‘I was about to brush him down,’ Elliot said. ‘But I reckon you’ll be wanting to spend some time with him first.’

‘I don’t want to upset your routine.’

‘There’s no upset. I’ll go and get me tea up at the house, if it pleases you, sir.’

‘Of course. Nothing should come between a man and his tea.’

Elliot took his coat down from a peg. He pulled on his cap, tugging the peak as he passed Lou. With a sharp whistle, he brought the Labrador to heel and closed the door behind them.

The instant they were gone, Captain Mandeville appeared from the stall and beckoned to Lou. ‘I want to introduce you to Samson,’ he said, ‘the finest hunter in the county.’

Lou joined him, hovering in the entrance to the stall. She instantly recognised Samson as the horse in the painting. He was huge – far taller than his stable mates, and as he moved, his muscles undulated beneath a coat of satin black. His size and presence were intimidating, but Lou felt compelled to touch him. Stepping forward, she placed her hand on his flank and found him surprisingly soft and warm and muscular, all at once.

‘Stunning, isn’t he?’ Captain Mandeville said proudly.

As though in response to his master’s voice, Samson turned from his hay and bent his neck. With the horse’s face on a level with his, Captain Mandeville closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the space between the animal’s eyes. They stood together, perfectly peaceful – man and animal sharing a language with no need for words. When Captain Mandeville stepped away, he continued to stroke the horse’s face. ‘He was my father’s gift to me on my twenty-first birthday,’ he said.

Lou increased the pressure of her stroke, enjoying the sensation of the soft coat beneath her fingertips. ‘Is he the horse you ride in the cavalry?’

‘No, he’s far too valuable for that. Besides, I would never deny my father, or Samson, the chance to take regular rides around the countryside here.’ Captain Mandeville ran his hand down Samson’s flank and patted him on the hindquarters. He bent to collect an armful of hay from a sack on the floor. ‘I only posed on him in that wretched excuse for a work of art for my mother’s benefit.’ As he turned to place the hay into the trough, Samson nudged him in the back. Captain Mandeville laughed, his voice quiet and low. ‘Sorry old chap, wasn’t I paying you enough attention? You see, that’s what I admire about horses – drayman, groom or baronet – all men are equal in their eyes.’

For the first time since his arrival the previous day, Captain Mandeville sounded serious.

‘Samson is more intelligent than any man,’ he said. ‘When we ride out, I know that I can trust his instincts implicitly. He predicts every furrow, every low hanging branch, every hidden hole in the ground, better than I ever could. He has saved me more times than I care to count by insisting on going in one direction when I have tried to steer him in the other. Sometimes, when I look into his eyes, I feel he even knows what I’m thinking.’ He shook his head as though suddenly coming to his senses. ‘Sorry, I’m talking absolute rot.’