The Gallant Guardian by Evelyn Richardson

Author:Evelyn Richardson [Richardson, Evelyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1988-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

In fact, William was the only one in all of Harcourt who did not question mightily the appearance of the big bay stallion and its groom. And he was the only one who did not immediately condemn the animal as being a nasty, vicious brute, fit only to be a cart horse that would be worked hard enough to keep it too exhausted to exhibit any temperament at all. Indeed, it was a miracle that the horse did not subject the boy to the wicked kicks and nips that it gave to everyone else who tried to approach it. When William appeared, the flaring nostrils relaxed and the rolling eyes focused on him with something akin to trust.

“I think he likes apples,” William confided to his sister the morning after the horse’s arrival. “Cook gave me a bit of apple tart yesterday afternoon when I was feeling a bit peckish and he licked my fingers. I shall ask Mrs. Hodges if I may take some from the storeroom to give him.” Just as William predicted, apples were a huge success and the household grew accustomed to seeing him with his pockets bulging awkwardly as he headed toward the stables.

Caesar, as the horse had been named, seemed to be ready to act like a reasonable creature for a few bits of apple and words of gentle encouragement from his young master. “I shall just let him become my friend first and then we shall see.” William was firm in his resistance to Tom Piggott’s urgings to put the stallion through its paces. No amount of recounting the stallion’s prowess in speed and jumping could dissuade William from following his program of leading the horse around the pastures of Harcourt, acquainting it slowly with its new home and master.

“And in truth the lad seems to know what he is about for the creature is a good deal calmer now, and even lets Jem and Tim near him without getting into a pucker. He won’t do the same for Tom Piggott, though. ‘Tis clear as the nose on my face that he does not trust the man, nor do I, my lady,” the coachman remarked to Charlotte one morning as he drove her into the village.

“I am afraid you are in the right of it, Speen. I too have my doubts about Tom Piggott, but I can hardly send him back to Cecil without some sort of explanation, especially if he was meant to be part of Cecil’s gift to William. And I can hardly say that I suspect Cecil of trying to do William a mischief. In the first place, if he is trying to harm William, I must prove it and that is best done if I do not put Cecil on his guard by sending his servant back. In the second place, it is not polite to accuse a relative of being havey-cavey, even if…even if…”

“Even if he is,” the coachman replied with all the familiarity of a servant who had helped Charlotte on her first pony and reassured her after all her subsequent falls.

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