Gifford said, “It looked to me like you did nudge Tinpin into her horse, James.”
“Yes, but not hard enough. I just wanted to get her attention. It was nothing compared to what she did to me last year at the June races in Hacklesford.”
“Well, what did she do, this fearsome girl?”
“I was crowding her just a bit, just to teach her a lesson. She knows every dirty maneuver there is. Anyway, she pulled her horse away just enough so she could kick out at me. She got me directly on the leg and sent me sprawling.”
Gifford laughed, thinking that James sure made the Warfield girl bristle something fierce. He asked even as he watched Jessie Warfield striding away from them, her riding crop flicking up and down, up and down, “Did she win the race?”
“No, she came in last place. She lost her own balance when she kicked me and reeled into another horse. The two of them went off in a tangle. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been rolled into a ball on the ground, trying to protect my head from running horses. Just look at her, Giff. She’s taller than any woman I know, she looks men straight in the eye, and I wouldn’t know she was a female watching her walk.”
Giff wasn’t so sure about that, but he could understand James’s ire. He said mildly, “She rides very well.”
“To give the brat her due, she does, dammit.”
“Who’s that with Ursula?”
“It’s another Warfield daughter. There are three in all. The eldest and the youngest are neither one a thing like the brat. Both of them are beautiful, stylish, and ladies, well, perhaps not entirely, but close enough for descriptive purposes. That’s Nelda, the eldest. She’s married to Bramen Carlysle, the shipping baron. Come along, you can meet her. I guess you haven’t met her because both daughters were in Philadelphia with an aunt until just two months ago. Hell, you were in Boston until last fall, until the end of the January.”
“Bramen Carlysle? Good God, James, Carlysle’s older than Fort McHenry. He fought in the Revolution. He was present at Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. He’s older than dust. How old is this Nelda?”
“Maybe twenty-two.”
Gifford just snorted.
Ursula wasn’t happy. She sent a look toward her husband that offered substantial marital rewards if he would get rid of Nelda Carlysle.
Gifford, with all the aplomb of a rich banker, which he was, gallantly swept his hat from his head. “Mrs. Carlysle, it’s a pleasure, ma’am, to finally meet you.”
“And you, Mr. Poppleton. Ah, James. I’m so sorry about that last race. Jessie won but she didn’t deserve to, all the ladies around me agreed. She’s an abomination. I’m sure Father will speak to her about it. So unladylike of her, so embarrassing for the rest of us.”
“I’m sure your father will speak to her, Nelda. He’ll probably toast her with his best champagne. Ah, don’t be embarrassed, she’s damned good. You should be singing her praises.” God, he was a perverse bastard.
“Surely not.” Nelda sighed, looking down at the toes of her slippers. “She shouldn’t be good at such a manly pursuit. A jockey!” She actually shuddered. “I vow I can’t go to a ladies’ tea without—”
James, who privately thought Jessie should be flogged, said even more perversely, “She’s an excellent horsewoman. Surely you can be a bit more tolerant, Nelda. She’s just different, that’s all.”
“Perhaps,” Nelda said, lightly touching her gloved fingers to his forearm. “You did well in the race.”
“Not as well as two of your father’s other racehorses.”
“It’s just because you’re such a big man, James. You haven’t come to visit me. Now that I’m an old married lady, I am perhaps freer than I was when I wasn’t married.”
Ursula cleared her throat. “Well, Nelda, do say hello to Bramen. We must return home ourselves now. My mother is staying with us until Monday.”
His mother-in-law. Gifford would have preferred to remain out until midnight. His mother-in-law, Wilhelmina, knew no equal. James, in deference to his own sanity, had moved his mother out of his house at Marathon and into a charming red-brick town house in German Square near the center of Baltimore some two years before. She visited Ursula and Gifford at their home not a mile away in the elegant four-story terrace on St. Paul Street, claiming that her own tiny dwelling depressed her spirits from time to time.
However, she complained every minute she was in her daughter’s house.
Nelda showed no signs of moving on. She edged closer to James. “Surely dear Wilhelmina can wait for just a bit longer. James, my dear husband tells me you’re going to stay in Baltimore forever now.”
“I have no plans to return to England anytime this year,” James said. “Candlethorpe, my stud farm in Yorkshire, is in good hands. Marathon, on the other hand, needs a lot of work and attention.”
“Marathon?”
“I named my stud farm in honor of that ancient Greek who ran his heart out getting to Athens to tell of their victory at Marathon against the Persians. If he’d only had one of my horses, he wouldn’t have fallen down dead after he’d given his news.”
“Oh,” Nelda said. “You should pick another name, James, perhaps something more stately, more easily recognized. Marathon sounds foreign.”