Lester watched the colt flick his head again and trot off on springs.

That’s one for Pax, the Captain repeated in his head.

As far as Lester was aware, Pax hadn’t ridden since she was a teenager. She’d seemed to lose the passion for horses totally, almost overnight. Even today, she was detached and cerebral around them. Lester found himself disappointed in her, irritated by her ambivalence.

The owl shriek had moved further away, to the spinney beyond the walled garden, making him breathe out with relief.

The bigger stable yard was icy underfoot. He took it very steadily. The cobbles were precarious, and his hips were aching. The doctors said he needed an operation, but he couldn’t take time off even if he wanted to.

Grumbling to Stubbs that there would be no hunting if the frost lingered – and none if he didn’t get the yard done in time – he set about distributing hay nets and hard feeds.

Ronnie’s grey stallion was even more het up than usual, wired by last night’s midnight fireworks exploding across the valley from the Austens’ farm and by Lester’s impatience. The two had built a begrudging respect over the weeks that Beck had lived at the stud, but this was all too easily undermined by displays of temper on either side.

Today, eyes like coal and nostrils two scarlet commas, he struck out at his side wall, bit at the bars and then turned to fire his hind feet at the door.

Lester had quickly learned that Beck was all show: fierce dragon snorting and ear-splitting bellows, teeth bared, neck snaking, hooves lashing out to spark off the flags and rattle the partitions, the door jumping in its hinges. Reaching for the bolts, he ignored him, quashing the instinctive wariness he always felt when handling the horse. Rigidly disciplined in Germany, the stallion had been taught to stand at the back of his stall the moment the door was opened, glaring at the intruder who dared invade his space to attach a head collar, skip out, change nets or refill water. Today, he was particularly ratty, lingering just long enough to nip hard at the old man’s shoulder.

‘Gerrof, you devil,’ Lester muttered, raising a hand. Although a royal wave not a threat, it was enough to send the stallion slamming to the back wall, eyes white-edged, every nerve in his body alert.

Tutting, Lester cursed his arthritic fingers as they struggled to unknot the hay net which Pax had tied far too elaborately the previous afternoon. That girl! She’d forgotten everything he’d taught her. In his peripheral vision – much reduced these days – he could see that the stallion was head-bobbing agitatedly, ears flat back. Warning bells were ringing in Lester’s head, his owl shriek tinnitus, but he stilled them, patiently fiddling in the gloom. As he did so, the light from the yard’s tungsten floods spilled in, the stable door opening, a soft voice asking, ‘Need some help?’