Lure of the Falcon Page 8

  sociable behaviour, which she did not doubt Diane would make full use of.

  'Hold on to Scamp's lead, Jon,' Russell called unexpectedly, and Wyn's spirits rose. The children were heading towards them along with the dog. They would save her from being with Diane. 'Don't let the leather trail,' their uncle cautioned as they got nearer, 'or someone is likely to trip over it. Either hold it, or take it off. On second thoughts, hold it,' he decided. 'The mares might be a bit lively, and we don't want to start either of them off feeling scary.'

  'We've come to give the mare some sugar.' Jon headed towards the paddock fence, and to Wyn's relief Jane caught at her hand so that she was dragged willy-nilly with them. She did not turn round to see if Diane followed, hoping she would not, but when they reached the fence the girl was just behind them, and leaned her arms along it a little way from them.

  'It looks as if Uncle Russell's caught Dusky for you,' Jon observed the efforts of the men in the next enclosure but one. 'She's gentle, Jane and me've been on her,' he offered unnecessary reassurance, and Wyn smiled.

  'That'll be nice,' she assured him, 'it's a little while since I did any riding.' It was only a matter of months, but she did not stress that.

  'Why not get up on this one and try her round the paddock?' Wyn looked round in surprise as Diane sidled along the fence nearer to them, and spoke to her directly, assuming a pleasant manner that Wyn guessed she must be far from feeling. 'A quick trot round would give you the feel of it again, and she's got a head rope on.'

  `This one?' Wyn could hardly believe her ears. Surely Diane must know the mare they were fussing carried a foal? It was obvious, she thought, astounded at the other girl's sudden change of face.

  `You can't ride this one, Uncle Russell said so.' Jon looked up into her face with dismay written all over his own. 'She's in foal,' he pleaded.

  `Yes, I know. I wouldn't dream of riding her,' Wyn calmed his fears and faced Diane, her own expression set with anger. The girl knew the mare was in foal, and she had deliberately tempted Wyn to ride her, risking the mare and the unborn foal, her body cradled in a deliberate effort to make Russell angry with her. And she must have known, too, how much the first foal by Russell's beloved stallion would mean to him. The start of the Tylar stud. Whether or not he eventually became the owner of the Grange land, he could always start up somewhere else. To risk his dreams from sheer petty spite was something beyond Wyn's comprehension.

  `You should know better than to suggest such a thing.' Her voice was quiet, but vibrant with feeling, and the contempt in her eyes was undisguisable. Diane's face flamed.

  'It wouldn't have hurt, just one canter,' she muttered. 'Oh well, if you don't want to be friendly, that's up to you.' She turned her back on Wyn and the two children and walked swiftly away, towards the paddock where the two men were leading the captive mares towards the gate.

  'We caught them easily enough,' Val grinned triumphantly as they rejoined the others, with the mares in tow. 'We'll get them saddled up. Why not go and

  wait over by that notice on the lower fence,' he suggested, 'we'll bring them out to you. Benny is saddling the other two for us.'

  'What notice?' Wyn shaded her eyes against the bright sunshine. 'Oh yes, I see it—though I can't read what it says,' she smiled.

  'It says "no trespassing",' Diane snapped with a malice that made Val stare, and left Wyn in no doubt of her meaning. Russell did not appear to hear her, he was busy answering the questions fired at him by Jon and Jane and had his back turned towards them.

  'I'll walk back with you,' Diane decided as the two men made ready to take the horses along the avenue of trees to the stables, and Wyn breathed out a small sigh of relief. She did not mind waiting on her own, certainly she preferred it to being left in Diane's company.

  'We can manage the horses.' Val looked at her in surprise. 'It won't take us long to saddle up, and it'll save you the walk back.'

  'I've left my riding crop in the car,' Diane answered him flatly, and he shrugged.

  'You shouldn't need a crop.' Russell caught her. words. 'The mare will respond without that,' he told her quietly.

  'I don't feel balanced without one.' She turned and walked beside him, in between the two men, deliberately excluding Wyn, so that if she wanted to go along with them she would have to either walk behind them, or on the other side of the led horses.

  'Are you going to wait by the notice?' Val checked and looked over his shoulder towards her.

  'Yes, I'll wait for you there,' Wyn agreed readily.

  Diane's-reluctance for her own company was mutual, she thought waspishly.

  `We'll come with you.' The children were not averse to staying with her anyway, she thought, and her heart warmed to their cheery chatter, though she noticed that Jon seemed more subdued than usual, and once or twice she intercepted an anxious glance in her direction.

  `Tell me?' she invited quietly, when Jane begged Scamp's lead off her brother and ran on ahead of them, her inexhaustible energy soon making her impatient of their sedate pace.

  `The mare—the one that's in foal,' he spoke hesitantly.

  'I wouldn't ride her, Jon. I know better than that, the same as you do,' Wyn hastened to set his young mind at rest.

  'I know you wouldn't, you said so.' His trust in her was implicit, and touching. 'It's Aunty Diane ...' He stopped awkwardly.

  'She knows not to as well, now.' So it was 'Aunty Diane'. The glory faded from the bright May sunshine. Even the children accepted her as being already a member of their family. And Diane herself had lost no time in warning Wyn not to trespass. Unconsciously her eyes sought the notice, and her lips tightened as she read what was inscribed on it in large, black-painted print.

  'Paddock One.'

  Russell had even started to number the paddocks. She looked at the fencing with renewed interest. It was all new, the perimeter fence was made up of posts and rails, pale in colour which indicated that they had not

  been up for many weeks, and the dividers )were temporary electric fencing. She approved his method; the parkland made ideal grazing, but it consisted of many unbroken acres, and if he intended to breed horses it would make it easier to control his stock if he broke it up into numbered paddocks.

  No wonder Val looked startled when Diane said it read `no trespassing', she thought, especially as he could not share Wyn's knowledge of the double meaning to her words.

  'She knew not to ride the mare before.'

  Wyn brought her mind back with an effort to what Jon was saying.

  'I was there when Uncle Russell told her,' he said, and once again she felt anger flare inside her at the other girl's unprincipled action.

  'She forgot, I expect.' She tried to speak mildly, but her voice came through tight lips. 'She'll remember, now she's been reminded.' Somehow she made herself sound confident, and the boy's face cleared.

  'I hope the foal's like Pendelico. Isn't he lovely?' he breathed, and Wyn turned to follow his entranced gaze. The three riders cantered towards them. Val was leading the spare horse, a blue roan that looked well bred. In spite of her misgivings, Wyn's spirits lifted, and she found herself looking forward to the ride. Russell and Diane rode side by side. They made a handsome couple, she had to admit reluctantly. The girl sat astride a jet black mare whose colour was unrelieved except for a star-shaped white blaze on its forehead. It made a perfect foil for the girl's fair colouring, a fact she was well aware of, thought Wyn uncharitably, though she had to concede that Diane rode as if she was a part of her

  mount, an ease that betokened an accomplished horsewoman.

  Russell towered above her on Pendelico, a tall, slender, upright figure outlined against the sky, atop a mount that danced with the nervous energy of a thoroughbred. No wonder he would not let Diane ride the stallion. Wyn noticed that he rode it on a hackamore, typically confident of his ability to control the spirited animal, and his body swayed to the restless movements it made, perfectly balanced as he soothed it to stillness while
he waited for Wyn to mount.

  'Corporal Benny feeds him corn, that's what makes him lively,' Jon remarked with a sage wisdom that twitched Wyn's lips upwards in a smile, which she immediately turned on Val to cover its reason.

  He jumped down, and with boyish gallantry offered her his knee and two cupped hands in approved style. Rather than snub him she availed herself of his lift into the saddle, although she was more than capable of mounting without his aid, even on her tall steed, and she gathered the reins in competent hands, revelling in the feeling of a horse under her again. This was something else she missed when she was away from home.

  'Comfortable?' Russell asked her, and she nodded happily. 'We'll go out to the right of Tylar Barrow,' he gave his intended direction to his brother, 'we can cut across the edge of the wood and follow the river fields along as far as the level crossing. If we come back along the high ground towards the main road, I can see how Benny's getting on,' he told them. 'He wanted to try his hand at repairing the gap in the drystone wall near the Lodge.'

  'He's a versatile character,' Val acknowledged, 'interesting to talk to. He's been around quite a bit, and seems to have tried most things.'

  'He's only a groom.' Diane's tone indicated her feelings, and Wyn stared at her in surprise. She had met Corporal Benny twice since she had been at the Grange, and liked him. He was a quiet, reserved man, but on the subject of horses it was easy enough to draw him out, and when he had discovered her own interest in them she had found him only too willing to talk, in the slow soft dialect that marked him as coming from the wold country.

  'We'll be more or less beating the bounds of the Grange land, going this way,' Val chatted amiably as Russell turned his horse to lead the way. Diane put her heels to her mount and caught him up, leaving Wyn and Val to fall in behind them.

  'How far does it extend?' She was not really interested in the extent of the land belonging to the Grange, but any sort of conversation was better than listening to the torment of her own thoughts as she rode behind Russell and Diane, watching them together, absorbed in each other's company, as alone, she thought miserably, as if they had come out on their own as they had originally intended.

  'About a couple of thousand acres,' Val answered laconically. 'An ideal size for Cedric Plumb to turn into a sports centre, or whatever,' he added cynically, and Wyn turned in her saddle and faced him.

  'It won't come to that,' she said fiercely. 'It mustn't. I'll find the will if it takes months ...'

  'I say, you do feel strongly about it, don't you?' Val eyed her appreciatively, for once serious. 'I’m glad

  you're battling for Russ as well,' he said quietly. We've done everything we can think of. Looked in all the holes and corners, and so on, but you're one step ahead of us there,' he admitted, 'you've got specialist knowledge.'

  'I'd hate to see a lovely old place like this spoiled,' she answered him lamely, biting her lip with vexation. She had not meant to let her feelings show so plainly. Val would probably think it was just professional enthusiasm, but she knew if Diane had heard her she would have put a different interpretation on her fervour. The correct interpretation. Women were more intuitive than men, especially if they were in love themselves, and she dared not let Diane suspect her feelings towards Russell, it would leave her more vulnerable than ever to the girl's spite.

  She used a tussock of thistles as an excuse to veer slightly away from Val's side, and in front of him, so that she would have time to compose her expression. His acknowledgment of her expertise soothed her pride, even Russell had to concede that, but her emotions were indeed 'battling for Russell', though not in the way Val meant, even if her pride would not allow her to take any action to satisfy their longing.

  'Mind the branches ! ' Russell called back. Diane did not echo his call, as under the circumstances Wyn thought she might have done. Evidently she believed in letting other people take pot luck, particularly when they foisted their company on her, and made an unwelcome foursome.

  The riders swung into single file as they skirted the bottom of the ancient burial ground, and cut across a glade of trees on the very edge of the wood. Wyn could

  see the faint line of the footpath winding up the slope to thetop of the Barrow.

  'One day we'll ...' Russell had said, and bleakly as she traced it with her eyes Wyn wondered if she would ever walk up the slope of the hill with him, and stand by his side to gaze at the view from the top. More likely if she did climb the Barrow it would be in the company of Val or the two children, and she did not find the prospect appealing.

  'Duck!' Val exhorted her from behind, but she had already leaned low across her horse's neck, following Russell's example and that of Diane as they each avoided a low-slung branch. Briefly, Diane looked back over her shoulder, in time to see Wyn duck safely under the branch, but Wyn doubted if the girl was concerned for her safety; more likely she hoped the following rider Might not see the hazard in time, and get entangled; she thought candidly, realising from her earlier experience by the paddock rails that Diane would give no quarter if she imagined her standing with Russell was threatened.

  Ahead of them a train whistled, a cheerful 'toot-toot' as if its driver found life good, and a long black snake, toylike in the distance, wound its way across the fields beside the river. A small aircraft buzzed overhead, its drone no more intrusive than the hum of bees, and Val cocked an interested eye upwards.

  'It's one of the Club planes,' he identified its markings. 'We often come over this way when we're flying,' he told Wyn. 'The river makes a useful guide if the pilot happens to be shaky on navigation,' he grinned.

  'It'll be pleasant by the water, let's drop down a bit

  and follow it ourselves as far as the level crossing. Russell urged the stallion into a trot.

  'If you want to let Pendelico out, go on ahead,' Val called. 'We'll catch up later.' He sympathised with the horse's need, and with a raised hand Russell accepted his consideration. Wyn heard him speak to the horse once, quietly. The animal's one ear flicked back, and it stretched out into an easy lope, its powerful limbs doubling the distance between them in seconds. Russell was a superb rider, a part of the flowing motion of his horse that moved with effortless speed, glorying in its own controlled power and the space and freedom to use it.

  `They make a lovely picture, don't they?' Val sat back in his saddle and watched the performance critically. 'Pendelico must make a wonderful ride.'

  'Have you never been on him?' Wyn was surprised, she would have thought Val at least would have ridden the stallion.

  `No, never.' His look was thoughtful. 'No one's ridden him but Russell. He did offer me a ride once, but—well, I'm not such a good horseman as he is, and Pendelico is special. He's a one-man horse. After all,' his seriousness faded, 'I wouldn't like Russ to tinker with my car, so why should I tinker with his horse?'

  It was a thoughtfulness that Wyn would not have suspected in Val, and her ' irritation at his occasional gauche tactlessness faded. Everyone had to grow up some time. Val seemed to be taking his time about it, she admitted drily, but once he had decided to take up a career, and shouldered some responsibility, he bid fair to turn into a very likeable person. She already

  liked him. He would make a very nice brother-in-law, she thought forlornly, and wished she had remained at the Grange and worked, instead of coming out riding.

  `Then it's time someone else did get a chance to ride the animal,' Diane snapped, plainly unable to understand her companion's reasoning. 'It's selfish to keep the stallion to himself when other people are just as cap. able of riding it as he is.'

  'It's safer that way,' Val protested, 'and other people aren't as capable as Russell. Benny's the only other one I'd trust with a horse of that calibre, and he thinks the same as I do. Pendelico's a one-man horse, and he should stay that way.' His tone was unexpectedly firm, and Diane tossed her head.

  'He'll have to learn to share it some time,' she pouted, with a pointed look in Wyn's direction, and w
ith a quick flick of her riding crop she set her horse into a gallop and set off after Russell.

  `Go on after them if you want to,' Wyn offered, but her companion shook his head.

  'Russ was right,' he admitted 'rather shamefacedly, 'you haven't got a hard hat. We can trot after them, give them time for a breather before we catch up.' And a few minutes to themselves, Wyn thought, but she could hardly blame Diane for that. 'I can let my mare go on the way back home,' he eased her conscience, aware that she felt she was holding him back.

  'Diane rides well.' She watched the girl critically, and could find no fault in her performance, except for her unnecessary use of the crop.

  'But not well enough to ride Pendelico,' Val retorted. 'She's not strong enough. Few girls would be

  strong enough to hold him, and he's never been ridden in anything but a hackamore,' he answered. 'The trouble with Diane is, she always wants her own way. The de Courceys lost their son in an accident, and afterwards they indulged Diane to a silly extent. She was always a spoiled brat even when she was little,' he added disgustedly, implying ungallantly that he had not changed his opinion of her since.

  Wyn did not answer him. She urged her mare into a brisk trot, which saved her from any further conversation, deciding to take refuge in silence rather than take sides. There was only one side she could take if she followed her instinct, and it was not Diane's.

  'He's turning to go in to land,' Val indicated the aeroplane above them, which was now much lower, and heading in the direction of Russell and Diane, who were walking their horses towards a signal box where the site of the level crossing must be that Russell had mentioned earlier. Wyn reined to a walk and watched as the pilot did a neat about-turn, lined up with the signal box and dipped the nose of his machine gently, losing height in the long run in to the flying field.