Free The Favoured Child by Philippa Gregory

animal.
    ‘Scheherazade is
my
horse,’ he hissed, his face very close to mine. ‘Lord Havering gave her to
me
. He taught me to ride on her. You may be a Lacey, but it is my papa who pays the bills here. Lord Havering may be your grandpapa, and not mine, but he gave the horse to me. And I warned you not to touch her, didn’t I?’
    My lips were trembling so much that I could not speak. It was worse than the pretend water-snakes in the river all those years ago in childhood. It was the worst it had ever been. ‘Richard…please…’ I said pitifully.
    ‘Didn’t I
he insisted.
    Y-Yes,’ I said. ‘But Richard…’
    ‘I warned you, Julia,’ he said authoritatively. ‘I told you that you would learn to ride when I was ready to teach you. And I told you to keep away from my horse.’
    I could not stop the tears from coming, and they rolled down my face, making my cheeks as wet as if I were out in a rainstorm, while I looked and looked at Richard, hoping he would see them and release the hard grip on my wrist and catch me up to him, and kiss me kindly, as he always did.
    ‘Didn’t
I warn you?’ he shouted.
    ‘Yes! Yes!’ I sobbed. There seemed nothing I could do to break the spell of this shadowed misery. Mama was far away in the house, Jem was cleaning tack in the tack room or sitting in the kitchen. Richard had me at his mercy, and he had no mercy. He had indeed warned me. He had told me not to touch his horse and I had disobeyed him. He had warned me that if I did, he would be angry. And I had foolishly, irresistibly gone toScheherazade and now I had to face Richard’s blazing blue-eyed wrath. Then, suddenly, my own temper went.
    ‘You don’t even like her!’ I said. ‘You never did like her as much as me! You promised you’d teach me to ride her, but I don’t believe you ever will. All you ever cared about was your stupid singing! You can’t do that any more! And you can’t ride either!’
    Richard grabbed me and spun me around, his full weight throwing me against the stable wall. TU kill you!’ he said in the total rage of a child.
    I had both hands braced against the wall. For a moment I was literally too frightened to move. He took advantage of that second’s immobility to snatch up his riding crop from the floor beside his saddle, and then he grabbed me in a hard one-armed embrace and brought the twangy well-sprung crop down with all his strength on my back.
    He meant to cane me – as Stride very occasionally was ordered to beat him. But I twisted in his grip and the blow fell on my side. Even through my jacket it stung, and I screamed with the shock of it, and the hurt of it. Three times he whipped me, before I wriggled free from his hold and dashed to the shelter of Scheherazade’s side. She was frightened, her hooves shifting nervously, he eyes rolling and showing their whites. Without a second’s thought I dived under her belly and came up on the other side so that she was between Richard and me, and I peeped at him from under her tossing neck.
    The rage had gone from Richard’s face; he looked ready to weep. ‘Oh, Julia!’ he said, his voice choked.
    But I was beyond reconciliation. Shielded by the horse, I turned for the stable door, struggled with the lock and dashed out of the stable, banging the door behind me.
    I did not go to the house, though I could see the light from the parlour window spilling out over the drive. I ran instead to where I could be alone, to the hayloft above the stables where the few bales of hay were stored. I flung myself face down on one of them and wept as if I could not stop; I wept for the pain andthe humiliation, and for the fright that my own anger had given me, that had made me taunt Richard and had made him wish me dead.
    I gave little screaming sobs, muffled by a fist pressed against my mouth, for I wanted no one to hear me. He had hurt me so! And he could not love me at all if he could treat me thus! And the flame of my own anger burned inside me