Christopher's Medal Read Free

babbling to fill the silence. “Are you?”
    “Nope. We’ll be getting up early tomorrow morning too.”
    “Back to London?”
    “No, I guess we’re coming to the yard and having breakfast. Didn’t you know that?”
    Oh, Christ .
    “I think I’m supposed to know that.” She remembered the list her father had pinned to the board in the tack room, the list she had been in too much of a hurry to read before she dashed out of the door.
    Oh bugger.
    She would have to drive her guests to the gallops. Grace’s mind raced. Her car was a moving collection of empty pop cans, paper cups, sweets wrappers and tissues. The yard’s elderly Land Rover needed a good muck-out. She would have to start work half an hour earlier to tidy it up. “I hope you realize how early you will have to get up.”
    “I think Richard said we’d be there for six.”
    Grace took a mental inventory of her work clothes then stopped herself. She was getting her knickers in a twist over nothing. This was a one-time-only distraction and she was hormonal.
    It will pass.
    She found another strawberry.
    Some dinner, Pimms-soaked strawberries.
    “Yes, sorry about the early start. We like to get the horses out and back again before it gets too warm. Still, Mum will have a nice breakfast for you both when you get back.” She hoped he hadn’t heard the mutinous rumble from her stomach. The smell of chips drifted across the lawn and she tried to remember what she had in the fridge.
    He took another sip of his beer. “Richard didn’t really tell me much. What do we do?”
    “You turn up, you climb in the Land Rover, I drive you to the gallops, we stand and watch the horses run up the hill and then go back to the house for breakfast. If it’s not too crazy busy, I’ll show you both around. That’s about it.”
    “It sounds fine to me, better than being at work.”
    “What do you do?”
    “I’m in the army.”
    She should’ve known. The short hair, family friend of the General, it all added up. “What Regiment?”
    “The Grenadier Guards.”
    Grace spied the General and Harry returning at the same time. The moments of peace were over. She found the last piece of cucumber and ate it with a sigh. “I suppose I’d better get this horse loaded up and back to the yard.”
    “I think Richard wants to get something to eat.”
    Grace stood up and brushed the bits of straw from her trousers. She finished the last of her Pimms. Harry wrapped the traveling boots around Allonby’s legs while the General patted his horse’s neck. “We’ll see you in the morning, then,” he said, cheerfully. “Bright and early.”
    She smiled. “Very early.”
    * * * *
    “Boss.” The head lad’s face appeared over the stable door. “The General’s here.”
    Grace glanced at her watch. “Bugger, they’re early.” She’d only just finished mucking out and bits of dirty straw and worse clung to her T-shirt. She hurriedly brushed the straw off. “No time to bloody change, no time for another coffee. God, I hate early morning visitors. I’ll be with them in a minute. Take them to have a look at Allonby, tell them how well he ate up and rested.”
    “All right, Boss.” Dave grinned. “Will do.”
    Grace finished putting down the fresh straw, unclipped the horse and peered over the top of the door. Dave had taken them around the corner to look at Allonby, which gave her time to slip out of the box and into the tack room where, at least, she could run a brush through her hair. She hurried along the path and crept into the tack room. The brush had disappeared from its usual place beside the sink and she frantically sorted through her grooming kit for a mane and tail comb. Bloody marvelous. A quick glimpse in the cracked and smudged mirror above the grubby sink was enough to make Grace want to crawl back into bed. Dark circles under her eyes, hair messed up beyond redemption and dressed with straw, a nasty greenish smear on her T-shirt…just the look to impress a