”

  “I would hope – not,” Filipa said, almost beneath her breath.

  She was thinking of Lord Daverton.

  She was not aware that the Marquis was once again looking at her in surprise.

  Then, to her relief, everyone’s attention was concentrated on Lulu, who swept into the room looking like a Bird of Paradise.

  Her dress glittered all over with diamanté and her bustle was made of feathers. But, instead of the crimson she had worn on the Racecourse, she was now wearing peacock blue and looked even more dazzling than ever.

  All the gentlemen seemed to move towards her and she was talking loudly and excitedly in her uneducated voice.

  At the same time she looked exceedingly lovely.

  She kissed first the Marquis and then Mark before she slipped her arm through Lord Daverton’s and said,

  “We haven’t done so badly, have we, darling? I think we’re now both entitled to enjoy ourselves.”

  “That is what I intend to do,” Lord Daverton said in a plummy voice that reminded Filipa of rich port.

  She was, however, aware that even while Lulu was pressing her body against him, he was looking across the room at her.

  Instinctively she moved away to look at one of the pictures on the wall.

  As she did so, she put the glass of champagne that the Marquis had given her down on a side table.

  She thought that it would be risky for her to drink it.

  Only occasionally at Christmas or at birthday celebrations had she drunk wine with her father.

  She was afraid that, if she drank even a small amount, it might make her forget how careful she had to be not to make anyone, especially the Marquis, suspicious that she was not a Pretty Horse-Breaker.

  Next they all went in to dinner.

  To her relief she found that this time she was not seated next to her host nor was Lulu.

  In fact he had chosen as his partner the Pretty Horse-Breaker who had been dressed as a Queen and the one who had been a Pierrette.

  Everyone else, however, was paired as they had been at luncheon.

  Filipa had Mark on one side of her and on the other a man she had not noticed before, who was obviously far too interested in the girl on his left to say very much.

  This meant, Filipa thought, that she could enjoy herself by looking at all her fellow guests.

  She decided that no one who had not actually seen the Pretty Horse-Breakers could imagine how attractive they were.

  Even so they were almost too fantastic to be real.

  They were all talking excitedly, alluringly and seductively to the men next to them.

  They were, Filipa thought, giving a performance as if they were on the stage.

  Lulu, however, not content with Lord Daverton, was drawing attention to herself by shouting across the table at the men sitting opposite her.

  She was also flirting quite outrageously with the man on her other side.

  A lot of what she said was quite incomprehensible to Filipa, although she was making jokes that apparently the men understood.

  She thought too that much that she said had a double meaning.

  Anyway everyone laughed and she continually addressed the Marquis, although he was sitting five places away from her.

  The luncheon had been good, but the dinner was superlative.

  There were different wines, which Filipa refused, with every course.

  At last, because she was thirsty, she said to Mark,

  “Do you think that I could have a glass of lemonade or water?”

  “I suppose so,” he said grudgingly. “But they will think it rather strange.”

  “Our host does not drink very much,” Filipa pointed out.

  She had noticed that the Marquis had only had one glass of wine since sitting down at the table and, while the servants filled up everybody else’s glass, they passed his by.

  “If you want to win a race tomorrow,” she said so that only Mark could hear, “you will drink very little. I am sure most of the gentlemen, if they go on drinking as they are now, will have a hangover.”

  Mark looked round the table.

  “I believe you are right,” he said. “It is true that Kilne has hardly touched a drop and in fact he never does.”

  “Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he wins all the races he enters,” Filipa commented. “If you could beat him tomorrow, it would be a great triumph.”

  Unexpectedly Mark smiled at her.

  “You are making me think that what I have always believed to be an impossibility might just be possible.”

  “Anyway try it!” Filipa answered him.

  Then the women next to him claimed his attention and Filipa looked across the table.

  Exactly opposite her was a Pretty Horse-Breaker whom, she realised, was French and her name was Yvonne.

  She was partnered by a man who, she thought, although she was not certain, was called Lord Seaforth.

  He was young, but had the same dissolute look about him that Lord Daverton had.

  As she looked at them, Filipa realised that he said to Yvonne,

  “If I am to win that race tomorrow, we shall have to use what we have brought with us. Otherwise I don’t have a chance.”

  “Pourquoi, donc, you hesitate?” Yvonne enquired.

  They were talking in very low voices, but Filipa, almost without realising it, was lip-reading what they said.

  It was something she had learnt to do when she was quite young.

  Her grandmother, who had come to live with them for the last months of her life, had an affliction of the throat and was also deaf.

  She had always been a very beautiful and fastidious woman.

  She was afraid that, as she could not hear her own voice, she might speak excessively loudly, as so many deaf people do.

  She therefore always spoke so softly that it was almost impossible to hear what she said unless one could follow from the movement of her lips what she was saying.

  Filipa’s mother had said to her daughter,

  “As it upsets Grandmama so much if she thinks that she cannot communicate with us, try to understand what she is trying to say.”

  “But how?”

  “If you watch her lips,” her mother replied, “you should be clever enough either to guess or to read what she is saying.”

  At first Filipa had found that it was almost like a game.

  Then because she thought it fun she used to make Mark challenge her to guess what he was saying without speaking aloud.

  She had really become very proficient at it.

  Now she realised that Lord Seaforth was deliberately speaking in a voice that only Yvonne could hear.

  She watched him, wondering what it all meant.

  “What you have to do, Yvonne, is not to put on our bets until just before the race has started and then put every penny we possess on me. Kilne’s horse will collapse halfway round the course if we have timed it right.”

  “At what hour the race commence?” Yvonne enquired.

  “Eleven o’clock,” Lord Seaforth said. “Which means I must put the drug in the horse’s water at a quarter past seven.”

  Yvonne gave him an alluring smile.

  “And then we gain beaucoup d’argent!”

  “You shall have what I promised you,” Lord Seaforth said, “and God knows I need the rest of it!”

  “You will have it, mon cher!” Yvonne said complacently. “But we must be very careful.”

  “There is no risk,” Lord Seaforth said. “I don’t suppose that I will be the only person visiting the stables early in the morning.”<
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  “You know which horse he ride?”

  “Yes, Jupiter, his black stallion,” Lord Seaforth replied.

  Yvonne smiled at him again and laid her cheek for a moment against his shoulder.

  It was then that Filipa was suddenly aware of what she had learnt.

  She could hardly believe that she was not dreaming.

  Yet she was sure that she could not be mistaken, even though it seemed incredible.

  She waited until Mark was ready to speak to her again and then she asked,

  “That man sitting opposite us at the table. Is he not Lord Seaforth?”

  “Yes. That is right.”

  “I don’t – like him.”

  “He is a close friend of Kilne’s.”

  “Is he rich?”

  “They say he is ‘below hatches’, but I don’t know him well. If he is short of money, that is doubtless why he hangs about Kilne, cadging all he can get.”

  Filipa drew in her breath.

  She knew that what he could not cadge, Lord Seaforth was now going to take by criminal methods.

  Her father had often spoken of how horses were sometimes doped on Racecourses and she remembered that two or three years ago there had been a terrible scandal.

  The Derby favourite had been interfered with before the race and was too ill to run at the last moment.

  “How could anybody do anything so cruel to a horse?” Filipa had asked indignantly at the time.

  “It is a question of greed, my dearest,” her father had answered. “When unscrupulous men want money, they will do anything to get it, even destroying a magnificent animal in the process.”

  Now Filipa knew that Lord Seaforth was determined by foul means to prevent the Marquis winning a race tomorrow morning.

  “Is there anything special about the race that is to take place at eleven o’clock?” she asked Mark.

  “It is the big race of the day,” he replied. “His Lordship was telling us about it before dinner and I think that is one of the reasons why he asked me to ride again.”

  “Why do you think that?” Filipa enquired.

  “Because,” Mark said, “Lord Daverton is boasting that a horse of his, which we have not yet seen run, is better than anyone else’s.”

  Filipa hoped that this was not true.

  “Seaforth, who you were just talking about,” Mark went on, “also has an unknown horse, which he had brought over from Ireland.”

  “Do you think you have a chance?”

  “The Marquis has said that I can ride either Hercules or any horse in his stable with the exception of the one he is riding himself.”

  “Is that the one called Jupiter?”

  “Yes, that is right,” Mark agreed. “I think he is determined to have a big field and make it an exciting race which he will repeat every year if it is a success.”

  “Are outside horses allowed to compete?”

  “I understand that there are only about five of them,” Mark replied. “The locals know that they have not got a chance against the Marquis’s stable and the other races will be easier to win.”

  Although Filipa thought that she fully understood the plot, she decided that it would be a mistake to tell Mark what she had overheard.

  He might not believe her and, of course, there was always the possibility that Lord Seaforth had just been joking.

  She felt herself shrinking at the idea of saying the wrong thing and causing a commotion and above all of drawing attention to herself.

  ‘I must make quite certain first that it is really true,’ she decided.

  But she was not sure how she could do so.

  As dinner went on, she realised that what Yvonne and Lord Seaforth were now saying to each other had nothing to do with horses.

  Because the words she could read on their lips were embarrassing, she looked away and tried to think of something else.

  Dinner now soon came to an end and a curtain at one end of the room was pulled back to reveal a small stage.

  Instead of the ladies leaving the room, as Filipa recognised was usual, they stayed at the table and accepted liqueurs to drink with their coffee, while the men had port or brandy.

  Then a group of musicians, who were seated at one side of the stage began to play.

  First there were two dancers, who very brilliantly performed the Spanish flamenco, which Filipa had read about but never seen.

  It was, although she did not quite understand it, very seductive.

  As the man who danced it was very handsome and the girl very pretty, it was received with a great deal of applause.

  Then there was a magician whom Filipa found enthralling.

  He did card tricks, produced flowers from an empty hat and finished with a number of doves who appeared as if by some enchantment.

  They flew round in a circle before they settled on his shoulders and on his head.

  She loved this and clapped excitedly, but she thought, however, that most of the Pretty Horse-Breakers looked bored.

  Then there was more dancing, but this was very different and she heard the Marquis say that it came from Paris.

  Six girls kicked their legs very high above their heads and turned somersaults, revealing their legs in a most immodest manner.

  Finally they twirled round and round so that their skirts swung out from the waist, making the gentlemen clap and clap.

  They then sank down on the ground in what seemed an impossible position for the human body.

  After this there was a man who sang songs that certainly were full of double meanings and had everyone chuckling.

  But Filipa found it bewildering.

  As a finale the pretty dancers came on again riding wooden horses on which they performed some strange contortions.

  They also made jokes and the few she did understand made Filipa blush.

  The Pretty Horse-Breakers, however, thought that this most amusing.

  But she found the performance of the women on the stage more and more embarrassing, so Filipa looked away.

  She was aware as she did so that the Marquis’s eyes were on her.

  She thought that he must think her very foolish not to appreciate, as everyone else obviously did, the show he had provided for their amusement.

  Yet she felt that she ought at the very least to look enthusiastic.

  She should clap and shout out remarks as the other Pretty Horse-Breakers were doing, but it was an impossibility.

  Instead she turned her head towards the stage and closed her eyes.

  Then thankfully it was all over.

  The ladies trooped towards the door, most of them telling their partners to follow them as quickly as possible.

  When they were outside in the passage, Lulu said at the top of her voice,

  “I can do all those things and a damn sight better than those women. Let’s give his Lordship a show of our own when he joins us.”

  “I’d much rather gamble,” another Horse-Breaker said. “I’ll ask the Marquis if he’ll pay for me and I’m sure he’ll say yes.”

  “You’ll have a lot of competition if you try to get money out of him,” Lulu snapped.

  “Oh, don’t be greedy, Lulu!” one of the other Horse-Breakers exclaimed. “We all know that Percy Daverton has spent a fortune on you.”

  “What’s one fortune when you can have two?” Lulu asked and they all shrieked with laughter.

  Filipa went up to her room before they went into the salon as she had no wish to be alone with the other women.

  Although she had lingered quite a long time tidying her hair in front of the mirror, when she came down she found that the gentlemen had still not left the dining room.

  As she entered the salon, Lulu said,

  “Oh, here comes Miss Clever, who says that she beat me this morning although personally I think it was a lie. Come and tell us who you are and where you’ve come from.”

  Too late Filipa wished that she had stayed upstairs longer, but she had thought that
Mark might be angry if she had disappeared.

  Very slowly she walked towards the Pretty Horse- Breakers who were grouped like exotic flowers round the fireplace.

  “Come on,” Lulu urged her, “what’ve you got to say for yourself?”

  “Very little, I am afraid,” Filipa replied.

  “Then what are you hiding?” Pierrette asked.

  “I am not hiding anything,” Filipa replied. “I am just tremendously impressed at how marvellously you all rode and it was very very exciting watching you this afternoon.”

  “I am only surprised that you did not push your way in and have another go,” Lulu said rudely. “Are you riding tomorrow?”

  “I hope so,” Filipa replied, “if I can borrow a habit.”

  “It seems to me very strange,” someone said, “that you come here just for the pageant and then were sloping off until his Lordship invited you to stay the night. Where were you and that handsome boy staying?”

  Filipa had the answer to this.

  “We have some – friends in the – neighbourhood.”

  “Oh, dear, very hoity-toity!” Lulu sneered. “And if you try beating me tomorrow, Miss Clever, I’ll make things jolly unpleasant for you and that’s a promise not a threat!”

  The others laughed at this, but Filipa felt frightened.

  Not knowing what to say, she heard with relief the salon door open and the gentlemen come in.

  The Pretty Horse-Breakers, who had been sitting in a little group, hurried each towards their special man to slip an arm through his.

  Filipa knew that they were determined to get to the gambling tables and make as much money as they could.

  Mark had told her the custom was that, if a woman lost, the gentleman with her paid for her losses, while if she won, she kept her gains.

  Hastily, because she was frightened for Mark, she went towards him, saying so that only he could hear,

  “Let’s go to look at the pictures and the library is fantastic.”

  He understood and she thought that he was going to agree.

  But at that moment Lulu pushed her literally to one side and said to Mark,

  “You’re not to neglect me! Percy’s longing to talk to your mysterious friend.”

  Filipa wanted to cry out that it was something she did not want, but it was too late.

  Lulu was pulling Mark toward the Baccarat table and Lord Daverton was at her side.