Mistress of the Hunt Read Free Page A

since he left it to my use for my lifetime, it seemed the perfect haven.”
    “Hunting box,” repeated Miss Pellerin with a chuckle. “I certainly envisioned something quite different from this when you told me where you wished to go, my dear. Like Mr. Quinlan, I quite thought we should find ourselves in the wilds, but this place is scarcely that. Why, this house is wanting in none of those accessories which would be considered indispensable in a house in London.”
    “No,” Philippa agreed, “although in London the paintings on the walls would be by Constable or Gainsborough rather than by John Ferneley or Ben Marshall. But in Leicestershire, no house can be complete without at least several hunting portraits. I particularly like the Ferneley over there by the chimneypiece—the short-tailed horse falling neck and crop over a flight of rails, whilst the thoroughbred, who ought to be advancing, viciously kicks at the leap his rider desires him to face.”
    Obediently Miss Pellerin glanced at the picture, but her interests did not include hunting or hunting portraits. “I daresay it is very nice,” she said. “You mentioned riding with the Belvoir when you were down here with Wakefield. Do you intend to hunt whilst we are here? I cannot think it a seemly activity for a woman of quality.”
    “Well, I enjoy the sport immensely,” Philippa informed her with a smile, “and I should like very much to attempt it here in the shires again, but not,” she added, glad of her newfound knowledge, “until the scent is high. Have you discovered the inventory amongst all that litter, ma’am?”
    Recalled to her duty, Miss Pellerin sniffed in exasperation. “I declare, Philippa, no one seems to have attended to this business properly since eighteen-aught-four. You may count yourself fortunate if we discover that your servants have not fleeced you prettily in the meantime.”
    Philippa grinned at her. “I should be well served, should I not, Cousin? You will forgive me, however, if I do not mention your concern to Mrs. Bickerstaff, since it was her sister who looked after the house in our absence.” Amused by her companion’s grim look but having no wish to hear again her opinion of the way the household had been run, she added quickly, “Is a ten-year-old list truly the most recent one you have discovered?”
    “Indeed.” Miss Pellerin replaced her pince-nez, scanned the papers before her, then selected and offered several yellowed sheets to Philippa. “See for yourself, my dear. ’Tis a disgrace.”
    “Well, it is not my disgrace, after all,” Philippa said, taking the lists from her. “I was no more than sixteen then and didn’t marry Wakefield until three years later. We spent a bare month here the first year of our marriage and less than six weeks altogether during the second and third, which is when he first fell ill. The last two years, as you know, his illness precluded our leaving Wakefield Priory.”
    “That is still three years you were in residence here, however,” Miss Pellerin pointed out in her prim voice.
    Philippa chuckled. “Have a heart, ma’am. I was no match for Mrs. Bickerstaff then, not at the Priory and certainly not here, where during the hunting season I was treated like an accessory whose value was placed slightly higher than that of my lord’s favorite dogs but far and away below that of the least of his hunters.”
    “My poor child!” exclaimed Miss Pellerin, instantly sympathetic.
    “Not a bit of it, ma’am.” Philippa’s eyes danced. “I should scarcely have chosen to return to Chase Charley had my memories been unhappy ones.”
    “Why on earth did the Raynard-Wakefields call this place by such an extraordinary name?” demanded her companion.
    “ They didn’t. Until some fifteen years ago, it was Raynard Hall, for you must know that the Raynard-Wakefield connection is little more than a hundred years old, and this estate belonged originally to the Raynard branch. It was