Like the other rooms in the house, Georgie’s guest room was completely over the top. It was as if several interior designers had been hired at once and had fought it out with no clear winner. The chairs were cloaked in animal prints – leopard, zebra and tiger stripes, the cushions were floral, the furniture was French antique and there was baroque wallpaper hung with Chinese tapestry. If this was how Patricia Kirkwood decorated her house, Georgie shuddered to think what she might put on a catwalk!
In the dressing room she searched through jods and jackets hanging on the rails, choosing herself a suitable outfit for tomorrow. Georgie had never hunted before, but she knew that young riders were meant to wear tweeds and thankfully there were several suitable things to wear here. She selected a buff tweed hunting coat and cream jodhpurs, both of which looked like they would fit, then she rummaged around in the cupboard and found a hunting stock that was the same shade of cream as the jodhpurs. Georgie decided she would wear her long black boots to complete the outfit. Then she laid them all carefully on a zebra-print chair, ready and waiting for her.
A heavy mist hung over the estate the next morning. Georgie looked out her bedroom window and was greeted by the magical sight of horses and riders in scarlet coats milling about on the front lawn. By the time she had showered, pulled on her hunting clothes and raced downstairs there were already nearly a hundred riders gathered on the pebble forecourt, their horses breathing steam from their nostrils as they waited for the hunt to throw off.
The horses were classic hunters, stocky types with thick strong legs and chests that were deep through the girth. Georgie loved the way they had been clipped so that it looked as if their top and bottom halves actually belonged to two entirely different horses, joined together in the middle.
The riders all looked far more dressed up than Georgie had expected and despite the early morning hour they were drinking port, sipping away at the stirrup cups that were handed to them by servants carrying silver trays. Patricia Kirkwood, dressed in a black velvet hunting coat and lace cravat, was holding court amid a group of shrill and overbearing riders who were behaving more like they were at a cocktail party than a hunt.
“Avert your eyes!” There was a whisper in Georgie’s ear and she turned around to see Damien Danforth standing behind her. “If you stare at one of those gorgons directly you could turn to stone,” he deadpanned.
“Watch it – they might hear you!” Georgie was taken aback.
“Who cares?” Damien sniffed. “If you had to spend ten minutes in a room with Patricia’s awful friends you’d see I’m simply telling the truth.”
He gave Georgie a dark look. “I blame you, you know. You British were the ones who invented all this hunting nonsense and made it seem classy. Now every nouveau riche moron in Maryland wants to join the Kirkwood hunt. Honestly, I don’t think half of them know one end of a horse from the other.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Georgie smiled.
“I’m not!” Damien insisted. He pointed to a rider seated on an enormous dark brown hunter. “That’s Heatley Fletcher,” he said. “Local lawyer and multi-millionaire. Do you notice anything odd about his horse?”
Heatley’s big brown hunter stood out with its hot-pink leg bandages.
“A bit flamboyant,” Georgie admitted.
“You know why?” Damien whispered. “Heatley is famous for turning up at a hunt and not even recognising his own horse. He’s had to be asked twice this season to dismount because he got on the wrong one. Finally his groom came up with the solution of putting coloured bandages on Heatley’s hunter so he won’t embarrass himself any more.”
“Of course,” Damien added, “the bandages don’t stop Heatley from falling off. He usually plummets at the first hedge because he can’t actually ride.”
“He can’t ride?” Georgie was horrified. “Then what’s he doing hunting?”
Damien sighed. “Being invited on the Kirkwood hunt is like being invited to the Vanity Fair party at the Oscars. So they all come. And they all drop like flies at the first spar.”
“You seem to know this place and the Kirkwoods pretty well,” Georgie said.
Damien gave her a long-suffering look. “James and I met at boarding school when we were nine years old. He’s one of my best friends,” he paused, “although I often wonder how James turned out the way he did…”
“Talking about me?”
It was James. Georgie had no idea how long he’d been standing there behind them.
“I was just telling her the Kirkwood secrets,” Damien said.
“Don’t,” James warned him. “You’ll put her off!” Smiling at Georgie, he clasped his arms possessively around her waist. Georgie was shocked by this sudden public display of affection.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to the stables and I’ll introduce you to your horse.”
The stables turned out to be utterly beautiful. Patricia Kirkwood had clearly never thought of bringing her fashion sense outside so the interior was mercifully untouched. The stable block had bare flagstone floors and high-vaulted ceilings with wooden beams.
James led Georgie to one of the loose boxes on the far right-hand side. “You’ve been given Belvedere,” he told her, unbolting the top of the stall door.
Belvedere was a heavily built brown horse, part-draught with a broad white blaze and a face that was so immense and solid that the throat lash of his bridle could barely fit around his broad cheeks. Still, his eyes were bright and kind, and he met Georgie’s gaze keenly. His ears pricked forward as she approached him and took his reins.
“He’s lovely,” she said. “He has such an honest face.”
“Belvedere’s a reliable jumper,” James assured her as he legged her up. “I would have preferred to put you on something with a bit more class like Tinkerbell, but Dad said she’s not for first-timers.”
Georgie suspected that what Mr Kirkwood really meant was that he didn’t consider her good enough for his best horses, so he’d stuck her with a draught horse. Still, she wasn’t complaining. She really liked Belvedere, although sitting astride him felt weird after riding Belle. His heavy physique bulged out beneath her, the barrel of his belly forcing her legs to stick out like she was doing the splits.
As she lumbered back across the lawn trying to get used to Belvedere’s cumbersome trot, Georgie caught sight of the showjumperettes. Kennedy and her friends were mounted up on elegant, well-bred hunters and all of them wore sleek black riding coats with frilled stocks at their throats and top hats instead of helmets. Next to them on her draught horse in her borrowed country tweeds Georgie looked like an unsophisticated hick. She could see from Kennedy’s smirk that this had been her intention all along.
“Interesting choice of outfit,” she said to Georgie. “Beige is really your colour, isn’t it?”
“Thanks, Kennedy,” Georgie replied sarcastically. “Oh, and by the way, Abraham Lincoln called – he wants his top hat back.”
Kennedy’s expression turned fierce. “You obviously know nothing about hunting. If you get in Dad’s way today, he’ll feed you to the
