Page 1 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
CHAPTER1
JULY 8, 1854. NEWMARKET, CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
Whatever you have to do, get that horse!
Nicholas Cynster reread the words with which his sister Prudence had concluded her reply to his urgent inquiry. His lips twisted wryly. Pru had underlined the last three words several times. In his imagination, he could hear her voice forcefully and determinedly uttering the injunction.
He was seated in solitary splendor at the breakfast table in the early-morning quiet of the Cynster farmhouse. Currently, he was the only member of the family in residence. Indeed, if Pru had been in England, sitting at the table opposite him as she had for so many years, he had no doubt she would be preparing to leave in pursuit of said horse herself. But luckily or unluckily—at times like this, he wasn’t sure which—Pru was now married and living in Ireland with her husband, Deaglan Fitzgerald, the Earl of Glengarah. More, at present, she was heavily pregnant with their second child. Consequently, Nicholas and Pru’s parents had traveled to Ireland to assist in keeping Pru and Deaglan’s firstborn, Dougal, a rambunctious toddler, entertained.
Nicholas slumped back in his chair, tossed the letter onto the table beside his emptied plate, and with reluctant but growing resignation, contemplated the missive that had been delivered by courier mere minutes before.
Given that his father, legendary Thoroughbred racehorse owner and trainer Demon Cynster, would have been privy to Pru’s assessment—Nicholas’s inquiry had been addressed to them both—he had to accept that Pru’s directive carried his father’s imprimatur. Although Nicholas now ran the Cynster racing stable, his father’s opinion on such a matter wasn’t something he—or indeed, anyone in the Thoroughbred racing world—would ignore.
Several days ago, Nicholas’s groom, Young Gillies, had picked up a rumor in a smoky corner of the local tavern to the effect that an exceptional Thoroughbred stallion that had vanished from the Jockey Club’s records some years ago, whereabouts unknown, had recently been sighted on the Earl of Aisby’s estate.
Unfortunately, Nicholas’s younger brother, Toby, who had succeeded Pru as manager of the Cynster breeding stable, was presently off on some mission for Drake Varisey and, consequently, was not available to pursue the horse.
Nicholas’s youngest sibling, Meg, was also away from home, spending summer with friends while their parents were in Ireland. Not that Meg, being the only one in the family who was not horse-mad, would have been of much assistance. She certainly wouldn’t have agreed to go haring off to Aisby to persuade the earl to sell the stallion known as The Barbarian to the Cynsters.
On learning of the rumor and being of a cautious nature, especially when it came to matters of horseflesh—there were too many shysters in the game—after ascertaining the known particulars of the horse, Nicholas had sent a courier racing to Ireland to seek Pru’s advice. He had plenty to keep him occupied at Newmarket, running the Cynster racing stable and filling in for Toby in overseeing the breeding stable. He really didn’t want to tear off on some goose-chase—stallion-chase—after a horse that, in the end, proved to be not worth his and the family’s time.
“However”—he tapped Pru’s letter with one fingertip—“it seems The Barbarian is a horse we have to have.”
There was no getting around it; he would have to go to Aisby Grange in Lincolnshire—the earl’s principal seat—and negotiate to buy the horse. As part of that, he would need to clarify just why the horse had vanished from the Thoroughbred register for several years before turning up in the earl’s stable.
Nicholas sighed and pushed away from the table. “At least it’s summer. With any luck, the earl will be rusticating at Aisby Grange.”
* * *
Two days later, astride Tamerlane, his big gray hunter, Nicholas trotted up the gravel drive of Aisby Grange. Debrett’s had informed him that the current earl was a Sommerville, but Nicholas knew little beyond that; he didn’t know anyone in the Sommerville family and hadn’t had time to visit his grandmother in London to learn more.
Given that he habitually eschewed the capital and paid ton gossip no heed at all, he was, therefore, venturing into unknown territory. When he emerged from the avenue of trees, currently in heavy leaf, and the house came into full view, he reined in and scanned the façade for any clues as to its owner.
Built of pale-yellow stone, with two full stories plus dormers beneath a slate roof, Aisby Grange was an impressive, earl-worthy residence. From this vantage point, the house appeared to be a substantial rectangular block. The front doors faced south, looking over an expanse of gently sloping lawn to the shores of a large lake.
Everything about the place appeared neat and in excellent repair. The stone frame around every long window was crisp and clean, and diamond-shaped panes sparkled in the summer sunshine. The many chimneys stood tall and straight, their pots aligned in perfect symmetry, while the canopies of the ancient trees behind the house swayed and danced, ruffling in the intermittent breeze and forming a living frame for the structure.
A large porte-cochere extended outward over the front steps and the carriage drive, rendering the edifice even more imposing.
Sudden movement in the shadows of the porte-cochere, around the open front doors, accompanied by muffled shouts from within captured Nicholas’s attention. He squinted against the sun’s glare, trying to see what was happening.
* * *
Summoned by a cacophony of shrieks, screams, and yells, Lady Adriana Sommerville rushed into the Grange’s front hall and skidded to a stop at the sight that met her eyes.
Her ever-widening eyes.
Their butler, Merriweather, two footmen, and one of the parlormaids were scrambling to assist her three younger siblings—Mortie, fourteen years old, Angie, twelve, and Benjamin, ten—who, apparently, had decided that creating a game involving flying flour bombs was a good idea.
To that end, they’d attached paper sacks stuffed with flour to several conglomerations of rubber balloons—one, two, or three balloons, multiple examples of each. In addition, some of the sacks-plus-balloons were attached to kites. As usual on warm summer days, the front doors were propped wide, and there was enough breeze flowing through the hall to keep the kites-plus-balloons aloft. As for the balloon-only efforts, even without the kites, they were soaring and bobbing in the high-ceilinged hall, wafting this way and that on the currents that swept through whenever a door almost anywhere in the house was opened.
The creations with kites had long strings attached, which were now trailing on the floor, but the balloon-only efforts had strings that might have been long enough to be caught in other rooms or in the house’s corridors, but the ceiling in the front hall soared much higher, and the balloons were now bobbing free, despite the best efforts of the footmen, who were leaping up, trying to catch the strings.
The entire scene was comical and would have been amusing had the sacks of flour not started to leak.
Drips of flour now liberally splattered the black-and-green floor tiles and decorated the heads and shoulders of Merriweather and the footmen.
Argh!Lips setting, Addie strode forward. “Mortie! Angie! Benjamin!”
