Highest Stakes by Emery Lee

chance," she pleaded. "I'm made of much sterner stuff than you might think." She jutted her chin mulishly.
      Suddenly moved by her eagerness and determination, Jeffries spoke without weighing the possible consequences of his actions. "If ye truly have a mind to learn the blood horse, I reckon there be no better teacher for ye than Amoret." The mare answered by rubbing her head against his shoulder.
      "Do you mean to say you'll actually let me ride her?" Charlotte's face lit, and her pulse quickened.
      "She grows heavy and idle out to pasture. Some light exercise can do her no harm. We'll start ye on the longe line with her tomorrow morn, if'n ye can be up and mounted betimes. The boys muck and feed well afore the cock even crows and are riding by first light. If ye can drag yerself from yer pallet afore light, none should be the wiser." He gave her a conspiratorial wink.
      "You mean Beatrix. She never rises early."
      "Then ye'd best be at the rubbin' house by daybreak."
      "Indeed, I shall! I am a very early riser. I regularly watch the sun come up," she prevaricated with a broad grin and then turned to Amoret. "Until the morrow, my lovely."
      She kissed the little mare on the nose and departed with a skip in her step.

    Charlotte spent the night in restive anticipation, springing from her bed at the first crow of the cock. Pulling on Charles's shirt and breeches over her shift, she yanked on a pair of his cast-off boots and pulled a cap over her plaited hair. Careful not to disturb Letty, she then slinked out of her chamber and down the back stairs, avoiding the kitchen where the cook was already about her work. Charlotte then exited a back door and surreptitiously edged her way through the gardens.
      Her heart fairly skipping in anticipation, Charlotte strode eagerly down the gravel-laden pathway and along the waist-high yew hedge to the stable block. The gray slate roofs of the low redbrick buildings had only begun to reflect the rays of the rising sun. By midmorning they would cast their shadows upon the large, bedewed, grassy plot in the yard's center, but for now, the yard was a low hum of activity.
      Charlotte wandered to the center of the bustling stable yard, watching as seven or eight boys methodically carried out their morning chores. One or two of them yawned and stretched, with stray pieces of straw and litter still clinging to their hair and clothing from the night spent in the lofts above the stables.
      They set about their work, leading horses out of their boxes, fetching buckets of water, and mucking out the nightly refuse from the stalls. She had been to the stables on many prior occasions. Why had she never noticed any of this activity before?
      Someone, presumably one of these same boys, always had her cousins' horses ready and waiting when they were appointed to ride. Upon their return, the boys collected and tended the horses and then faded back into the woodwork from whence they had emerged. She had never before given thought to all that was required to care for a stable of twenty-some horses.
      Impatient to locate Jeffries and be about her own business, Charlotte dismissed further reflection. She scanned the yard, expecting to find her own saddled mare or, at the least, for someone to take notice of her. Ignoring her presence completely, the grooms continued about their morning routine, much like ants busy on their nest.
      With Jeffries nowhere in sight, she looked about, huffing in disappointment mixed with annoyance. Suddenly she remembered. Jeffries had said to meet him in the rubbing house.
      But which of these confounded buildings was the rubbing house? Turning about, she attempted to arrest the attention of a small boy straining to transport his manure-teemed wheelbarrow to the dung pit.
      "Excuse me, lad?" Charlotte began. The boy glowered and continued on his way.
      "Pardon me," she said louder now and grasped him by the sleeve. The slight pull was