Free The Pleasures of Spring by Evie Hunter Page B

You know that Tim O’Sullivan is a big racing buff?’
    Roz shook her head. She hated the O’Sullivans; she couldn’t bear to read about them or listen when they were on the news. She wouldn’t even fly O’Sullivan Air. Every piece of extravagance was a bigger contrast to her poverty. ‘I didn’t know that.’
    ‘Well, he is. He has a stable of racing horses and every year he enters the Gold Cup at Cheltenham. I’ve talked to a few people in his yard, and they all say he would pay any money to win. It would mean more to him than winning the Grand National or Ascot.’
    Roz knew nothing about horses. They were a rich man’s toy. She’d never even had a dog when she was growing up and had to make do with making pets of the feral cats wherever she happened to be living at the time. The final straw had been hearing that her twin Sinead had won some sort of pony competition. Sinead got a fucking pony of her own, and Roz had a three legged cat who scratched her when she tried to pet it.
    ‘Go on,’ she told Frankie. The idea of rooking Tim O’Sullivan was gaining appeal.
    ‘I want to show you something.’ Frankie gave her a hand to get to her feet. Roz blinked; her legs were unusually wobbly. It had been a long day.
    She followed him to the tent where the horses were kept. ‘The castle stables haven’t been restored yet,’ he told her. ‘They’re full of rubble and mice.’
    Roz shuddered. Maybe it was all the disgusting places she had ended up living with her father, but mice and spiders freaked her. She much preferred the large tent which contained about twenty horses.
    The three horses at the end had big stalls and were clearly the stars. ‘Those ones are specially trained, they do the stunts,’ Frankie said. ‘The one I’m interested in is over here.’
    There, in stall seventeen, was a large horse. In spite of a couple of night lights, it was too dim for Roz to make out what colour the horse was, but he was dark, maybe black or brown. He poked his nose out when they approached.
    Frankie slipped inside the stall, pulling her with him. The horse snuffled at him before turning his attention to Roz.
    She shrank back against the wooden wall. This horse was huge, and smelled, and had feet the size of dinner plates. He sniffed at her, then whickered, the sound shockingly loud, and revealing teeth like tent pegs. ‘Frankie,’ she said, panicked.
    He was busy taking something out of his pocket, but looked up. ‘Don’t pay any attention, he won’t hurt you.’
    Easy for him to say. She glared at his back. He wasn’t the one being poked in the chest by a head the size of a turkey.
    ‘Here, hold him still for me.’ Without waiting for her to agree, Frankie clipped a rope onto the leather halter the horse wore on his head, and put it into her hands. He got busy rubbing the front of the horse’s head with what smelled a lot like henna. He worked from between his eyes to the long nose.
    ‘What do you think of Nagsy?’ he asked her, still working away.
    Roz had a death grip on the rope, and no idea what she would do if the stupid horse moved in any way. ‘Nagsy? What sort of a name is that?’
    Frankie shrugged. ‘It’s as good as any other. Until we re-name him.’
    She was going to kill him. If that monster of a horse didn’t kill her first. ‘Frankie, if you don’t tell me why we’re here, I’m going to let him trample on top of you.’
    He put away the brush he had been using on Nagsy’s head. ‘This, dear Roz, is the key to scamming Tim O’Sullivan out of half a million.’
    ‘Are you mad?’ Roz looked up at the horse. Interested brown eyes looked back at her. She supposed as horses went, this one was pretty enough. But it was only a horse. She wouldn’t have paid a fiver for it.
    ‘He belongs to a local farmer who’s been riding him around the fields and to the pub. He’s a nice horse. But the most interesting thing about him,’ and Frankie lowered his voice, ‘is that this horse is