Jennie About to Be by Elisabeth Ogilvie Read Free Book Online Page A

for her, and her gloves matched.
    â€œOh Jennie, you’re so elegant ,” Charlotte said. Yes, she was elegant, at least in the cheval glass in Aunt Higham’s room. And she knew that on a horse she would be as much at ease as any of those girls she admired and envied. But would he remember his offer of the fine little mare?
    He remembered.

Five

    I T WAS the first time they’d ever been really alone, though it was in a flow of riders and drivers. They walked their horses along the edge of the stream and talked; he asked her many questions about herself and seemed enthralled by life at Pippin Grange. He said he wished he could have known her father, but someday perhaps he would know her sisters. She asked about him; he was Scottish, but his father had died when he was small, and his much older half brother had become master of the estate. His mother later married an Englishman, so he had been brought up as an English boy in the Hampshire countryside. His stepfather was dead now, and his mother lived in London, in a house overlooking Hyde Park.
    â€œGreat old girl. Bless my soul!” Transparent astonishment. “We’re almost there! Shall we go and make her give us some coffee?”
    â€œWe’ll scent her drawing room with horse.”
    â€œThe Mater won’t turn a hair. Attar of roses to her. Before she was thrown by a horse and broke her hip, she was never off ’em. Augustus his name was. Great brute of a hunter. She never blamed him. First thing she said was ‘Is he all right?’ ”
    â€œAnd was he?”
    â€œHe was, and is. But he put an end to her riding days. That’s why she goes into the country only over Easter and Christmas. I’ve a younger half brother now, who’s the baronet. Only nineteen, but he’s dashed good at it. Takes his responsibilities seriously.” He laughed as if at a tremendous joke.
    â€œMy older half brother is master of estates in Scotland, my younger half brother is squire of a good part of Hampshire, and here I am. Enough to turn a fella’s hair gray before its time, ain’t it?”
    He’s about to tell me he’s betrothed to an heiress , Jennie thought. Instead he said, “Here’s the Mater’s front door.” His blue eyes were as innocent as the children’s.
    The ever-present urchin popped up as if he’d been lying in ambush in the areaway, called Nigel Capting, and said he would mind the horses for a penny.
    â€œRight, old chap,” said Nigel, helping Jennie down.
    â€œ ’Oo’s the lidy?”
    For an instant Jennie thought he meant her, but he was stroking the mare’s nose as she dipped a willing head down to him.
    â€œJuno,” Nigel answered seriously, as if to an equal. “She belongs to the Major.”
    â€œPretty little fing. Clever, too.”
    â€œShe’s a poppet,” Nigel agreed.
    As they went up the steps, Jennie murmured, “Friends?”
    â€œOld friends. His brother was here first, with Dickon tottering behind him, just out of the cradle.”
    â€œWhere is the brother now?”
    â€œTransported to a better world,” said Nigel solemnly. Jennie took a quick breath, and he said in a hurry, “Oh, not dead!” Reassuringly, he cupped her elbow in his big hand and pressed it. “The Major took him into his stables. Thinks he has possibilities as a jockey. So Dickon hopes for higher things.”
    â€œShall you—”
    He shook his head. “I have no stables. I’m the landless one, remember. But Dickon will survive, if he lives to grow up. His sort will likely own half of London one day. They think they do already.”
    As he lifted the horse-head knocker and let it fall, he added, “He has a meal each day in the kitchen. The Mater’s orders. She has a number of friends, and she’ll place the imp with one of them. ”
    She’d suspected that Nigel never read a book if he could