Tessa's Touch Read Online Free PDF

stayed
well back, on the other side of the gate. Just as well, since the two men
tended to bring out the worst in the horses. Amazing that they shared her
mother's blood.
    "Now then, Nimbus, what seems to be the
trouble today?" Tessa asked in the soothing lilt she reserved for problem
horses.
    As Zephyr had done the night before, Nimbus
calmed noticeably. His sides still heaved and his eyes rolled, but he no longer
bared his teeth or tried to kick. Tessa moved forward to place her palm against
his neck. At the contact he gave a long shudder, then a sigh. Gradually, his
breathing slowed and his eyes returned to normal, the whites no longer showing.
    Though she'd been able to do this for nearly as
long as she could remember, Tessa never took her gift for granted, realizing
anew each time that this was a sort of miracle she'd been equipped to perform.
She was glad of it now, for clearly Nimbus was much happier than he'd been two
minutes earlier.
    "Would you like to use some of that
pent-up energy in a ride?" she asked the horse then. "Billy, bring my
sidesaddle, won't you?"
    The younger man complied, but still looked
visibly nervous as he approached the beast that had been so furious just a few
minutes before.
    "Don't worry. He won't hurt you,"
Tessa assured him.
    Nor did he. Tessa continued to stroke Nimbus's
neck and Billy was able to put pad and saddle on the horse and even get beneath
him to tighten the girth. Nimbus sidestepped a bit in protest but did not try
to bite or kick.
    "Thank you, Billy," she said when he
was finished. "Now, Nimbus." She led the horse to the mounting block
and jumped lightly into the saddle. Taking a moment to arrange her feet and
skirts, she gave the lightest flick with the reins and Nimbus obediently began
walking. Another flick and he broke into a trot, then a smooth canter.
    Tilting her face up to the wind, Tessa laughed,
feeling herself coming fully alive, as she always did when she rode. Away from
the horses, it seemed she lived but a shadow existence.
    "Let's try a little jump, shall we?"
she suggested to the bay, turning him toward the smallest set of rails in the
paddock. Without hesitation, Nimbus sailed over the jump, so she set him at the
next, which he again cleared without protest. After three more successively
higher jumps, she cantered him twice more around the paddock, then gradually
slowed him before returning to the gate.
    Her uncle and cousin seemed to be arguing as
she approached. "—ain't natural," Harold was saying. "I'm still
willing, but—" His father jerked his head Tessa's way and he broke off.
    "Looks to me like you won't have any
trouble at all with him on Monday," her uncle said when she reached them.
    "That may be," she said, "but
you saw what he was like before. At a meet, there will be dozens of strange
horses as well as men to set him off. Suppose he hurts someone?"
    Harold spat. "He just needs a firm hand.
Don't you, Nimbus?" He reached for the horse's bridle. Nimbus's ears
started to go back, but at Tessa's reassuring whisper, they righted themselves
and he allowed the trainer to approach.
    "Gentleness will do more good than your
version of firmness, Harold," Tessa said as she dismounted. Nimbus was
bound to behave better away from Harold's inept methods. Her thoughts went back
to last night and Zephyr's near-catastrophe on the road. But he'd calmed
quickly enough, she reminded herself, and hadn't actually hurt himself or Lord
Anthony. She pushed the memory aside.
    "Who's the trainer, then, me or you?"
Harold asked, as he so often did when she offered advice. "Don't forget
that my grandfather was one of the best horse trainers ever."
    That much was true. Tessa refrained from
mentioning that Staunton Emery had been her grandfather as well. "Yes,
Harold, I know," she said placatingly.
    Long experience told her that to antagonize her
cousin was to risk him complaining to Papa— which too often meant further
curtailing of her time with the horses. She had far less