Chloe by Freya North Read Free Book Online Page A

and came from somewhere quite close. ‘Chloë?’ It belonged to a rotund woman who emerged from behind a wall with a saddle under each arm and a bridle over each shoulder. ‘Chloë? Cad
wall
ader?’ Her hair was grey and plaited, Indian-squaw style, halfway down her back. ‘Jocelyn Jo’s God-Daughter Girl?’ Her cheeks bloomed cerise and a pair of button-black eyes glistened a delighted welcome at Chloë.
    â€˜Yes, it’s me. I’m Chloë Cadwallader.’
    The other tail was lifted and a further greeting deposited with a rumble and a splat.
    â€˜Am I
glad
to see you!’ The woman was very close, dumping the saddles on a low wall, offering her hand. No she wasn’t, she was offering to take Chloë’s rucksack. She tugged while Chloë wriggled free.
    â€˜Thank heavens it
was
you!’ she was saying as she wrestled with straps and fought with buckles. ‘Thank heavens it was you whom Jocelyn sent. Though who else it could have been I do not know!’ Her laugh was deep and jovial. A Santa Claus chuckle. ‘But thank heavens that it is you and that you are here now.’ She slipped the bridles on to the two horses and rattled away without pause for breath. ‘
I’ll
take your worldly possessions.
You
jump up on Percy here and take Rosie and Kerry around the paddock. At the far end is the wood: one gate, one track,
completely
circular. About – An – Hour. Can’t possibly go anywhere else, nor get lost. Bugger! The bread! An hour. Ta-ra!’
    Very, very slowly, Chloë closed her mouth as she watched the Gin Trap scurry back to the farmhouse carrying her rucksack like a babe in arms. Even more slowly, she shifted her gaze downwards until it rested upon two piercing blue eyes belonging to a small girl in jodhpurs; blond hair in pigtails bedecked with meticulous red bows. With great circumspection, Chloë searched for her voice. Not knowing whether or not it would appear, what it would sound like if it did; nor, indeed, what it was she was to say, Chloë did not bother to clear it. It eventually crackled out, two tones deeper than usual.
    â€˜Are you Rosie, or are you Kerry?’
    â€˜I’m Kerry, silly.
That’s
Rosie.’
    Rosie turned out to be the first tail-lifter. She turned her doleful eyes on Chloë on hearing her name mentioned and misplaced.
    â€˜So
that
must be Percy?’
    â€˜â€™Course!’
    Rhymed with horse.
    And Chloë had not ridden one for some five years.
    As Kerry scurried off for hard hats, Chloë worked hard at keeping her mouth closed, her head on straight and her wits about her. Both Percy and Rosie were eyeing her quizzically. She picked her way carefully around their two pungent offerings and introduced herself self-consciously. They welcomed her unconditionally with a nuzzle and a huff apiece and then went back to chewing on their bits.
    Instinctively, she checked the throat lash and noseband on each bridle and tightened the girths on the saddles with a ‘Whoa there!’ to ward off any inclinations the horses had of nipping her. Chloë Cadwallader was back in the saddle.
    Kerry turned out to be a very nice girl of eight years old. She put Chloë at her ease at once for she did not want to know anything about her. She saw no need for an explanation of how an apparent stranger had dumped her rucksack for Percy and was now taking her out on a hack. Such an explanation would only eat into time precious for more important topics such as snaffle bits, jute rugs and ponies with people’s names.
    â€˜You’ll love Jemima, she’s a Cleveland Bay cross, sixteen hands with a sock on her off hind. Desmond’s a bit of a pain, tends to put in a
big one
if you use your stick. Which you have to,
all the time.
He’s the roan over there with the wall-eye. Harry’s that big bay hunter type under the apple tree, he’s started going disunited in left canter.