An Embarrassment of Riches by Margaret Pemberton Read Free Book Online Page A

respectable,’ Alexander said dismissively.
    When his own grandfather had been busily buying up land, the even younger Cornelius Vanderbilt had been busy buying up ferries and steamships. Both men had made a fortune but, whereas the Karolyises were now regarded as Old Guard through their linking with the Schermerhorns, Vanderbilt was still regarded as being offensively nouveau riche – especially by the descendants of his old rival.
    â€˜He knows a thing or two about horse-flesh though,’ Charlie said with grudging admiration. ‘It might be an idea to see what he’s putting his money on and to do the same.’
    Vanderbilt looked as if he had driven his own equipage to the meet. He was wearing the white top hat he habitually wore when playing the part of a charioteer, and dog-skin gloves. A very pretty, very flashily dressed, very young woman was clinging adoringly to his arm.
    â€˜I’ll trust my own judgement, thank you very much,’ Alexander said, miffed that Charlie assumed Vanderbilt’s knowledge of horse-flesh was superior to his own. ‘You forget I’ve been brought up with horses at Tarna. I’m every bit as good a judge as old Vanderbilt.’
    Charlie made due apologies but didn’t look totally convinced. He looked wistfully after the Commodore as Alexander firmly led the way in the opposite direction. Vanderbilt’s gambling was legendary. It would have been fun to see which horse he fancied – and for how much.
    â€˜Then tell me what you fancy,’ he said, itching to off-load some of the bills bulging in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Are you going to go for Colourful Dancer or …’ He paled as he saw the silver-haired, cigar-smoking figure directly in their path. ‘Land’s sakes!’ he hissed agitatedly. ‘It’s Uncle Henry!’
    His warning came too late for Alexander. He was sidestepping a couple of touts who were making a nuisance of themselves and the next thing he knew Charlie had taken to his heels and disappeared and the distinguished figure of Henry Schermerhorn III was bearing down on him.
    â€˜What the devil are you doing here, young man? Why aren’t you at Tarna with your father?’ his distant relation demanded, furious at Victor Karolyis’s young whelp catching him so publicly rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi.
    Alexander ran a finger uncomfortably around the inside of his stiffly starched collar. The heat was stifling. He wondered wildly what would happen if he were to simulate a faint.
    â€˜I … I … Pa’s racing trainer is thinking of buying Colourful Dancer and I wanted to see how she ran,’ he managed at last. ‘I’d take it as a great favour if you wouldn’t let on to Pa I was here. He doesn’t approve of my interest in horses.’
    Henry didn’t doubt the truth of his statement for a moment. He had never liked Victor Karolyis. The rest of society might have conveniently forgotten that the man’s father had been a peasant from some God-forsaken village in Eastern Europe, but Henry Schermerhorn III hadn’t. In Henry’s eyes it was only to be expected that such a man would lack a gentleman’s inborn love of the turf. It was obvious, however, that his son was of a different stamp.
    He had recovered his equilibrium now and he continued to stare at Alexander, much to Alexander’s increasing discomfiture. Despite Sandor Karolyis having being vulgar and impossibly ill-bred, Henry had always entertained a sneaking liking for him. He had been a man who had possessed enormous chutzpah and he, at least, had not possessed the cardinal sin of indifference where horse-flesh was concerned.
    He remembered the stories of how, when Karolyis had first bought Tarna, he had outraged the country by riding recklessly hard and bare-back, like a Magyar peasant. He also remembered how he had scandalized Mrs Roosevelt when, at a dinner party so formal