Chapter Two
The moment Mr. Pratt had departed down the drive on his pedestrian-looking roan cob, Miranda abandoned the parlor and hastened to the door that led out into the gardens.
No sign of either the girls or their dogs.
Perhaps they’d abandoned their game and progressed to their universally preferred location. The stable yard.
As she’d expected, raised voices and laughter coming from the direction of the tack room indicated that this was where she would find her daughters. She slipped into the wide passageway that ran along the front of the looseboxes and approached the partly open door at the far end.
The girls were gathered around the central table engaged in cleaning their tack, something Miranda had encouraged them to do for themselves since they’d been tiny children riding on Pickles, the garden pony.
“A good horseman, or horsewoman, always takes care of their own horse and its tack,” she’d taught them.
“So only she can be blamed if any kind of accident occurs.” And it had been a lesson well-learned.
For a moment Miranda paused, unobserved, happy to watch without disturbing them.
She’d never tired of doing so throughout their lives, nor of admiring how pretty they all were with their wavy blonde hair, blue eyes and flawless skin, all of which they’d inherited from her and not from their rotund and balding father.
If they’d been escorted to a London ball, the older two, Melissa and Miriam, at eighteen and sixteen, would have turned the heads of every young man present.
Had they but dowries to their names, of course, or even the money to buy the necessary frills and furbelows.
Margaret, the youngest at only twelve, showed promise of being as beautiful as her two sisters, but was still very much a child in both manner and outlook.
Right now, all three wore grubby canvas aprons over their riding habits, no doubt furnished by young Archie Miller, the groom.
He was a simple lad whom Miranda suspected of being smitten by not just Melissa’s looks but also her outgoing personality.
He, however, was nowhere to be seen, thank goodness.
That was something that might need nipping in the bud with a few quiet words to the young man, although Miranda was sure any feelings were not reciprocated by Melissa.
Right now, the girls seemed to be engaged in some sort of tussle as to who would get their tack cleaned first.
“Pass me the saddle soap, can’t you, Lissy?” Miriam scolded, her tone one of annoyance. “You’ve been hogging it far too long.”
“I need some too,” little Margaret chimed in. “My bridle took ages to clean because you two made me ride at the back and Banshee and I were quite covered in mud when we galloped. But the mud’s wiped off now, so I need the soap.”
“In a moment. Just wait a second, you two. I’m nearly done.
” Melissa gave a final polish to her side-saddle and handed over the pot of best Windrush saddle soap.
This was a concoction made to an old family recipe by Joe, Archie’s father, who was also the coachman and had been at Windrush since he was a boy.
Margaret made a grab for it. “Let me have a turn, Mims.”
“Wait your turn, Megs,” Miriam snapped and scooped out a small dollop with her cloth. With her usual industry, an industry that was notable by its absence anywhere but in the stable yard, she applied herself to rubbing the soap into the skirt of her saddle.
Megs leaned over, with a resigned huff, and helped herself.
Miranda pushed the tack room door wider open and stepped inside.
All three girls turned to look at her, faces expectant and curious.
“Has he gone?” Melissa asked, straightening up from where she’d been bent over her bridle buckling it back together again. She was an inch taller than her mother and they could easily have been mistaken for sisters rather than mother and daughter.
Miranda nodded.
“Was he that fat man I saw riding off on that frightfully ugly cob?” Megs, ever the least tactful of the three, asked with a mischievous smile. “Lissy and Mims sent me into the kitchen just now to ask Mrs. Barnes for cake, and I spied him leaving.”
She did indeed have cake crumbs down the front of her blue riding habit.
“Yes, that was Mr. Pratt.”
Miriam, the most perceptive of her daughters, narrowed her blue eyes. “Was it bad news, Mama?”
Miranda closed the door behind her. The last thing she wanted was any of the servants overhearing what she was going to have to say to her children, although she rather suspected their impending penury was common knowledge throughout the district.
They all knew about Mr. Pratt’s search for an heir, and they’d be finding out soon enough, but for now, she wanted to keep it to herself and the girls.
She sat down on the wooden bench that ran around the outside of the room and which lifted to provide storage for all manner of horse related objects.
“I want you all to sit down and pay proper attention.”
The girls exchanged wary glances.
Miriam put down the saddle soap pot and wiped her dirty hands on her apron.
Megs rubbed a hand across her forehead spreading the spots of mud she’d no doubt acquired on their ride in a dirty streak across her skin.
Melissa sat down beside her mother and took her hands in hers. “Tell us, Mama, we’re all old enough to know if something bad has happened. Did Mr. Pratt find the lost heir?”
“The lost heir?” Megs asked, taking her place on the other side of her mother. “Are we to be thrown out of Windrush? Is he a monster?”
Miriam drew up a low stool so she could sit in front of her mother, her brow furrowed in earnest concentration. “Tell us, Mama. Best to get it over with.”
Miranda regarded her three beautiful daughters, her unruly heart fluttering in her chest despite her best efforts to quell it.
She licked her lips. “I think you all knew that we were assuming your papa had no male relative living, didn’t you?
And that there just might have been a very distant relation who could be the heir. ”
Three blonde heads nodded.
“Well, Mr. Pratt has found him, and he is alive and not killed in battle as I feel bound to admit I’d been hoping. There is indeed an heir and he will be arriving in two days’ time to take possession of Windrush.”
“Did he turn out to be a sailor like his father?” Mims asked. “Is that why he could have been killed in battle? In a sea battle like Trafalgar?”
“Not quite,” Miranda said. “He is a soldier not a sailor, and they, of course, are just as often in large battles, if not more so.”
“I was hoping he would be dead too,” Megs admitted. “I mentioned it in my prayers every night.”
Her sisters rounded on her in shock. “You can’t pray for people to die,” Melissa said. “God will punish you if you do things like that.”
“Perhaps he has,” Mims said. “After all, he’s sent the heir to us, hasn’t he? Perhaps if Megs hadn’t asked for him to be dead, he wouldn’t have.”
“Mama was hoping he would be dead,” Megs said, arms folded in belligerence. “So it must be her fault too.”
“It’s no one’s fault,” Miranda said. What she wanted to say was that it was no one’s but their father’s, but she didn’t have the heart to speak ill of him to them.
“Is he coming with his children?” Megs, who always complained about being left out by her older sisters, asked. No doubt she was hopeful there would be a girl her age to play with.
“Oh.” Melissa pulled a face. “Does that mean he’s coming with his family?”
Miranda sighed, suddenly exhausted by the day’s tribulations. “I’m afraid I have no idea. Mr. Pratt couldn’t tell me. All I know is that he is an army captain—a medical officer who fought at Waterloo and was wounded.”
“So he could have been dead?” Megs persisted. “I might pray tonight that he can still die of his wounds in that case.”
“Please don’t do that,” Miranda said. “I might have been hoping against hope that he was no longer living, but I was not actively hoping for his death. So neither should you. It would be most un-Christian. And even if he were to die now, the estate would then go to his own nearest living relative which would not be us. He has a sister he’s been living with while he recovers from his wounds. ”
Megs’ bottom lip jutted. “All right then. I won’t.”
Miriam’s frown deepened. “But what does all of this mean for us? If he’s coming here in two days’ time, then where are we going?”
Megs, her momentary sulk banished, almost bounced off her seat.
“And what about our horses?” They were the most important thing in the world to her.
“Will he inherit our horses too?” Her voice rose in panic.
“Will his children get Banshee? I couldn’t bear that.
” She scowled. “I might have to kill them for it.”
Miranda frowned at her youngest child. “Do stop talking about killing, Megs. You’re quite worrying me. Anyone would think you were going to grow up to be a vagabond.”
“She probably is,” Miriam put in.
Miranda sighed again. Why was it when she really needed their support her daughters were intent on not being helpful at all?
“You must all remember that we don’t know this man at all.
This lost heir. He could be a nice person, or perhaps he may not be.
We won’t know until we meet him. We shall have to see.
But I won’t let him take our horses. Have no fear. We’ll keep them safe.”
“Did Papa leave the horses to us?” Miriam asked, always the one to understand the nub of a problem.
Miranda put on what she hoped was a brave smile. “Not precisely.”
Silence. The girls must all be thinking this over.
Miriam understood first. “Did he leave us anything at all apart from that old farmhouse?”