A Three Day Event Read Online Free

triumph due the bearer of interesting bad news. “Bridget’s father died rather suddenly last week. Actually, I was there in Saint Armand when she got the news. It was a shock. There we all were in the restaurant. She had a message to call England, and she used the payphone there, so she got the bad news right there in front of us. Poor thing. She was quite overcome. She had to leave for England and she’ll be there for a bit settling up the estate. But she’ll be back well in time to prepare the course and look after the Three–Day end of the show.”
    “Such a lovely girl!” Barbara exclaimed loudly to the room. “And very well connected, you know. Best friends with Viscount Fairclough ! Lucky to have her!” she concluded aggressively, although no one had implied that they weren’t. Then, thinking things through a bit, she brayed, “That makes rather a lot of tragedies this year, doesn’t it, Marion. Your Gordon, of course, and now Bridget’s father and, oh dear, poor Thea’s–”
    “ Please! Please, Barbara, I’d rather–really, I’d just as soon you didn’t”–Thea’s voice trembled slightly and she faltered a second, then pointedly changed the subject in her normal voice, with its rich, musical timbre–“I’m really not at all sure that Bridget can pull it off on her own. She knows what she wants done, but she’s not the most organized person or the best at delegation. Apparently she actually forgot to order ice last summer at her own Three–Day in Saint Armand, and if one of the rider’s mothers hadn’t dashed out to the gas station and bought out their whole supply, the vet box would have been a disaster area. She wants supervision.”
    “Careless on regulatory issues. Works too close to a deadline. Not a good thing in my opinion,” offered Bill Sutherland with an air of shedding largesse to the needy.
    “Which is why we are so happy that you’ve agreed to be project manager, Thea dear,” Marion burbled warmly. “Between your computer and your genius for organization, we know we can have total confidence, and we are particularly thankful under the circumstances. One would imagine that Bridget would be the last person you’d ever want to see again, let alone help–”
    “Marion, can we please keep to the issues at hand. I know you mean well, but”–
    “Oh very well. I’m sure I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Thea. Some people appreciate sympathy and others don’t. That’s what makes horse racing, isn’t it?” She smiled brightly at the aptness of her analogy, and Thea busied herself making notes, an angry spot of colour high on her cheeks the only sign of discomposure.
    There were two very important members still to come. Marion held her wristwatch up ostentatiously and commented, loudly, in the peculiarly carrying tone of women who are in the habit of conversing at ringside over the competing sounds of a busy horse show, “You might think that the owner and general manager of a stable where a major event is going to take place would make an effort to appear at the plenary planning committee on time!” She then frowned, sniffed and shuffled papers in what she assumed was the manner of a much put–upon CEO of a large corporation.
    Jessop sighed and ran his finger round the inside of a too–tight collar. He wished that Ronald March, the president of C–FES, had been able to attend. The blizzard in Calgary had been a piece of hard luck. Without his authoritative presence to subdue her, Marion would be almost impossible to channel. Stuart would do his diplomatic best, of course, but a staff person could only impose himself so far; Marion was in her ‘confrontational’ mode, and it was clearly going to be rough sledding.
    Glumly he considered how he might have passed her over for the chairmanship. There really had been no option. First of all, she had paid her dues in the Young Riders category for more years than anyone could remember. She was owed the chairmanship,