‘Misty for when you’re calling her?’ Ralph suggested.

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. So my horse was named, and we rode on in companionable silence. We went a little way down the drive and then we turned the horses for home.

‘Like to canter?’ he asked obligingly. When I nodded, he took the lead and let his horse slide into an easy steady-paced canter. I grabbed at the pommel for fear of falling, and the moment Sea Mist lunged forward I felt she was taking a high jump. Ralph glanced over his shoulder and laughed at my determined face and kept the pace steady. We thundered down the drive, and the shadows and light flickered over me, and I forgot about being nervous and anxious not to fall and look a fool; I bent down low over her mane and urged her on faster, and gave a great whoop of delight that made Ralph ahead of me laugh and let his horse go faster.

‘Good!’ Ralph said, pulling his big black stallion up outside the gate. ‘But remember, even if you think you are falling, hang on to the saddle or the mane. Don’t damage her mouth. She’s got a mouth like satin, that horse. I wouldn’t have brought her for you if I didn’t trust you to have light hands.’

I nodded.

‘What of Richard?’ Ralph said casually. ‘Does he want a horse?’

‘I think not,’ I said. ‘He didn’t want John to have the expense while he is busy studying. And when he wants to ride, he likes John’s horse, Prince, for hacking around the estate.’

‘What sort of a lad is he? What sort of a squire will he make?’ Ralph asked lightly.

‘He cares very much about being a Lacey,’ I said, choosing my words with care. I had a feeling, and rightly, that the question was very serious and the answer had better be accurate. ‘He would do anything for us to stay on the estate.’

Ralph nodded. ‘What about his temper?’ he asked.

‘It’s good,’ I said. ‘He is very seldom angry. Never with Mama, and never in public’

‘Doesn’t sound much like temper to me,’ Ralph said. ‘Sounds more like spite. What sets it off?’

I frowned, puzzled. I had never tried to understand Richard’s moments of black-eyed rage. I had merely accepted them, like the occasional storm in an otherwise sunny summer. ‘When he is crossed…’I said slowly, hunting for ideas. And then I checked. ‘No!’ I said. ‘It is when he is afraid he is not first with someone.’


‘Likes to be the favourite, does he?’ Ralph asked.

The word struck a chord in my mind. ‘He likes to be the favoured child,’ I said. My eyes met Ralph’s look and we both heard the resonance in the words as deep as a bell tolling. ‘He says he is the favoured child,’ I repeated.

Ralph was still for a moment. ‘Oh, that village and its superstition!’ he said, exasperated. ‘And even the Quality as bad as the worst of them!’ He shook his head to clear his mind of nonsense as old as fairytales. ‘Would you trust him to keep his word?’ he asked. ‘If he was first on Wideacre? If he was the favoured child indeed?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I trusted Richard from a lifetime of watching him and loving him.

‘I’m not blind,’ Ralph said brusquely. ‘I can see perfectly well that Richard cares little for this profit-sharing scheme. But if he is tied into it by John, and held to it by you, would he break it wilfully? Or would he feel honour bound?’

I was certain. ‘If he gives his word, he will keep it,’ I said.

Ralph looked sceptical, but he nodded and swung down from the saddle, and then took my reins.

The front door opened and Richard came out. At once I froze. The childhood memory of my ride on Scheherazade was still vivid in my mind, even after all these years, and I had an immediate rush of guilt that he should see me on horseback at all.

I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and slid down to the ground without waiting for Ralph to help me. I wanted to be at a distance from the horse, the lovely horse, in case the sight of her upset Richard, angered him. Despite my confidence that Richard did not want a horse, I was not sure how he would respond to the sight of me on one.

‘Richard!’ I said smiling nervously. ‘Look at this lovely horse Mr Megson has brought over from Rogate.’

I peeped up at Richard’s face, but to my relief he was smiling, and there was no shadow in his face.

‘A most beautiful animal,’ he said, courteously nodding to Ralph. ‘For sale, is she?’


‘Aye,’ said Ralph laconically. ‘She and Miss Julia suit well enough.’

‘Julia is a natural rider, I think,’ Richard said generously.

‘She’s a Lacey,’ Ralph said as if that explained it all. ‘I’ll take the mare around to your stable, Miss Julia,’ he said to me. ‘She’s on loan to you for a couple of days, and then you can decide if you’ll suit. If you don’t want her, I can take her back when I’m next over that way. But if you like her, I’ve told your uncle the price they are asking for her.’

‘Expensive, is she?’ Richard asked.

Ralph looked down at him and his face was expressionless. ‘Miss Julia needs a good horse,’ he said levelly. ‘Since she’s part heir to Wideacre, she needs to ride out on the land to see what is doing. And she needs a good animal in her position.’

Richard blinked. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There should be nothing but the best for Miss Julia.’ There was an edge to his voice which warned me that he was not best pleased, but when he turned to me, he was smiling. He took my arm and led me towards the garden gate, bowing me in with a pretty little play of courtesy. I hesitated and looked back at Ralph with a smile.

‘Thank you, Ralph,’ I said. And only he would have known how deep those thanks were felt.

‘Don’t get so grand on your lovely horse that you forget me!’ Richard said, walking up the path with me. ‘You looked quite the young lady. Don’t forget that you will always be little cousin to me!’

We went into the house together and we were alone in the hall. It was shadowy, lit only by the fanlight over the front door. Richard’s face in the dusk seemed leaner, strange. I could feel my heartbeat speeding and I felt breathless, as if Richard were not my dear familiar cousin, but someone exciting and unknown to me. I did not feel familiar and easy. I felt a-great ripple of something – certainly not pain, but not quite pleasure – and my knees felt weak.

Richard came closer to me and put his arm around my waist. ‘You look pale, Julia,’ he said. ‘I hope the ride did not tire you?’


‘No,’ I said softly. ‘No, I am not tired at all.’

‘Why,’ he said, his voice very low, ‘how slight you are, Julia! You must have lost some weight – or I have grown heavier! You have grown taller, but you are no plumper at all. See, I can almost span your waist with my hands.’ He stood before me and put his hands either side of my body. Through my muslin gown I could feel the warmth of his palms and the tightness of his grip.

‘Nowhere near!’ I said breathlessly. His face was very near mine and he still had his hands on my back. I could not resist glancing up at him and raising my face to him.

I could feel his breath against my cheek. His eyes were very dark, but not with anger. We stood for a moment, quite transfixed in that shadowy hall, not daring to move forward and quite unable to move back.

Then I heard Mama’s laugh from the parlour and we both jumped apart as guiltily as though we had been doing something wrong.

‘I had better go,’ I muttered, and I went to the stairs to change from my crumpled gown. It was nearly time for breakfast, and Mama would not thank me for coming to the table straight from horseback.

‘Julia,’ Richard said, and stopped me as I had my foot on the first step.

My hand was on the banister and I made no move as he came towards the foot of the stairs, but I could feel my head going swimmy with apprehension and delight.

He came no closer to me, but stood on the far side of the stair-rail. Then he dropped his dark head and kissed my hand, where it rested. He looked at me, his blue eyes quite inscrutable. And then he turned on his heel and went into the library and left me in the dark lovely hall all alone.

I put the back of my hand to my cheek where he had kissed it, and pressed it to my face. Then I went slowly, slowly, up to my bedroom. I felt I needed to be alone to think very, very carefully about something. But when I was upstairs with the door shut behind me, I could think of nothing. I had no thought in my head. All I could be sure of was two very different feelings-feelings which pulled me two ways. One was the sensual longing which I had come to think of as Beatrice’s; I knew that feeling was desire, and it suited me to think of it as Beatrice’s desire, and to think myself a little haunted by her in that dark hall. The other feeling was a great unease. I had lived with Richard so close for so long that I loved him as my brother, I thought of him as my brother. And although we had talked and talked about our future marriage and our ownership of the land, I had never thought that he would court me. I had never thought that he would naturally, one day, touch me. That touch of his hands on my waist, and the warmth of his breath on the back of my hand, filled me with desire, but made me shiver as if there were something wrong.

Something very badly wrong.

The unease held with me through breakfast, fuelled by a secret look from Richard when I entered the room. Uncle John and Mama were laughing together over a letter she had received and neither of them noticed my awkwardness.

‘What are your plans for today, my dear?’ John asked Mama as she poured coffee for all of us.

‘Today I become a sempstress, or milliner,’ she said with a merry smile. ‘The girls have begged to learn how to trim a gown with ribbons and how to trim a hat, so I am packing a box with scraps of material to teach them. The Acre poor-box must be the most frivolous in the country! I dread that Dr Pearce will see it!’