Free The Path of the Wicked by Caro Peacock

sight and then put away my pencils.
    â€˜So, are we coming all the way up here tomorrow to draw horses?’ Tabby said. She’d been listening as usual.
    â€˜No, we’ve got other plans and we’ll have to be up earlier.’
    I told her as we walked back downhill. She said it seemed a roundabout way of going about things. I said that sometimes the only way was roundabout.

FIVE
    T abby met me by the paddock at daylight next morning and helped me bring in and tack up Rancie. Although beyond hope as a lady’s maid, she had the makings of a useful groom. Before we parted, I asked her to unpack my plain blue cotton dress from my trunk and have it ready for a quick change out of my riding habit when I arrived back. As Rancie and I went at a walk along lanes and byways, the sun rose in a clear sky and the only people we passed were a few farm labourers on the way to work. We got to the foot of Cleeve Hill just as the distant clocks of the town were striking nine. A broad track ran up the flank of the hill, marked with many hoofprints. Rancie’s head came up, sensing a gallop.
    â€˜Not yet.’
    I kept her at a walk, up a side track alongside some bushes. It was a noble sweep of hill, and although the summer had been dry, the turf was still green and yielding. About halfway up I glimpsed horses and riders coming up a broad track from the town, at right angles to our own. There were a dozen or so of them, loosely grouped together and keeping to a walking pace. Rancie and I came to the crest of the hill before them. This was clearly the racecourse, with a rough grandstand and a finishing post at one end, though no rails. Rancie was thoroughly strung-up by now, but I calmed her with voice and hands and made her wait, in the shelter of some bushes.
    The sun was behind us, in the eyes of the riders on the other path, so they didn’t see us. When they came to the top of the hill, they grouped together a couple of furlongs away from us, the first ones circling their horses and waiting for the others to catch up. They were a mixture of gentleman riders in top hats and grooms in caps, all mounted on useful-looking thoroughbreds. Then four of them were bounding forward, covering the ground in long galloping strides. Two more followed, one horse rearing in its eagerness, then the rest in a loose group. As far as I could see, they weren’t galloping all out as they might in a race. This was a regular training session. Once they were on the way, I let Rancie follow on our separate track, keeping her with some difficulty to a canter and stopping well short of the point near the grandstand where the other riders had drawn up. They walked their horses in circles to cool them and there was some swapping around, with the gentlemen taking over their second horses from the grooms. I’d have liked to have gone closer and seen faces, certain that these would be men from the same set as the missing young Paley, but there was no point in going to all this trouble and spoiling it by impatience.
    The men were settled in their saddles, getting ready to race back. I gathered up Rancie’s rein, feeling her energy like an arrow in a taut bow the moment before you release it. As the group of riders galloped past us, I gave her the slightest sign with my heel and let her go. Divots of turf flew round us as she galloped after the other horses in a long curve that took us on to the same track. A groom on one of the back horses glanced round when he heard us, and his mouth opened in surprise. We went past him and two or three others without even trying. Not surprising, as Rancie was fresher than they were and raring to go. We came alongside the first of the top hats. A long pale face, also open-mouthed, turned towards us as we overtook him. It wasn’t my intention to get to the front, even if we could have managed it, and the leaders were pretty fast. I contented myself with overtaking another pair of top hats and then