Rosalie had a long, raking stride and she covered a lot of ground quickly. She reminded Sage a little of Skylark but this filly was much straighter and more substantial beneath her. As she reached the wood, Sage could hear hounds speaking and she managed to catch sight of a couple of tail hounds disappearing through the next field. She turned and waved to Walter, pointing in the direction hounds had gone. She waited and tucked in behind Walter’s big horse, smiling at an attractive middle-aged woman with a long plait trailing down her back. The woman ignored her, thrusting her big-boned grey horse in front of Rosalie, turning her back to Sage.
Without Rafe’s reassuring presence, Sage felt a little insecure and out of place. Louis appeared suddenly beside her on his bay.He smiled at her mischievously. He was wearing a black coat like Rafe and he was not unaware that hunting clothes suited his chiselled features and slim frame perfectly. He, like Rafe, rode with irritatingly natural elegance.
‘You decided to grace the rest of us with your presence, did you? How lucky we are,’ he goaded Sage.
‘Oh, do be quiet, Louis. Leave the poor girl alone,’ Walter snapped at his son. Louis looked out of the corner of his eye to see how Sage was reacting to him; when he realized that she had barely noticed him, he ground his teeth, a muscle flickering in his jaw. He turned to look behind him and called to a very thin blonde woman of about twenty who was struggling to hold her skewbald cob, ‘Vanessa, come and meet Sage – Sage, what is your surname again?’ he asked maliciously. Ignoring Louis, Sage felt a rush of relief as she saw Rafe appear over the brow of the hill. Peeling off from the field she hurried over to him. As she reached them she called, ‘He looks better, has he settled?’ Cobra had lost his tension and was cantering smoothly, his dished brown head relaxed over his arched, shining neck, and his black hooves were extending gracefully.
‘He turned over with me – clumsy bugger hit the top of a wall and went flying head over heels. He’s been brilliant since then!’ Rafe’s high cheekbones were flushed with spots of colour. He looked a picture of good health. His dark eyes were merry and he sat in the saddle completely relaxed, his double reins in one hand. His cap had a tuft of grass sticking out of the button and the velvet had a smear of mud running from top to bottom.
‘Come on,’ he said to Sage, ‘hounds are actually going, although they’re finding it hard. They’re slow, but seem to be running true.’ They moved their horses forward together, intent on catching up. The feeling of power and speed beneath them mixed like a heady cocktail on top of the giddiness kindled by new love that no amount of port or whisky could concoct.
Tommy, directly behind his hounds, hopped over a solid hunt jump in the corner of the field. Slowly his hounds gained confidence, making more noise and moving more quickly. Rafe and Sage flew over the jump side by side, turning on landing to let the horses have their heads as hounds were now running in earnest up the hill. They ran for a mile or so, Tommy jumping anything that got in his way, and the obstacles came thick and fast. Rafe and Sage were directly behind him, watching hounds all the time, until they slowed up. The scent had suddenly died out in a field that had been fertilized recently. Hounds cast about half-heartedly but to no avail.
Tommy got off his horse to try and help his hounds from the ground, but it was no good. He led his horse and hounds down a farm track and sat on a bale of straw on a concrete pad outside a big barn. Lighting a cigarette, he turned to Rafe.
‘I thought we were going to have a good run then. Bloody chicken shit … my hounds can’t do anything in that.’
‘Damn, I think I’ve lost a shoe.’ Rafe was leaning down. Sure enough, Cobra was missing a front. ‘I’ll have to call for someone to come and get him. He’ll be too sore if I lead him anywhere – he’s got fragile feet. Darling, you go on with Tommy. They’ll bring me something else to ride. I’ll be just behind you. I’ll call you to find out where you’ve gone.’
‘I haven’t got my phone!’ Sage said in dismay.
‘That makes a change!’ Rafe laughed good-naturedly. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t know where you are anyway. I’ll call Tommy instead.’ He said it with the easy assurance of someone to whom even an extremely busy huntsman in charge of a pack of hounds would always answer the phone. Tommy touched his cap in acknowledgement and rode on. Sage felt a rush of guilt as she went with him, leaving Rafe sitting on a straw bale with an uneasy Cobra. The horse shifted impatiently and tossed his head as he watched after them, not wanting to beleft behind. Rafe batted away her concern with an amused flap of his hand.
Tommy turned left onto the lane and trotted along for about half a mile until he turned into the drive of a perfectly proportioned Georgian manor house that stood in front of a Cotswold-stone courtyard made up of working barns.
‘What a beautiful place,’ Sage said, and Tommy turned to her across his pack of hounds.
‘It’s all part of the Chipping Crockford estate. This is Nettlecombe Manor.’ He led his hounds around the back of the barns to a steep bank covered in thick gorse.
‘Madam, can I trouble you to ride to the end gate, go through it and watch the track on the other side of the wall? Shout to me if you see anything, will you?’ Tommy asked distractedly, already intent on the task at hand. Used to being obeyed, he turned, without waiting for her answer, and sent his hounds into the gorse beyond. Sage meekly cantered Rosalie to the gate, opened it and asked the mare to stand on the track. Sage wondered what she had been put there to watch for, unsure of what the huntsman meant, but she did as she was told and settled down to wait. The afternoon was drawing in; the sun hung low in the pale sky and the wind had died down, a still, bone-numbing chill taking its place. Long shadows cast themselves off the bare trees and lay on the ground before her like phantom cracks and furrows on the chilled earth. Sage blew into her gloved hands to warm her frozen fingers and she turned Rosalie in a small circle to keep her moving, to prevent the horse’s muscles from getting cold and seizing up. Sage looked up and stared at the ragged curves of the silvery grey clouds that were now framed with flaming gold and pink from the slowly setting sun. The disappearing sun, in a last, fond farewell, cast a soft glow over the hard ground and its sparse but newly blossoming hedgerows.
Sage caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision and hastily turned her head, Rosalie swinging around automatically to face it. A large dog fox dropped down from the moss-covered bank; his russet coat was thick, clean and dry. He looked up at Sage with unblinking yellow eyes. Sage felt goosebumps stand up on the back of her neck. It was like a creature materializing from a mythical tale. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as they locked eyes. Sage held her breath, reluctant to frighten him, even by breathing.
She felt as though he was testing her, waiting for her to react, and his knowing golden eyes glowed with intelligence. Then he bowed his head infinitesimally, trotted a few strides along the track and sprang up onto the bank on the other side of the path, disappearing into the beech hedge beyond. Sage let out a long breath, full of wonder.
Remembering Tommy’s words, she felt a sudden rush of guilt that she had not called out to the huntsman; she looked furtively around her to check no one had been watching her. She could feel her heart racing and her neck still prickled from the encounter. She would never regret letting him slink away unnoticed.
A horn sounded out mournfully from the other side of the spinney telling her to move out and Rosalie stepped forward, her delicate ears twitching like radar. They moved off swiftly, Sage ducking low over the pretty mare’s neck to avoid the long-reaching tendrils of the low-hanging birch boughs that covered the path. The pair travelled harmoniously, cantering along the hard clay path to catch up with the huntsman and his hounds who were moving steadily back up the valley in the waning light. Rosalie responded with alacrity, overjoyed to be moving again; she stepped precisely around a hole, cantering on sure legs. When they reached the little wicket gate at the end of the lane, illuminated in the last beams of the day’s winter sun,instead of opening it, Sage put her leg on asking Rosalie if she would like to jump it. The horse lengthened her stride and leapt over it cleanly, Sage letting out a soft laugh of pure joy. When she came across Walter, she beamed a smile of such pleasure that he forgot to admonish her for larking while hounds were not running. There were only a few horses and riders left now; most had packed up and gone home to hot baths.
‘I’d forgotten what a nice horse she is,’ was all he said in a low voice, looking at Rosalie approvingly.
‘Where are Constance and Hal? Have they gone back to Crockford?’ Sage asked quietly, not wanting to disturb hounds who were milling about above them, their weaving black silhouettes standing out against the pale grey sky on the dark ridge.
‘Yes, it’ll take them a while to walk back so we’ll probably catch them up.’ Walter lit a cigar, and offered one to Sage.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, smiling at him, touched by his thoughtfulness, so like her grandfather. Remembering something, Walter smiled.
‘He didn’t want to go home though, your boy. Keen as mustard, that one. He did well today. I should be very proud.’
Tommy started back down the hill, his horse looking weary as they walked slowly towards them.
‘I think we’ll call it a day, sir,’ he said, removing his cap respectfully as he addressed Walter.
‘Fine, fine,’ the old man said good-naturedly, ‘I think we showed the field a good bit of sport today – well done.’ He turned his horse to follow hounds, firstly letting Tommy take them past before following on into the twilight. The moon had risen on the other side of the wood and was almost full, her ghostly pallor lighting up the valley.
Louis appeared from the gloom and fell into step beside Sage. His big bay chaser was still full of energy, raking at his reins and prancing sideways into Rosalie.
‘Did you have fun?’ he asked her, his dark eyes searching, ignoring his horse’s bad manners and sitting quietly in the saddle, totally preoccupied.
