Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

drily. “She will be safely home and established upon a sofa before the half of them have circled the field.”
    But Miss Sharpe seemed not to have attended to either of us. Her gaze was still fixed on the course, where the distant splash of scarlet proclaimed the sole woman at the head of the cavalcade. To discern much else was impossible; the Commodore, Josephine, and their competitors in the heat, were swallowed entire in a cloud of dust.
    “Are you quite well, Miss Sharpe?” I enquired gently. “You have grown too pale. Perhaps the heat has overcome you. It is well that we are very near to ending so tiresome an amusement—I am sure we should all prefer to be at home.”
    She sank back down into her seat, and drew a kerchief from her reticule. “Forgive me. A trifling unsteadiness
    The unmounted spectators, like my brothers, had commenced to run along the rail in pursuit of the pack; an idiot's errand, for the pack itself had very soon rounded the final bend of the course, and was bearing down upon the starter's mark. Our heads turned as one— the pounding of hooves announced the approaching triumph—and the bay mare Josephine swept foaming across the finish, with the Commodore hard on her heels.
    “Ohhh!” cried Fanny in disappointment.
    “Thank God it is over at last,” murmured her mother.
    And from the trembling Miss Sharpe, came something like a sob.
    I T WAS A CHASTENED AND DESPONDENT H ENRY WHO rejoined the Godmersham party a half-hour later.
    “I am sure that some great mischief has befallen the poor beast.” He sagged against the seat cushions and accepted a glass of ginger beer. “He looked off in the near hind. Perhaps the weights—”
    “He looked off for the duration of the heat, my dear brother,” said Neddie sourly. He was quite winded, and much put out at the devil's chase he had run. “Although I confess my position was too poor to permit of a good view. We should better have gone mounted, like Mrs. Grey.”
    As tho' conjured by my brother's thought, the figure in scarlet pranced into view near the stylish perch phaeton. She dismounted with a flourish, and thrust the reins at her tyger. Behind her, at a discreet pace, advanced the filly Josephine and her jockey—both looking whipped by the very hounds of Hell, as perhaps they had been. It cannot be comfortable or easy to race in a determined heat, with most of Kent at one's heels.
    Mrs. Grey tossed a beautiful gold plate—Canterbury's Race Week prize—into the perch phaeton, with as much disregard as tho' it were a pair of old shoes. She handed a small leather coin pouch to the jockey, and reached a gloved hand to pat the filly's lathered flank. Then, with an insouciance possible only for one who moves under an hundred eyes, she stepped into her carriage, took up the reins, and snapped them smartly over the matched greys' necks. Several of the watching gendemen cheered. The tyger touched his cap as she turned, his expression wooden; then he and the jockey led their mounts slowly through the milling crowd, in the direction of the stableyard.
    “What did I tell you?” Lizzy said languidly. “She shall be established on her sofa while the rest of us are still trapped on the Canterbury road. Detestable woman.”
    “Do not speak of her, pray.” Henry took a long draught. “My dear Eliza will have it that there is nothing like a Frenchwoman for winning, you know—and I declare I begin to be of her opinion. Did you see that grey-eyed jade, Neddie, spurring her mount for all she was worth?”
    “I believe Mrs. Grey's eyes to be brown, Henry,” my brother absendy replied.
    “Grey—brown—but upon my word, the Furies ain't in it! I might almost believe her to have cursed the Commodore as he rounded the rail. She has quite the look of the witch about her, however much she affects a veil.”
    “Now, Henry.” I patted his hand. “Let us have no conduct unbecoming to a gentleman. You are to be an example for the children, in this as