Contents

Also by Jilly Cooper

FICTION

Riders

Rivals

Polo

The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

Appassionata

Score!

Pandora

Wicked!

Jump!

NON-FICTION

How to Stay Married

How to Survive from Nine to Five

Jolly Super

Men and Supermen

Jolly Super Too

Women and Superwomen

Work and Wedlock

Jolly Superlative

Super Men and Super Women

Super Jilly

Class

Super Cooper

Intelligent and Loyal

Jolly Marsupial

Animals in War

The Common Years

Hotfoot to Zabriskie Point (with Patrick Lichfield)

How to Survive Christmas

Turn Right at the Spotted Dog

Angels Rush In

Araminta’s Wedding

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Little Mabel

Little Mabel’s Great Escape

Little Mabel Wins

Little Mabel Saves the Day

ROMANCE

Emily

Bella

Harriet

Octavia

Prudence

Imogen

Lisa & Co

ANTHOLOGIES

The British in Love

Violets and Vinegar

MOUNT!

JILLY COOPER

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Jilly Cooper 2016
Cover photography: © Larry Rostant; except horse portrait © Shutterstock
Design by Richard Ogle/TW

Jilly Cooper has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448170876
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9780593072912 (tpb)

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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

CAST OF CHARACTERS IN 1786

THE ANIMALS

CAST OF PRINCIPAL CONTEMPORARY CHARACTERS

THE ANIMALS

RUPERT CAMPBELL-BLACK’S STALLIONS

RUPERT CAMPBELL-BLACK’S HORSES IN TRAINING

HORSES IN RUPERT CAMPBELL-BLACK’S STUD

ISA LOVELL AND COSMO RANNALDINI’S ACE STALLION

ISA AND COSMO’S HORSES IN TRAINING
(All progeny of Roberto’s Revenge)

OTHER HORSES INCLUDE

PROLOGUE

Rutshire, 1786

The last race should have been called off, as the twin saboteurs, night and fog, crept stealthily over the course. Rutminster Cathedral spire, a landmark for miles around, was no longer visible. The Bishop of Rutminster, battling to ban racing, could identify neither rabble nor runners as he peered furiously out of his palace window.

Nor had bitter cold nor relentless drizzle dispersed a vast crowd, swarming round the betting posts, clamouring to watch the most eagerly awaited race in years – despite there being only two contenders.

The first was Rupert Black, a young adventurer, hellraiser, hard drinker and womanizer, who possessed the hauteur of beauty, but not of birth. His father was a small Northern racehorse trainer, and in the late eighteenth century, trainers were regarded as no higher than grooms.

Rupert Black had no income and fewer principles, but was such an amusing fellow that a fast aristocratic set had taken him up, welcomed him into their houses and let him advise them on bloodstock – about which he was clearly an expert.

Rupert Black had been called ‘Blackguard’ and ‘Black Sheep’, but was more often nicknamed ‘Rupert of the Roan’ because of his dashing cavalry charges on the hunting field and his beautiful blue roan mare, Sweet Azure, whom he was riding in the race ahead.

Pitted against him on a vastly superior horse called Spartan was the Hon. James Northfield, elder son of the fourth Baron Northfield, who owned 2,000 Cotswold acres, which included Rutminster Racecourse.

The austere, scholarly James, who had hitherto shown little interest in the estate or in women, had then outraged his parents and scandalized society by impregnating one of his mother’s kitchenmaids: a pretty Dutch girl called Gisela. Even more scandalously, he had then secretly married her.

The Hon. Rufus Northfield, except for having the same dark auburn hair, sallow complexion and close-set, fox-brown eyes, was a total contrast to his older brother James. A crack shot and rider, the inseparable crony of Rupert Black, Rufus loved the land and carousing with his father’s tenants. Despite his profligate behaviour, Rufus was showing signs of calming down, having just become betrothed to a rich and well-born local beauty.

At the ball given by Lord and Lady Northfield to celebrate this engagement, James’ new wife, Gisela, had nearly died of embarrassment after her husband had insisted she attend: only for her to be sneered at by the guests and served by the very servants on whom she had waited in the kitchen.

Worse was to come when the loathsome Rupert Black, already in his cups and having fluttered the pulses of all the ladies, had wandered up to her. Sliding a too-high hand around her thickening waist and squeezing her breast, he mockingly handed her a late wedding present. It turned out to be a copy of Pamela, Samuel Richardson’s wildly popular novel about a servant girl fighting for her virtue in the house of a lecherous master.

‘Richardson could have been writing about you,’ drawled Rupert, causing a ripple of laughter to run through several female guests who’d gathered around.

To their disappointment, however, Rupert showed no desire to dance with any of them and instead retired to the gambling tables in an attempt to reduce his debts and finish paying for a colt called Third Leopard, whose owner was threatening to sell him elsewhere.

As he raked in his winnings – a pile of sovereigns as gold as his hair – Rupert Black was singing the praises of his mare Sweet Azure, whom he might have been forced to sell if things didn’t pick up.

‘Like all good fillies,’ he said insolently, so a passing James Northfield could hear, ‘she has the face of an angel and the posterior of a cook – not unlike your new wife, James.’

Looking down at Rupert’s cruel, unsmiling face, its beauty hardly impaired by bloodshot, slightly crossing blue eyes, James, who loved his wife, upended the table; and, as coins scattered all over the floor, he challenged Rupert to a duel.

‘A better idea,’ suggested Rupert to noisy cheers, ‘would be a match race between Spartan and Sweet Azure round Rutminster Racecourse on the old track through the woods, the loser giving the winner four thousand guineas.’ And, as the Northfields owned the racecourse, it was arranged in front of witnesses that the contest would take place after the final race on the following Saturday.

Throughout that Saturday, rumours swirled round more thickly than the fog. Many of the gentry rolled up on horseback after a day’s hunting and were instantly engulfed by pickpockets, drunkards, prostitutes, cutpurses and gypsies telling fortunes, crowding round the betting posts as the money poured in.

Northfield had the finer horse, Black was the finer rider. But, although lithe and lean, at six feet tall, Rupert was twelve pounds heavier than the weedy James – twelve pounds which Sweet Azure, far smaller and slighter than Spartan, would have to carry over four miles. Yet Black was still the favourite.

The fog was thickening, ghost-grey, suffocating and blurring everything. As James pulled on his boots, he was reminded of Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise on painting, which claimed that objects seen through fog will loom larger than they are. In fact, James had been so busy writing his own treatise on Leonardo that, unlike Rupert Black, he hadn’t bothered to walk the course.

The only person apart from the Bishop of Rutminster not at the races was Gisela Northfield, who, fighting all-day sickness, was in the cathedral praying for her husband’s safe return.

Down at the start in the water meadows, oak trunks darkened by rain, like towers in the twisting vapours, were just distinguishable from the black wooded hillside beyond. Once again, the starter questioned whether the race should be run.

‘I can see well enough,’ mocked Rupert Black, who was already mounted, ‘to notice the sweat of fear glistening on James Northfield’s face and to have no difficulty recognizing the winning post.’

James didn’t reply. He was having difficulty merely climbing aboard the plunging, insufficiently ridden Spartan. More so when Hibbert, his groom, let go of the reins in order to contain Seeker, James’ white mastiff, who was fighting to join the race and follow his master.

The crowd huddled together, unwilling to lose their places on the rail, blowing on their fingers, drinking from bottles which they might later throw at a losing horse, and shouting to keep warm. Their roar could almost be heard in Newmarket, miles away, as the two riders splashed off across the water meadows and up on to a track that ran round the wooded bowl of hills, before dropping back down to the water meadows for the finish.

It was colder and more claustrophobic up in the woods. The going was as slippery as the fat from the roasting capon Gisela had spilled over the floor, the first time shy James had stolen a kiss.

Leaves blew into the horses’ faces and lay in a treacherous carpet over arthritic roots, fallen twigs, Cotswold stones, rabbit holes and badger setts. Not to mention the sinister coils of Old Man’s Beard hanging from overhead branches, waiting to garrotte a passing rider. As the track grew narrower from being little used, James Northfield cursed himself for not walking the course.

The bellow of the impatient crowd rose to a deafening climax, then turned to a groan as a horse and rider eventually emerged from the woods, parting the thick grey curtain of mist and splashing back across the water meadows. Both were so coated with dark-brown mud, they were assumed to be James Northfield and Spartan. But as they galloped up the straight, the groan became a thunderous cheer again, as the mob distinguished the flying gold curls of a rider, almost too big for his gallant little mare. Instantly the jubilant mounted spectators peeled off to follow the pair up the course to the winning post.

But as time ticked away there was no sign of the Honourable James.

‘I lost him about two miles back, just above Walker’s Mill,’ Rupert told the stewards as he removed his saddle to weigh in.

Sweet Azure stood desperately panting with drooping head, steam pouring out of inflated red nostrils. From the wheals on her quarters and her bleeding flanks, it was clear that neither whip nor spur had been spared. Rufus Northfield, overjoyed because he’d backed his friend very heavily, ordered Rupert’s groom to cover the damage with a rug.

Then everyone waited and waited for James Northfield and Spartan, until Seeker the mastiff broke away from Hibbert the groom and plunged back into the dark in search of his master. No one else left. The crowd had closed round the betting posts to stop any bookmaker doing a runner. Then over the shouting and celebration came the unearthly howl of a dog.

It took time to light torches, then stumbling and sliding through the darkening woods, a party of mounted stewards set out. After two miles, they at last identified the ghostly white form of Seeker, still howling on the side of the track. As the distraught animal refused to let anyone closer, he had to be shot before Spartan’s body was discovered slumped at the bottom of a fifty-foot ravine. Beneath the horse, his back and neck broken, lay James Northfield.

Next day the fog cleared, but rumour writhed round more thickly and darkly, particularly when, by the ravine, two sets of hoof-prints were discovered side by side, accompanied by much skidding. Only the smaller set of footprints passed onwards.

But as Rupert Black, refusing to admit he had blue blood on his hands, pointed out, he and Sweet Azure must have passed the spot a good ten minutes before James and Spartan – and both riders must have taken an identical route to avoid a big sycamore branch that had fallen across the track.

Darker rumours suggested that Rupert could have been egged on by Rufus, whose extravagant tastes were hampered by the enforced poverty of a younger son. Any suggestions of foul play, however, were quashed by the Northfield family, who owned the racecourse and probably the local constabulary. Refusing to blame Rupert, they honourably paid him the four thousand guineas. This, added to his winnings from the vast sum he had wagered on himself and Sweet Azure, enabled him to complete the payments on Third Leopard.

Did the Northfields feel a secret relief? James had always been a difficult, introspective son. Rufus, particularly when guided by his sensible new wife, would run the estate far better. Privately, Lord Northfield had never forgiven James for stealing from him the fair Gisela, on whom he too had had designs. After a few weeks, nemesis struck and his Lordship was punished by a fatal heart attack.

The timid, heartbroken Gisela was speedily paid off and sent packing back to Holland. Although she wrote occasionally to Mrs Jenkins the cook, by the time she gave birth, the title had already passed to Rufus.

Gisela, who had never ceased to mourn James, sank into despair and took her own life. No one in Rutminster bothered to find out if she had given birth to a daughter or a son.

Meanwhile, Third Leopard, who was both a direct descendant of the Darley Arabian and grandson of the mighty Eclipse, was trained by Rupert Black into a great horse, winning numerous races including the oldest classic, the St Leger, which had been established in 1776.

At stud, Third Leopard was even more successful, siring 400 sons and daughters, who in turn won many classics, notching up 822 victories. This for several years made the stallion the country’s Leading Sire, during which time his master Rupert was able to charge a massive stud fee of fifty guineas. With riches pouring in, Rupert Black became a grand gentleman, marrying, like Rufus Northfield, a rich, well-born beauty, a Miss Campbell, whose ancestors had fought bravely for the Royalists in the Civil War, and who joined her name with his. The Campbell-Blacks bought a beautiful house in Penscombe overlooking a wooded Gloucestershire valley, where horses have thrived ever since.

The marriage was successful. If Mrs Campbell-Black corrected her husband Rupert’s pronunciation a little too often, he could always find solace in the adulation of the neighbouring belles.

Such was his hubris, he and Third Leopard were even painted by Stubbs in a country landscape with a pale-gold house peering out of dark-green trees, with olive-green lawns flowing down to a lake on which floated swans.

Normally Stubbs immortalized legendary racehorses held by grooms identified by name. But Rupert Black insisted on aping the Prince Regent. Like Prinny he was dressed in tight white breeches and brown topped boots, with a wide-brimmed hat tipped over his Greek nose and flaxen curls flowing over the collar of a long, brass-buttoned riding coat, which emphasized his strong, lithe body. A frilled white shirt showed off the perfect jawline and a passionate but ruthless mouth. Rupert Black was also portrayed like Prinny, trotting past with a triumphant wave of his whip: ‘Haven’t I and this great horse done well.’

And yet to this day, no one – least of all Rupert Black’s descendants – likes to ride or walk in Rutminster woods at dusk. There have been too many sightings of pale riders on dark horses and howling white mastiffs. Even hounds in full cry on late winter afternoons have always turned away, whimpering, if a fox has run into the woods.

1

On a stiflingly hot June evening, some 225 years later, Rupert Campbell-Black, the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Rupert Black, looked out of his office in the west wing of the same pale-gold Queen Anne house at Penscombe.

The same lake still glittered as sweetly azure as his ancestor’s blue roan mare in the June sun, but to the right of the olive-green lawns and down the valley sprawled a giant complex of a racing yard, entitled Rupert Campbell-Black Racing. This was surrounded by a tangle of gallops for all weathers and distances, a stud farm, Penscombe Stud, helicopter pad, hangar, lorry park, staff cottages, and lush paddocks, with plenty of shade to safeguard every kind of racehorse: stallions, visiting mares, mares in foal or with foal, yearlings and horses in training.

But Rupert Black’s descendant didn’t feel any great pride as he scrolled through the emails still congratulating him on his three-thousandth win, or his Grand National victory with a mare called Mrs Wilkinson back in April or the 2000 Guineas back in May. He was merely irritated not to have won the Derby earlier in the month.

Nor did he bother to read more emails pouring in to congratulate him on the speech he’d made at Billy Lloyd-Foxe’s memorial service yesterday, a task he’d found harder than winning an Olympic Gold in Los Angeles with a trapped nerve years ago. He had never dreamed how wiped out he would be by Billy’s death. Billy, his inseparable companion of fifty years, joined at the hip, finishing each other’s jokes, rejoicing in every success.

Rupert looked down at his speech.

‘This was the noblest rider of them all,’ he had told a packed Rutminster Cathedral congregation which had spilled out over the water meadows. Then he had regaled them with stories about his and Billy’s antics at prep school and Harrow, hell-raising on the showjumping circuit, fighting for a television franchise, moving on to Billy’s career as equine correspondent for the BBC.

‘Nothing in Billy’s life became him like the leaving of it,’ he had ended. ‘He bore pain and illness with equal fortitude, but the happiest moment of his life came at the end, when his daughter Amber won the Grand National on a little one-eyed mare called Mrs Wilkinson.

‘Billy had an equally marvellous little horse called The Bull on whom he’d won a silver medal. “I hope I see The Bull again,” were his last words. I’m sure Billy’s riding The Bull across the clouds. Lucky heaven, to have both of them.’ Bloody mawkish that, Rupert thought wryly.

The party afterwards, most of which he’d paid for, resulted in him having a blazing row with Billy’s widow Janey, who’d made a drunken and soppy speech, repeatedly quoting the line: ‘That’s the way for Billy and me’, while boasting of the over 3,019 letters of sympathy she had received. She was furious Rupert hadn’t praised her as a wonderful wife.

‘You were a fucking awful wife,’ Rupert had snarled back. ‘Billy’d be alive today if he hadn’t been permanently stressed by you squandering his money and fucking other men.’

This had also resulted in a rare screaming match between Rupert and his wife Taggie, who’d ticked him off before rushing away to comfort Janey.

Rupert was sure Janey would take the opportunity to solicit an invitation to move back into Lime Tree Cottage, the little seventeenth-century house in Rupert’s woods nearby, which she and Billy had lived in rent-free when they were first married. If Janey returned, Rupert knew she’d be hanging round, playing the grieving widow, reminding him of Billy for the rest of his life.

Last night’s row with Taggie had ended up with her sleeping in the spare room and their not speaking all day. He was tempted to ring her in the kitchen and make it up. Instead he poured himself another glass of whisky.

On the wall opposite were monitors on which he could watch his own horses and the progeny of his stallions and brood mares winning races all over the world. On the left wall, flanked by framed photographs of victorious horses, hung the Stubbs of Rupert Black and Third Leopard, winner of the St Leger and for five years Leading Sire.

Today there were two ways a horse could become Leading Sire: either if he were the stallion whose offspring had clocked up the most wins in a year, or, more importantly, if those offspring had earned the most prize money. Verdi’s Requiem, a dark-brown Irish Triple Crown winner, had topped the Leading Sire charts for Great Britain and Europe for fifteen years but now, aged twenty-five, his reign must be drawing to a close.

Opening the Racing Post, Rupert noted Bloodstock News had predicted a bloody battle to topple Verdi’s Requiem between Rupert Campbell-Black’s Love Rat and Isa Lovell’s Roberto’s Revenge. Rupert ground his teeth. Isa Lovell, ex-champion jockey and ex-son-in-law, had worked uneasily for Rupert for ten years, learning everything he could about training and breeding before defecting to start his own yard directly in competition with Rupert.

Even worse, Isa had joined forces with Cosmo Rannaldini, the fiendish little son of Rupert’s arch enemy, the late, great conductor Roberto Rannaldini. Married to Rupert’s first wife Helen, Roberto had not only tried to rape Rupert’s daughter Tabitha, but had managed to batter to death Taggie’s little mongrel Gertrude when she tried to protect Tabitha. In the Campbell-Black canon, it was arguable which was the greater crime.

Cosmo and Isa were proving maddeningly successful with the progeny of Roberto’s Revenge, particularly with a colt called Feud for Thought, which had just beaten Rupert’s colt Dardanius in the Derby. Cosmo had inherited a great deal of money from his father, but he and Isa were spending such a fortune on yearlings and two-year-olds that someone must be bankrolling them. Rupert would kill to stop them beating him to Leading Sire. Love Rat must topple Verdi’s Requiem.

In the still-baking evening, out in the fields he could see foals lying flat and motionless except for their frantically waving tails. Rupert’s four dogs: Jack Russells, Cuthbert and Gilchrist, a brindle greyhound called Forester and a black Labrador called Banquo, panted in their baskets.

Up on a monitor, evening racing had started at the Curragh, Ireland’s greatest racecourse. Rupert hoped one of Love Rat’s progeny, Promiscuous, would win a later race there.

Promiscuous had been trained by Rupert’s old stable jockey, the also lascivious Bluey Charteris, who’d married an Irish trainer’s daughter, and managed to stay faithful enough to take over his father-in-law’s yard. Bluey and Isa Lovell doing so well made Rupert feel old. Overwhelmed with sadness and restlessness, he rang Valent Edwards, who had just married Etta Bancroft, the owner of Grand National-winning Mrs Wilkinson, and who was now back from their honeymoon.

‘We ought to discuss Mrs Wilkinson,’ he said. ‘Come over and have a drink.’

The moment he rang off, the telephone rang again: ‘No, you can’t have a discount on three mares,’ said Rupert tersely, and poured himself another glass of whisky.

There was a knock on the door and a very pretty blonde, with an utterly deceptive air of innocence, walked in. Dora Belvedon was the eighteen-year-old daughter of Rupert’s late friend, Raymond Belvedon, and his much younger second wife, Anthea. A gold-digger and an absolute bitch, Anthea had never given Dora enough pocket money. As a result, Dora had supported herself, her dog Cadbury and her pony Loofah by flogging stories to the tabloids.

For the past two years, as well as acting sporadically as Rupert’s press officer, she had been ghosting his contentious, highly successful column in the Racing Post. She also wrote a column supposedly by Mrs Wilkinson’s stable companion, a goat called Chisolm, in the Daily Mirror.

Missing her sweet father desperately, an itinerant Dora found comfort spending time at Penscombe, where she could always grab a bed if needs be. In addition, she often stayed in Willowwood, in the cottage of Miss Painswick, the former secretary of her old boarding school.

Fearing that Mrs Wilkinson might be homesick just before the Grand National, when she had been moved to Penscombe to be trained by Rupert, Dora, in an incredibly daring move, had smuggled the little mare into the mighty Love Rat’s stallion paddock, and a joyful coupling had taken place.

Mrs Wilkinson’s dam had been a successful flat horse called Little Star, and her sire was Rupert’s most successful stallion: the Derby and St Leger-winning Peppy Koala. As Love Rat had been a champion sprinter, who would add his lightning speed to Mrs Wilkinson’s stamina, any foal consequently should be a cracker. But as Dora had executed this move without Rupert’s permission, she was extremely anxious to avoid the subject of stud fees. Now, brandishing an Italian phrasebook, she said, ‘Poor Emilia was awfully low, but I’ve been talking to her in Italian and she’s really perked up’ – Emilia being a very good filly Rupert had bought cheap because of the collapsing Italian economy.

‘I’ve also been playing her La Traviata,’ babbled Dora, ‘and she loved it, particularly the bit that goes, “Da dum dum da de dum, da dum, dum da, de, dum”.’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Rupert, who adored Dora but felt she needed reining in.

Dora replied that she’d been in Sardinia with her actor boyfriend Paris, and housesitting Mrs Wilkinson while Etta her owner and her husband Valent were on their honeymoon.

‘It’s Mrs Wilkinson we’ve got to talk about,’ Rupert said.

‘I must get your Racing Post copy in by tomorrow afternoon,’ Dora said hastily. ‘I thought you might like to write about Roberto’s Revenge’s climb up the Leading Sire’s chart. Isa Lovell’s doing really well.’

‘I’m not doing any favours for that moody, vindictive little shit, or that oily little toad Cosmo.’

‘I quite like Cosmo,’ confessed Dora. ‘He’s funny and we both have mothers who are embarrassingly bats about you.’

‘Shut up, Dora,’ snapped Rupert. ‘We need to talk about Mrs Wilkinson.’

‘Did you see Amanda Platell’s piece in the Mail, about the doctors’ surgeries teeming with women suffering from loss of libido, and suggesting the perfect cure was Rupert Campbell-Black?’

‘Don’t be even more fatuous,’ said Rupert irritably. But he smirked slightly. ‘Now about this stolen service.’

On cue, Dora’s chocolate Labrador, Cadbury, wandered in from Taggie’s kitchen, and all Rupert’s dogs woke up and fell on him, barking joyously. ‘Go back to your boxes. Stop that bloody awful din!’ roared Rupert.

‘Din, because they want their dinner, ha, ha. Can Cadbury have some too?’

‘Shut up, Cuthbert.’ Rupert pulled a Jack Russell on to his knee, shutting its yapping jaws with his hand and asked: ‘Can you remember exactly what day Love Rat covered Mrs Wilkinson?’

‘About a fortnight before the National.’

Rupert looked up at the calendar. ‘Foal in February then.’

‘Mrs Wilkinson’s had a lovely day,’ sighed Dora, edging off the subject again, ‘opening a supermarket in Cotchester. Huge cheering crowds turned out to pat her and Chisolm. They do adore the attention.’

‘With a valuable foal inside, she ought to be taking it easy.’

‘Mares can run up to a hundred and twenty days,’ chided Dora. ‘Mrs Wilkinson’s a working mother, has to earn her keep.’ Then, deflecting Rupert’s shaft of disapproval: ‘And did you know that people are Skyping Chisolm from all over the world? She’s got a website called Skypegoat. Isn’t that a cool joke?’

‘Quite,’ said Rupert, who was then fortunately distracted by a monitor on which jockeys and horses were going down to the start of the Curragh. There was Promiscuous, son of Love Rat, looking really well.

Dora looked out of one window at the squirrels fighting in the angelic green of Rupert’s beechwoods, which formed a great crescent round the rear of the house.

Turning back to Dora, Rupert said: ‘Do you realize Love Rat’s stud fee is £100,000?’

‘Goodness,’ she said, then gave a sigh of relief as Valent walked in. ‘Hi, Valent, hope you had a lovely honeymoon. Mrs Wilkinson missed you both. Must go and counsel Emilia some more. Dum, da, da, dum de dum,’ sang Dora as beaming, followed by five dogs, she sidled out of the room.

2

Rupert respected Valent Edwards. He couldn’t push him around and, despite being strong, tough and hugely successful, Valent didn’t take himself at all seriously; nor, although humble about his working-class origins, was he remotely chippy. An ex-Premier League footballer, whose legendary Cup Final-winning save was still remembered, Valent had been a great athlete who, like Rupert, on giving up had channelled his ambition and killer instinct into finding gaps in world markets. The fact that both men had made a huge amount of money didn’t deter them from being hell bent on beating their rivals and making a great deal more.

In his late sixties, tall, handsome, hefty of shoulder and square of jaw, with black eyebrows and grey hair rising thickly without the aid of any product, Valent had been described by Louise Malone, one of Rupert’s most comely stable lasses as: ‘A cross between my dad and my granddad, but you still want to shag him.’

Having married Mrs Wilkinson’s owner, Etta Bancroft, Valent had returned from a four-week honeymoon looking tanned and happy.

‘How was it?’ asked Rupert, handing him a can of beer.

‘Grite, went by in a flash.’

‘You were bloody lucky, it’s been raining since you left.’

Glancing round the room, Valent caught sight of the Stubbs. ‘Christ, that’s you.’

‘No, a distant ancestor, Rupert Black.’

Valent moved closer. ‘But he’s exactly like you,’ he said incredulously. ‘Where d’you get it from?’

‘It somehow got handed down to some queer uncle, who left it to me. Should have left it to my brother, Adrian, who’s an art dealer, but I’m better-looking. Adrian’s livid. Stubbs was a leftie and usually painted racehorses held by their stable lads, but Rupert Black was so up himself, he insisted on riding the horse – a Leading Sire, no less, called Third Leopard. Perhaps I ought to start riding Love Rat.’

Valent shook his head. ‘He is so like you.’

‘Classic case of pre-potency,’ explained Rupert. ‘Some stallions (like some men) have genes so strong, they imprint their looks and temperaments on succeeding generations. So for generations, the offspring are far more like them than their immediate fathers or grandfathers.’

Rupert, who hadn’t had any lunch, opened a tin of Pringles and handed them to Valent who, having put on ten pounds during his honeymoon, waved them away.

‘For example, two hundred-odd years later,’ went on Rupert, ‘I look far more like Rupert Black than my own father, while Tabitha and Perdita, my daughters, and Eddie, my grandson, are all the image of Rupert Black. They have also inherited his brilliance as a rider, his arrogance, his tricky temperament and the same killer instinct.’

‘And stooning looks.’ Although as the sun fell on the indigo shadows beneath Rupert’s eyes, Valent thought he looked desperately tired. ‘What do you know about him?’

‘Not a lot. His father was a trainer, and Rupert Black won a match race which apparently enabled him to buy Third Leopard. As I said, the horse became Leading Sire, making Rupert a fortune in stud fees. And talking of Leading Sires, one of Love Rat’s colts is in this race …’ Turning up the sound, Rupert became totally superglued to the television.

‘Come on, little boy, come on, little boy … come on, come on, come on!’ he yelled, giving a shout of joy as Promiscuous left the field for dead and romped home by three lengths.

Through the open window, cheers could be heard from stable lads watching the race on television screens all over the yard and stud. Next moment, a bell rang to announce a winner, which always raised morale.

Looking out, Valent could see Rupert’s beautiful wife Taggie crossing the yard on her way to the stud to reward the winner’s sire Love Rat with a carrot.

‘Bloody good result. That’s two Group Ones and a Group Two won by Love Rat’s progeny this week,’ said Rupert happily. He picked up his mobile to share the news with Billy, who had also loved Promiscuous, then realized the futility. God, would it never stop hurting?

Valent, meanwhile, was thinking about Etta, his new wife, and dreading getting caught up in work again. They could have stayed away more than a month, but Etta couldn’t bear to be parted any longer from Priceless, her greyhound, Gwenny her cat, Mrs Wilkinson and her stable companion, Chisolm the goat, and the garden in the growing season.

There were, in fact, few places abroad where some stray dog or cat wouldn’t upset Etta. He longed to take her to China where he had been doing a huge amount of business, but felt a country where dogs were rammed into cages in the marketplace on the way to the dinner-table would finish her off completely. So they had returned home and it was blissful to be back at his house, Badger’s Court, in the nearby village of Willowwood. He had left Etta pruning roses and wailing at the bindweed toppling the delphiniums and the brown slugs, bigger than Dora’s chocolate Labrador, eating everything.

Suddenly he noticed a large, dark-brown horse with only one ear wandering out of his box in the direction of the feed room.

‘Loose horse,’ he said in alarm. Rupert glanced out.

‘No, that’s Safety Car – got the run of the yard.’

‘Why’s he only got one ear?’

‘Titus Andronicus, the yard sociopath, bit the other off and most of his tail.’

As Taggie came out of Love Rat’s box, she apologized to Safety Car for giving away her last carrot, then glanced tentatively up at the window, waving shyly at Valent before disappearing back into the house, followed purposefully by Safety Car.

‘We’d better talk about Mrs Wilkinson’s foal,’ said Valent.

Mrs Wilkinson had originally been rescued by Valent’s new wife Etta. Nursed back to health, she had turned out to have an immaculate pedigree. To afford to put her into training, Etta had formed a syndicate of fellow villagers living in Willowwood.