The two men turned and studied me. Then they noticed Pilot. “Get that animal out of here.”
Pilot placidly returned the gaze.
“Are you selling?” I asked again. “I might be interested in buying.”
One of the men stared at me. My traveling clothes, I realized, must have made me seem like a cottager. “I daresay you couldn’t afford him,” the man said.
“I daresay you are mistaken,” I said, rising to the challenge.
“You haven’t even ridden him,” the gentleman said.
“Indeed,” I said. “Bring him here and I shall.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, but signaled the jockey, who brought the horse over. When I had mounted, I turned to the man who seemed to be the horse’s owner. “What’s his name?”
“Mesrour,” the jockey offered, when the owner didn’t speak.
“Mesrour,” I repeated. “FromThe Thousand and One Nights. How appropriate.” And with that I touched my heel to his flank and we were off, racing across the grassy down, and I knew I had to have him.
“What do you think, fellow?” I asked Pilot when Mesrour and I returned. “Shall I buy him?”
Pilot ambled over and sniffed at the horse’s fetlocks, then nuzzled my leg.
“Yes, I agree,” I said, dismounting. “Five hundred guineas,” I said to the owner.
He glanced at his companion. “I could make that up in one season.”
“Not likely,” I said, “unless he wins the Derby.”
“Who are you?” the owner asked.
“Edward Fairfax Rochester. Of Thornfield-Hall in Yorkshire,” I replied.
“Yorkshire!”
“Why not?” I asked, knowing full well what the rest of England thought of the North Country.
“Would you race him?” he asked.
“Not for money. I would ride him across the moors.”
“Foxhunting? He will never be a jumper.”
I laughed. “Nor will I, I imagine.”
The owner came forward and took Mesrour’s bridle from me, and my heart fell. “Seven hundred and fifty,” he said.
I walked around Mesrour, feeling his legs, sensing the power in them and in his hindquarters, looking into his mouth. “His age?” I asked.
“Two years.”
“He’s massive for that,” I said, and then added, “A bird in the hand—”
He said nothing.
“Six hundred,” I said.
The owner looked at me seriously for the first time. “I will see your money,” he said at last.
