To Win the Lady Read Online Free Page B

old friend?’
    Richard agreed,
for what else could he do? But it meant that he might be called upon to make up
any deficit.
    ‘No more
vowels,’ his lordship insisted.
    ‘My hunter,
then. It’s a prime animal.’
    ‘That old nag
against this?’ He indicated the heap of money, the rings, pins, fobs and the
scraps of paper and laughed. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’ It was then that he looked
up at Richard. ‘I’ll take your stallion, though.’
    It was
Richard’s turn to laugh. ‘Lose the best horse I ever had on a hand of cards?
No, my lord, I am not such a sousecrown.’
    ‘Then the
captain will be known for a welsher.’
    John, suddenly
very sober, looked at him in anguish. ‘Richard, play my hand for me...’
    ‘No.’ He had
never been very good at cards; horse-riding was another matter. He turned to
Lord Barbour. ‘I’ll race Victor over a measured mile against the best in your
stables, my lord. If I win, my friend’s debts are cancelled. If I lose, you
take the horse.’
    Richard had
played the only hand he knew. Lord Barbour’s stables were among the best in the
country except for one thing. They lacked a really great stallion such as
Richard owned. The young man had a vague feeling that his lordship had
manoeuvred the whole situation, but there was nothing he could do about it,
short of abandoning his friend to his fate. As soon as it became known that
John had been unable to pay his gambling debts, every tradesman in town would
be dunning him and he would be left without a feather to fly with.
    John tried to
dissuade him and was still trying to do so the next day, when, with a pounding
head and sick to his stomach, he called on Richard to go to Hampstead Heath. ‘I
can’t let you do this,’ he said, mopping his face with a handkerchief soaked in
lavender water. ‘Leave me to my fate...’
    ‘No. I can no
more go back on a wager than you can. It’s done now.’
    ‘You know
Barbour is down on his luck,’ John said. ‘I heard he was mortgaged to the hilt
at Baverstock’s bank and Baverstock ain’t known for his generosity. Old
Ten-in-the-hundred, they call him.’
    ‘My cousin,’
Richard said thoughtfully.
    ‘Oh, I had
forgot; sorry, Richard, but I’ll wager Lord Barbour will refuse to hand over my
vouchers even if you win.’
    ‘Not even he
would renege on a debt of honour.’
    ‘No, but there
are other ways of avoiding payment.’
    ‘Cheat, you
mean? He wouldn’t dare.’
    ‘Not exactly. I
had heard his lordship intends to put his fourteen-year-old son in the saddle
and the boy is only half your weight.’
    ‘Is that so?’
There was nothing in the rules of the wager which said either protagonist had
to ride himself, though Richard had assumed they would and so was glad of the
information. ‘Then I shall have to employ a jockey, shan’t I?’
    The jockey
weighed less than seven stones; Victor, who was used to Richard, who weighed
double that in uniform with all his accoutrements, hardly knew he had a rider
on his back, except for the sharp little spurs and the whip, something he was
not at all accustomed to. He flew over the heath like the wind. The race was so
close that the two horses were neck and neck; first Salamanca drew ahead, then
Victor. Lord Barbour, on the sidelines near the finish, yelled at his son, ‘Unseat
him! Unseat him!’ The boy, half a head behind, pulled his horse alongside
Victor and flayed his whip at Richard’s jockey, causing a spurt of blood to
appear on his face. The injured man veered away from another blow and Victor,
confused by conflicting messages on the reins, stumbled and almost unseated
him. Both recovered quickly but the set-back was enough to lose them the race.
    Richard, his
face dark with fury, strode over to Lord Barbour, who was embracing his son.
‘If you imagine, my lord, that I will hand over my horse to you after that
demonstration of cheating, you may think again.’ He turned to his jockey whose
face poured with blood.