Page 26 of Lady of Fortune
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said morosely, and he laughed, the tension between them broken, thank goodness.
“Finter, here,” he said, slightly louder now, for the groom’s own benefit, “has brought you Maximus, a fine horse, though no longer a racer, on loan from Lady Julia. Let’s saddle him up, as you’ll be racing him this afternoon.”
And so she trained, with Eddie watching, calling out instructions as he did so. She knew she was making quite a few mistakes today, and she was grateful that when he did point them out, he wasn’t overly critical. Apparently he understood that she was not only riding a different horse than she typically took through the training sessions, but that there was too much on her mind. She was quite obviously nervous about the race, but even more so she was nervous about Eddie and what would happen next between them. Would he continue to ignore the fact that anything had ever occurred? She tugged a little too hard on Maximus’s bridle then, and the horse stopped far too quickly, nearly unseating Julia.
Her face was warm when she returned to the fence post from where Eddie watched, for only a beginner would typically make such a mistake.
“I think that’s enough for now,” he said, concern etched on his face.
“I’m sorry —” she began, but he held up a hand.
“No need to apologize to me,” he said. “Some days you have it, some days you don’t. Just go home, collect yourself, and do what you need to do to be ready this afternoon, understand?”
She nodded, and then that charming smile broke out over his face and he winked.
“That a girl,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll see you in the stirrups this afternoon.”
“Is that something jockeys say to one another?” she asked, actually curious.
“No,” he said with a bit of a laugh. “But maybe they’ll start.”
* * *
What Eddiereally wanted to tell her was to go home and to not return until the race was over. What was he doing, not only allowing buthelpinga woman like Julia race against some of the finest, toughest jockeys he knew? It was not that she couldn’t ride — no, the girl could ride like the best of them, and clearly, despite her inexperience, she had spent quite a bit of time practicing the racing skills he had taught her so long ago.
But the thought of her falling from a horse, of anything happening to her in the unpredictable setting of a racecourse — it was nearly too much to bear. And today was only a trial.
He sighed as he mounted Boomerang, who he would be racing today. He and the other jockeys had made a gentlemen’s agreement, as it were, that none of them would be riding a trained, active thoroughbred. It would be a shortened course, and at a slower pace than they would be used to, but it would be a race all the same.
With Julia. Eddie shook his head, having only himself to blame. It was he who had suggested this blasted race, though only to try to provide her with a bit of experience before the Two Thousand Guineas. But that was before… before he had kissed her. He was trying to act as though it had never happened, for what else could he do? He had hoped that now that it was done, he would have had his fill and she would be out of his system, gone from his thoughts besides the obligation he had made toward her. But every time he looked at those pink lips underneath her pert, turned-up nose, all he wanted to do was kiss them again.
Would he still be thinking the same when he raced against her later this afternoon?
* * *
The day had turnedfoggy by the time the mock race began. There was no weigh-in, no officials. Just a few jockeys riding mounts who had thought their racing days lay behind them. Well, it was time for one more all-out ride. As Julia urged Maximus into the starting gate, she was aware of every movement and sound around her, though much of it hardly registered in her brain.
The mist around her seemed to settle in, so thick that she wondered how exactly they were supposed to race through it, how they would see the finish line ahead.
“Just straight ahead,” Eddie had murmured in her ear as he passed by Maximus’s hind legs while he made his way around her to stop Boomerang beside her. “Concentrate.”
She nodded as she looked ahead of her, aware that many of the other jockeys were staring at her with undisguised interest. Not only was James Smith a new racer, but he was an anomaly. He didn’t change with the other jockeys, had hardly entered the clubhouse and none even knew him to speak with him, with the exception of Eddie.
He must have said something to them, however, for none challenged her, though she pulled her cap low over her eyes.
If there was one positive outcome of the fog that filled the air, Julia mused, it was that the crowd who had come to see her face off against some of the best horsemen in the land would hardly be able to even see the racecourse in front of them. Which was good — she didn’t want much of a new audience anyway.
Still, she swallowed nervously as she looked around her. She was either going to prove she hadn’t had one-time luck, or become a laughingstock.Please let it be the former, she prayed.
The starter’s flag waved in front of her, and as the white silk flashed, suddenly she remembered exactly what it signified and she sent Maximus flying forward. She was nearly blinded by the mist but honed into her other senses. She smelled the horses around her and the earth they were churning up beneath their feet, could hear the thud of their hooves and, occasionally, the sound of horseshoes striking one another.
She could see only the fence post coming up ahead of her, and so her plan of keeping an eye on the finish was no longer an option. “Change the plan if needed,” she remembered Eddie telling her, and she nodded despite the fact he wasn’t currently saying the words to her as he was, in fact, slowly inching out in front of her, for she could see more and more of the horse’s roan body. As though sensing her stare, Eddie turned around, made eye contact, and then— he winked at her. Winked at her! While riding in a bloody horserace — or, almost-horserace.
Oh, she would have loved to have been indignant, or perhaps exasperated. But Eddie had done what he always did — he made her laugh.
The jockey on her other side, a youthful man with a shock of red hair, turned eyes of disbelief toward her, and she shrugged. She couldn’t help her reaction. It was Eddie’s fault.
The wind rushed through Julia’s ears as she bent low over Maximus’s neck. This race already was much different than the last she had taken part in. Whether it was the fact that she had already done this once before, the knowledge she had gained from Eddie’s lessons over the past few days, or the understanding that there were no true stakes attached, she felt more assured, more confident. And despite the slight crowd that had gathered, the mist made her feel as though they were on their own track, that it was just her, the horses, and these jockeys that she didn’t know yet somehow felt a camaraderie with.
