Read Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) for Free Online

teacup into Grainne’s hands. “You could enchant a duke. But speak of earls, your mother was the cousin of an earl; you might have had a few invitations, and met a gentleman, perhaps an Army man! But out here, galloping about on horseback, like a stableboy…” she sighed gustily. “You’re wasted, my dear, that’s all. It makes me want to cry!”
    “Don’t cry,” Grainne said hastily, horrified that the housekeeper might eke out a few tears. “I’m perfectly happy. And I’m sure I’ll meet just the right gentleman out here. I don’t need to go down to Dublin.”
    “I’m sure you’re right,” Mrs. Kinney sniffed, shaking out a voluminous handkerchief. “Why, the big house will be filled up in a few days. Perhaps your gentleman will be staying with the old lord this winter.” She paused. “Or perhaps he is right here under our noses.”
    Maxwell . The only person she could possibly mean. Hardly, Grainne thought.  
    Grainne sipped at her tea while Mrs. Kinney got up and fussed about the fire and bullied Emer, the young chambermaid. She looked around her cozy bedroom with pleasure and nostalgia; the lace window hangings and the heavier velvet curtains, their burgundy fabric dusty with age, that kept out the cold on winter nights; the rose-patterned wall-paper dotted with the portraits of racehorses which she had begged for as a little girl. On the mantlepiece danced a green jade horse from China, a gift from old Lord Kilreilly when she had found his favorite niece a quiet little pony to carry her around the hunting fields safely. She would take that with her, she decided, when she went to Brittany with Len. The rest could stay, even the charcoal of Magyar that Timmy Bagshawe had done for her last week and was now propped against the top of her little-used writing desk. There would be little room for mementoes in the caravan, and anyway, she and Len would be creating new memories and gathering new mementoes on their wanderings abroad.
    “You know who seems a lovely gentleman,” Mrs. Kinney said suddenly, interrupting Grainne’s happy reverie. “That Mr. Archer.”
    “Mr. Archer!” Grainne put down her teacup with a clatter. “The huntsman!”
    “He isn’t as coarse as I might have expected. He’s not so ill-bred as most horsemen.” Mrs. Kinney thought Mr. Spencer himself a gentleman despite his passion for horses.  
    “I’m sure he’s very nice,” Grainne said without meaning so at all. She thought of the way he had harried and delayed her in the fields that afternoon. The thought of his very chiseled cheekbones and startling blue eyes popped into her mind and she promptly chased it away again. “But he’s a very nosey man. Not at all discreet,” she went on, thinking of the way he had pressed her for information.
    “How so?” Mrs. Kinney was interested now. She loved a little gossip.
    “Oh! He cannot mind his own business, that is all. Forever asking questions.” Grainne shut her mouth very tight.
    “Hmmph.” Mrs. Kinney gave the girl an assessing gaze. “Well, all the same, I think we could have done much worse. So many horsemen are drunkards and gamblers. I asked, and Mr. Archer tells me he only takes a little brandy for his digestion. And he does not follow the racing.” She took up the teapot and the cup and set them back on the wooden tray. “I’ll leave you to rest now, my dear. Good night!” And the housekeeper was out of the bedroom, the little chambermaid creeping after her and shutting the door with a click.  
    What a relief, Grainne thought. Gossiping with Mrs. Kinney was about as interesting as listening to the church choir argue about their holiday program. The old woman was a darling, but she didn’t seem to understand that horses, and horses, and horses, were the only subjects worth talking about in this world.
    And she was a monkey’s uncle if Archer didn’t drink whiskey and bet on horses.

    ***

    “And then we bred Hartley Miss to Smiling Tiger, and you