Help from the Heart by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788676663
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2023-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

As Forella dismounted from Gyõrgy at the front door of the house, she said to Thomas, who had escorted her on her ride,

“Thank you very much, that was very enjoyable.”

“I enjoyed it too, my Lady,” Thomas replied.

As he rode off to the stables, he took off his cap and Forella, walking into the house, thought what a nice man he was.

When she wished to go riding on Gyõrgy and was aware that she must be accompanied by a groom, she had been afraid that he would slow the pace and complain if she rode too far ahead of him.

But to her considerable surprise she found that the stables of The Manor contained a dozen exceptionally fine horses and that Thomas, who was in charge of them, was different from how she expected an ordinary English groom to be.

A good-looking man of about forty, he was, she thought, better mannered and certainly far better educated than seemed appropriate to his position in life.

Of course she had had no experience of any English stables, but at least she knew when a man was an expert with horses and there was no doubt that it was what Thomas was.

If she appreciated him, she realised from the first moment after they had ridden together that he appreciated her.

It would have been impossible for anyone seeing the way she handled Gyõrgy, who was usually extremely obstreperous when she first mounted him, not to be aware that she could ride any animal, however wild.

When Gyõrgy was more or less under control, Thomas said,

“I congratulate you, my Lady.”

Forella flashed him a smile.

“It is only Gyõrgy’s fun,” she said, “and I have never enjoyed riding a horse so much or looked forward to riding as much as I am this morning.”

“I feel sure you will not be disappointed,” Thomas said.

He took her for miles and, as it was in the opposite direction from where she knew that The Castle was situated, she was not afraid of seeing any members of the house party.

Actually they saw very few people, only some men working in the fields and sometimes a farmer’s gig trundling along the narrow lanes.

It was two days later when Forella plucked up enough courage to ask,

“Why does His Highness want so many horses here? And who is there to ride them?”

There was a little pause before Thomas replied,

“Some of them are carriage horses, my Lady, and the others His Highness leaves with me so that I can break them in when he has not the time to do it himself.”

“You have worked for him for long?” Forella enquired.

Again there was a little pause before Thomas replied,

“I have in fact been with His Highness for nearly three years.”

It was obvious that Thomas did not wish to be communicative and she thought it was an intrusion to ask him too many questions.

Equally she was very curious about him and increasingly so, as the days passed, about a number of other things.

She could not understand the organisation of The Manor itself, which she had thought so beautiful when she had first arrived.

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