ELEVEN
Out of gratitude for all that Maddie had done for him, Nipper made himself her bodyguard when she went riding. Without regard to his limitations, he kept pace with the girl when she charged across the fields, leaping hedges and stone fences as if she were riding a flying horse. He was her sounding board when she grew lonely for Charleston, a voice that rang of South Carolina when she longed for the rhythm. Out on a brisk November day, Nipper became the only person in all of Farthingmill who would understand her worries.
The letter had come from Ethan, although word of a powerful hurricane had reached England some time before the news arrived from Charleston. “A year’s crop washed away?” Nipper asked for confirmation, the facts beyond belief. “Now, if your brother had himself some heavy debts, why, he might have reason to fear. Never knew a rice planter not to have debt, Miss Maddie. It’s a question of how heavy is his load.”
From reports that were forwarded by Lawrence Ashford from the Admiralty, it appeared that the storm had blown up near Hispaniola and then crept north, following the coastline until the hurricane reached Charleston and tore through the city with a fury unseen for generations. At sea, her stepfather was unharmed, but George had been struck by flying debris, his injury said to be slight. The Beauchamp family had come out unscathed, but the family’s property was not so lucky. Warehouses and docks were washed away in the surging water, which pounded its way into the first floor of Grandfather Mahon’s house on Church Street. The rice beds for miles upriver had been washed out as well; the nearly ripe grain ready for cutting had been cut down by winds that blew out windows and lifted trees right out of the ground. The cost to put everything back was going to be high, and the income to meet those costs had run out into Charleston Bay.
“My brother assured me that we are far from ruined,” Maddie said. “But he wrote of his need to economize, to postpone certain endeavors. I do not know if I am to economize, or if my maintenance is provided from some other source. Here you are, with nearly enough saved to buy your passage home. What am I to do if I cannot keep you on? Are your people safe, have you heard?”
“Nothing that I can do, now, is there?” he said. “Trust in God is all we can do. Besides, I wouldn’t leave you, Miss Maddie. I couldn’t leave you alone with these people. You don’t belong here.”
“Thank you, but you do understand that I am not staying,” she said.
“Company’s come.” Nipper canted his head towards the stables, where a pair of gentlemen were in conclave with Mr. Turner.
She urged her gelding into a trot. “Someone to buy the yearlings, do you think?” she asked. “Leave it to Mr. Turner to fetch a good price. If I have to sell this horse to pay your wages, Nipper, I shall and be happy to see the back of this beast.”
“Are you ever tempted, to up and go?” Nipper asked.
“No, that would violate the terms of the agreement and that would not suit.” Maddie patted the horse’s neck, as if she had to assure the animal that it was not on the verge of banishment. “And I admit to being curious about their society. Everything I have seen so far is much larger, more extravagant than Charleston.”
“Even the most beautiful cage is still a cage,” Nipper said. “Well trained birds don’t fly away when the door is thrown open.”
Putting an end to a conversation that had taken an unpleasant turn, Maddie kicked the horse into a full gallop and rode straight up to the courtyard without stopping at the stable to spy on the transaction. She marched up the steps to the landing but did not enter the drawing room. Instead, she crossed the landing and marched back down, kicking at the gravel of the footpath all the way to the flower garden. Making the circuit, but not seeing a single bloom in the border, she strode to the stables and slipped in unseen.
“His lordship anticipates an escalation of hostilities,” the older of the pair said. His accent bore some resemblance to the drawl of Carolina’s back country, similar to the over-mountain men with a flavor of Scotland.
These buyers were not from Hampshire, or even London. “Better to have fresh mounts at the ready, trained, before the need arises.”
“American bloodstock,” Mr. Turner said. “Part English thoroughbred, part Spanish horses left behind by the conquistadors and bred by the natives. You will find that the line is particularly robust, with great endurance and strength. Given the right training, a superior cavalry mount.”
“His lordship will train them himself,” the younger man said.
“Well then, no one better,” Mr. Turner said. “He will find that the colts are quite spirited, but respond well. A brother of the sire is a fearless jumper. Clears hedges with the slightest touch of Miss Ashford’s heel.”
Nipper flipped the saddle onto the half door of the stall and surprised Maddie in her hiding place. He pretended not to see her as he went about bathing her gelding, but the way that he tossed the sponge around showed that he meant to splash her. “Dragoon’s mounts, I’d say,” Nipper said. “None of my affair if that’s what ‘his lordship’ is about. Not my mama being made to spin in her grave.”
“Why would my mother be displeased?” Maddie hissed. The groom could try her patience some days. “She sold horses from Riverside, the same as these.”
“The offspring of the Continental Army’s mounts, the grandchildren of Lt. Col. Benjamin’s horses? Made to serve the King’s dragoons to fight France. Like myself, miss, made to fight for England against France when French sailors fought for our liberty.”
“Bonaparte has to be stopped,” Maddie said.
“Or he’ll sail up the Thames and overthrow the mad King?” Nipper said. “Heaven help us if that fine gentleman, the Prince Regent, were sent packing.”
“That should be left to the British people to decide.”
“If that were true, the Irish would be free and Lord Edward Fitzgerald would be the president of Ireland.”
Simple things became complicated when Nipper chewed them into pieces. Weary of the endless studying, tired of thinking, Maddie walked out the way she had come in, her step a little heavier. Maybe the horses would be captured on the battlefield and made to fight for France. That would cheer Nipper. That would be fair play. She paused as she reached the house, thinking to return to share her observation, but she had no real desire to go back. The buyers were probably still there and she would have to smile, be polite and sweet and appreciative of their interest, when she felt none of those things.
Questions repeated themselves in her head as she climbed the stairs, entered the drawing room and walked along the gallery with its long display of Ashfords. Would her mother have sold the horses to a British dragoon? Was Bonaparte right or was he wrong? Was Mr. Jefferson a good man or a fool, in which case, which one of her brothers was mistaken?