Chapter 1
May 1814
“Your Grace.Your Grace.”The earthy smells of dirt and horse and hay preceded the stable boy who threw open the door of Maurice’s office.He breathed in his favourite scent, always willing to be distracted from his paperwork by horses.
“Your Grace, my sincere apologies.”Hardwicke, his perfectly attired and uptight butler, made a futile attempt to grab the lad, and if Maurice wasn’t so worried about his horses, he might have smiled at the incongruous scene.
“But you must come.”The stable boy slipped away from Hardwicke’s grip and the butler’s lips moved as if he almost cursed.Goodness, the loss of control was out of character for Hardwicke who must be quite overwrought by this interruption in the household.
“What has happened, lad?”Maurice knew that Wildgoose, his stable master, wouldn’t have sent a lad with a message unless it was important.Hopefully Wildgoose wasn’t injured.He held his breath as his heart thumped suddenly.
“Four carriages have arrived with the Crown’s crest.”
“Damnation.”Maurice relaxed—grateful it wasn’t anything serious—unable to decide if he was thrilled or mildly irritated that Prinny had remembered his offer.Offer?Wager?Both.Prinny was typically sozzled when Maurice had made his offer and Prinny had retorted with a wager.It wouldn’t have surprised Maurice if it’d all been forgotten, but apparently, he wasn’t so fortunate.
“Get my coat, Hardwicke.And you, scamp, tell Wildgoose that I will deal with this.”His overpaid, highly competent, far too handsome stable master was not going to be pleased about these arrivals, assuming they were the zebras Maurice was expecting.It served him right for attempting to make a deal with royalty.Almost no one outranked him, and he wasn’t accustomed to having to deal with the rare cases like this when his rank and money weren’t enough to get him what he wanted.
The absolute chaos that greeted him as he entered the yard told him he’d been correct.Four matching pairs pulling four carriages with the Crown’s crest on the side stood in front of his stables.Each one of the royal horses were shiny healthy black coated animals, chosen to make the uniforms of the royal staff look best.He assumed no one had looked inside the animal transportation carriages, otherwise there’d likely be more nonsense.Having this many horses and carriages in the yard was already causing plenty of noise as the different coachmen jostled for position and tried to stop each matched set from being in the way of others.Maurice’s own staff had joined the fray, looking busy but mostly unable to disguise their curiosity.
“Your Grace.”Wildgoose walked calmly and slowly through the melee towards him.The man didn’t even have the decency to be intimated by Maurice’s title, and yet Maurice admired him for it.A lowly orphan of possibly Indian or mixed heritage plucked from the Duke Street Orphanage in London to help the Wildgoose family who worked on his estate, Wildgoose had quickly demonstrated his outstanding horsemanship abilities and been promoted to stable master at the tender age of nineteen.A decade later and the estate had bred more fine racehorses than any other farm in England.Maurice liked to think that his pedigree matches were a large reason for that, but he knew deep in his heart that it was Wildgoose’s influence which was the key to their success.Wildgoose was the best judge of horse flesh that Maurice had ever met.
“How many horses did you purchase from the Prince Regent?I thought you were going to buy Smolensk, the Derby winner.”Wildgoose gave the impression that he wasn’t impressed that Maurice might buy a horse without his approval.The arrogance was well-earned, to the point where Wildgoose didn’t acknowledge Maurice’s title and Maurice didn’t enforce it.
“I am aware of who Smolensk is, Wildgoose.”
“Dare I hope that he’s on one of these carriages?”
Maurice shook his head.He doubted it.“There’s a slight hiccup.Have a look inside.”
Wildgoose climbed up next to the coachman and peered through the wooden slotted window designed to give the animals inside plenty of fresh air without allowing them to escape.
“What in the blue blazes is that?”
A collective gasp went up from all the staff, and Maurice tried not to laugh at the overt shock from his staff and the royal coachmen over Wildgoose’s relaxed language around him.Little did they know how much Maurice enjoyed his heated arguments with Wildgoose over the mating choices for his broodmares every season.
“Shall we get it out and have a better look?”
Wildgoose jumped off the carriage.“No.Unload them into the quarantine paddock.I don’t want any of our stock to get a disease from them.”It was standard practice for any horse arriving at Pewett Downs to be kept separate from their horses for a few weeks to make sure they didn’t bring any diseases onto the farm.
“Yes boss.”One of the stable lads nodded eagerly, then spoke to the royal coachman before leading the first carriage over to the quarantine pasture.Eventually the yard emptied out, and all four carriages were lined up ready to unload their cargo.
“What on earth did you say to His Royal Highness?”Only Wildgoose could get away with speaking so bluntly to Maurice without the use of his title.Hardwicke would shudder at the lack of formality.
“Shall we watch?”
Wildgoose nodded, but not before letting out a little growly sigh that communicated his exasperation with the new arrivals.Maurice held his breath.There was a reason he’d been holding back on telling the whole story.Wildgoose was not going to impressed; and for reasons that he really didn’t want to think too hard about, Maurice really wanted Wildgoose to think highly of him.Because he was a master horseman.Not for any other reason, like the set of his jaw, or the deep brown of his eyes, or the way his trousers clung to his thighs, and most definitely not because of the way Maurice couldn’t look away from Wildgoose’s forearms when he rolled his sleeves up in the summer.
Soon enough the cargo was unloaded, and the entirety of Maurice’s stable staff were leaning on the fence gawping at the new arrivals.Zebras.Four of them.As promised by the Prince Regent.
Wildgoose cleared his throat."Before you all get too comfortable, we have eight coach horses to care for and four coachmen to feed.”
The stable lads scampered off to their task, leaving Wildgoose standing alone beside Maurice.The silence stretched out.
“Your Grace.What is the meaning of this?”
Maurice tried not to flinch at Wildgoose’s use of his title.He used it so rarely that it always sounded like an admonishment when he did say it.“They are a gift from His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent.”
Wildgoose snorted.“Some gift.They look like someone painted stripes on a bunch of badly conformed mules.What are we supposed to do with them?”
