Chapter 27: Mob Rites

 

The music stopped, but the reverberation of undamped strings mixed with a foreign sound. Juno and I locked eyes. She was pale but unharmed.

“What was that?” someone cried.

“It was a noise like breaking glass,” Mother said. She raised her chin to stare up at the plaster rosettes on the ceiling. “Glass raining over our heads.”

I tried to recall the moment apart from my flinching panic. She was right. It had sounded like shattering glass coming from above.

I needed to get to the top floor. With one hand still gripping Everett’s arm, I spoke for his ears only. “Come upstairs with me.”

Juno closed the distance between us. “What’s happening?”

I thought of the tree breaking through her kitchen window, then flames licking the eaves. If there were a fire here or, God forbid, some structural failure within the house, the ballroom could become a trap. The room had only one exit, and the stairs were a bottleneck. “I don’t know yet. Juno, I need you to shepherd our guests back to the main floor. Keep everyone together. Work with Branch, he’s steady. Can you do that?”

Despite my worry, I was strangely relieved to be taking action. Anything was better than waiting on strung nerves.

But Juno shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”

Emberton tinkled a few uncertain notes. The partygoers idled, unsure about what to do next. I couldn’t leave them unattended, but I didn’t have time to argue with Juno—and in truth, I wanted her with me, too. Wright, the magistrate, had been hovering just out of earshot. I paced over to him and gestured for Branch to approach.

“Mr. Wright, would you do me the great favor of escorting my guests back to the library? Branch, see that the refreshments are made available there. I’m concerned there may be some disturbance in the attic above.”

I didn’t wait for either one of them to agree. Everett was already on his way to the doors. I picked up a branch of candles and started after him, then realized Juno wasn’t beside me. She had darted back to speak with Sarah Greeley. Wright and Branch, bless their practical souls, began corralling guests.

“Mrs. Stephens!” I bellowed. “Now, if you please.”

It emerged through my usual stuttering consonants, but the room was so noisy and confused that no one even glanced at me. Juno gave Sarah a last nod and rushed back towards me with her hem lifted. Everett was out of sight.

“Come along,” Juno said as if I weren’t stamping in impatience for her. We hurried out of the ballroom and circled around the bannister to access the stairs to the fourth floor.

As we climbed, I wished for my oil lantern. The three candles’ tiny flames did little to illuminate the stairwell. We reunited with Everett at the top of the steps. In the hall of the servants’ quarters, all the doors were closed.

“Anything?” I asked.

Everett nodded grimly. “Yes, I believe so. What’s beyond that last door?” he asked, pointing at the end of the passageway.

“A storage room.” I glanced at Juno, thinking of the hour we’d spent there hiding from the world. “My brother and I played theater in there. Why? Did you hear something?”

“Ben, look,” Juno whispered. “Look at our feet.”

I stared down at my boots. Along the plain, unpolished floorboards, a little river of dust flowed past us in the direction of the stairs. It swirled around our feet in eddies and masked the details of the wood grain.

“Even for a drafty old house,” said Everett, “that’s quite a breeze. And it’s coming from under that door.”

“Stay behind me,” I instructed. Juno and Everett fell back as I crept forwards, but even so, we were all terribly vulnerable. Should I have brought a weapon? I didn’t even own a pistol.

When I cracked open the storage room door, a cold wind whistled through the gap and tried to suck the doorknob from my hand. All the candles blew out. I forced the panel wide and proceeded by touch and memory of the space. Around us, fluttering sheets and disturbed dust made the attic into a breathing beast.

But it was my beast. Nothing about Maida House could frighten me. No new damage to the building could be worse than I had done through eight years of abandonment.

A faint glow led me toward the low dais that had been our stage. Then I saw the entry point of the intrusive gusts. The glass in the huge, round window behind the stage was broken. Jagged edges showed at the curved bottom of the frame.

“How—” Juno gasped. She was flanked by Everett and me, and her hand bunched in the thick wool of my coat. “Did it just…shatter?”

“Is anyone here?” Everett called out sharply. “Hello?”

But I already knew no one was in the room with us. The stage was littered with sparkling shards—all the glass had fallen inside. The window had been destroyed by a projectile thrown from without.

I slipped away from Juno’s restraining hand and strode across the cluttered storage space. In two paces I covered the width of the stage that had seemed of grand proportion to a boy of seven. Then I stood at the circular hole in the wall and stared down.

For one odd moment, in the darkness, I thought the pale-haired person I saw far below was Sarah Greeley. Then the breeze pushed straggling blonde locks away, and the figure resolved as her father.

In the center of the forecourt was Greeley, wearing a scowl and staring at Maida House. But he was not alone. He sat astride a bulky cart horse in the midst of a roiling mob. At least four dozen villagers clustered within the burning brands that necklaced the forecourt. Some carried lanterns, others torches, and a few wielded farm implements. Laid flat across Greeley’s lap, the metallic gleam of a flintlock musket reflected firelight.

“Holy God,” I whispered. We were under siege. I braced a hand on the frame, then withdrew it when a clinging shard pierced my palm. In sheltering the man’s wayward daughter, I had never guessed he would organize a war band to retrieve her.

“Is that a pitchfork?” Everett asked. “Are they planning to poke holes in us? What on earth is happening?”

He came up on my right, centered in the window, and I tugged him aside, lest his silhouette draws attention from below. Juno peered around my left arm. “It appears we’ve been invaded.”

“Why?” Everett demanded. It was the plaintive request of a boy in search of reassurance. “Why are they here? Have we threatened them somehow, to elicit such a mob?”

“People fear what they do not understand,” Juno murmured. Her voice had the affectless, dull tone of shock. “They do not understand me. Ben, I am so sorry to have brought this treachery to your house.”

“No, Juno. I invited him.” I watched Greeley’s face. His eyes were on the front door. What response was he expecting from me? I prayed that Wright and Branch would keep the others safely hidden inside.

“Shall we go down and confront him?” Everett asked.

“No,” I barked. The villagers in Greeley’s mob were restless, a shifting clump of humanity. I could not guess what lies he had used to lure them from their homes. “If I force an encounter, violence will flare.”

A man I didn’t recognize separated himself from the group. He shifted sideways, drew back his right elbow, and heaved a fist-sized rock at Maida House. With a sharp crash, a window broke on the second floor. I flinched at the sound and pressed the back of my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting.

“The violence is already here, Ben,” Everett said. “Now what? Just hope they grow bored of waiting and turn around? Or give him what he wants? Sarah won’t return to him willingly. You would have to drag her out.”

I dropped my hand and raked my gaze over his face. “I am not suggesting we surrender Sarah to him.”

Juno grasped my elbow. “I can talk to him. Try to explain, to reason with the man.”

Gently, I disengaged her hold on my arm. “It must be me, Juno.”

From below, a hollow rumble laced through the muttering of the crowd. Someone was rattling the big front door. I sidled to the edge of the empty window frame to look down. A few men from Greeley’s mob had pushed forwards to test the lock. Fortunately, Branch or somebody else had thought to secure the bolt.

The cart horse was restless and wary of the torches. Greeley fought to hold the beast steady. I inhaled through a long moment and then stepped forward until I was centered in front of the round hole.

I raised one arm and opened my mouth to speak. My tongue and lips felt stiff, and I knew my words, when they emerged, would shuffle and stutter like a drunken dancer. I had no choice. Even so, I fought against the familiar twisting in my guts.

But before I could shout down to Greeley, a commotion at the door rippled through the crowd. The man who had tested the lock stepped back swiftly. No one had yet noticed me standing in the fourth-story window. I dropped my arm, shaking with nerves but shamefully glad that some distraction had delayed the moment of my speaking.

“What’s happening?” Juno asked. “What are they doing?”

She and Everett edged closer. We all leaned gingerly, cautious of the forty-foot drop to the ground, to see the entryway directly below.

The distinctive squawk of heavy hinges ripped through the air. “The door,” I said.

“They’re supposed to stay hidden!” Everett said. “Who is emerging?”

His question was answered when a stream of people flowed out of Maida House and arrayed themselves in front of the door. Everett groaned. Everyone. All the dinner guests had left the relative safety of the library and filed outdoors.

“I say,” boomed Wright in his magisterial voice. “What’s happening here? This is a private party!”

“A revelry of witches,” someone snarled.

Mrs. Johnston, who had so bravely defended Juno’s salad, thrust herself forward. “Be gone, all of you!” she shouted. “You should be tending to your own homes and business, not inserting yourselves—”

“Really, my dear,” Johnston objected. He set his hands on his wife’s shoulders, but her feet were planted. “That’s quite enough now. No need to insult.”

“This is trespassing,” said Wright. “Be gone, all of you.”

“Not without Sarah. Where is my daughter?” Greeley called. “A witch stole her from me, and I have come to rescue her.”

“Send out Miss Greeley!” shouted the rock-thrower. Several others took up his cry.

I hadn’t noticed Sarah, wedged as she was between my mother and Mrs. Hargreaves until she spoke up. Her blonde hair reflected the torchlight, and her chin was set firmly. “You cannot rescue me, Father, because I came willingly. You have no authority over me.”

An outraged gasp rippled over the crowd. Someone jostled Mrs. Wright. She screeched and staggered backward. Wright shouted at the nearest man, but his words sank in a rising tide of anger.

“Ben,” Juno said.

I had been watching the scene unfold with frozen, stricken alarm, but her voice recalled me with a shudder. A shoving match broke out between Branch and a villager. One of the torches along the verge spluttered and faded. Greeley’s horse whinnied and skittered sideways.

And so, amidst the rising chaos, I took in a fresh breath, centered myself in the round frame, and lifted my arms again to display my palms.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I roared.

I pitched my voice to carry through the blustering gale. Four dozen pairs of eyes searched the night to find me. Someone spotted me and pointed up. Broken glass crackled under my feet as I inched forwards. All four dozen faces lifted and trained on me. They were angry and confused, squinting and suspicious.

And they all waited for me to speak.

My stomach clamped in a hard knot. For a moment, my knees wavered. I considered letting myself pitch through the window frame and plummet to splatter my guts on the drive. It seemed about as pleasant as launching into a soliloquy before half the village and everyone I knew.

A harsh whirlwind rocked my balance. Fingers locked onto my belt from behind, arresting my sway. Everett. I forced my legs to steady and looked almost straight down into the crowd from my high perch. Beneath my boots, beneath the shards, was the same stage where Joe and I had enacted a hundred theatrical shows for our doting parental audience. In those early, fearless days, I had stuttered no more and no less than I did in all the days that followed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I repeated.

“What’s that, dove?” a woman shouted. “Can’t quite make you out.”

Some wit in the crowd mocked my stutter, exaggerating the repeated syllables for comic effect, and the woman snorted in coarse laughter. I had seen her in church. I ignored her.

“This grand new opening in the side of Maida House,” I continued dryly, “gives me a fine vantage over my unexpected arrivals. Mr. Greeley, I had not intended your dinner invitation to include such an entourage. To what do we owe the pleasure, friends?”

“You still think you’re so high above us, gravedigger?” Greeley countered. “You harbor witches. Do not play lord of the manor with me. Release my daughter at once.” He shifted his grip on the musket and stared at her.

Sarah shrank back. Mrs. Hargreaves wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Braced behind me, still with a grasp on my belt, Everett was stiff with anger.

“You have already asked, Mr. Greeley, and the young lady has declined. You have no excuse for missing her response. Unlike some of us,” I said with a tight smile, “I do not believe that she stuttered.”

A few of the villagers chortled at my self-deprecating remark.

“I’m not going with you, Father,” said Sarah. “I’m working for Mrs. Stephens, that’s all. You always exaggerate.” She shrugged, and it was the perfect adolescent disparagement.

Some of the mob’s energy bled away. The night was cool, and the group of dinner guests was quite mundane. No spells or arcane symbols provided entertainment. Sarah Greeley looked like a stubborn daughter, not a victim.

“What gives you the right to keep my daughter, Hood? Would you steal another man’s child?”

I shook my head deliberately so our curious audience could follow the gesture. “No one keeps Sarah. She is a guest, and as she just said, under the employ of my…my…”

I turned to Juno. She was my what? The unasked question lay between us. I had verbal agreements for the purchase of part of the Maida Estate. Was it enough? Her eyes were dark pools, and I could not judge her mood.

“Juno,” I whispered, “marry me. Please.”

She recoiled. “Your timing is terrible.”

It was a fair objection. My throat ached, and I swallowed hard. “True. We can sort this out later.”

“Yes,” she said. “No.”

It was unlike her to stumble over her words. My heart thudded painfully, and the crowd below strained to overhear us. “Pardon me?”

Juno leaned in, closing the gap she had opened. “The answer is yes, I will marry you. No, I don’t want to sort it out later. If you’d waited another day, I would have asked you myself.”

The rush of relief loosened my joints and opened my windpipe. I grinned. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m arguing with a horrible man who’s forty feet below.”

“Go on.”

Greeley was sawing at his reins. The brief interruption had not soothed his temper. The crowd milled and muttered.

“My apologies,” I called down. A gust tried to tear my voice away, so I forced my throat to unaccustomed volume. “What were we saying? Oh, yes. Sarah is a guest and a friend.”

“A guest and a friend of a witch!” Greeley yelled back. “She just admitted as much. I should bring the vicar and burn this house to the ground.”

Juno stepped up beside me. She waved to the people below, as cool as any queen greeting her subjects. “What witchcraft do you see, Mr. Greeley? Perhaps you refer to my endeavors on behalf of the health and wellbeing of local women.”

I scanned the faces below and judged them to be growing restless with our stalemate. We needed to draw things to a conclusion.

“Health and wellbeing,” he repeated, pale eyebrows drawn down in a glower. He was suspicious of becoming the target of a joke.

“Indeed!” Juno said lightly. Her higher pitch cut through the night. “Much of my work is focused on the cultivation of nutritious foods for mothers and anyone suffering from pallor, shortness of breath, flaking skin, tiredness, headache, stomach upset—”

“That’s true enough,” said a gruff voice. The crowd shifted and turned to identify the speaker. It was Mr. Johnston. An unexpected ally. “Hood served us one of her nutritious foods at his table tonight. No spells or witchcraft that I saw. It was just a bowl of leaves.”

“But we are not trained witches,” Greeley objected. “How would you know if it was poison she tempted you with?”

“Because it wasn’t very tempting,” said Johnston in his blunt way, and more people laughed.

Greeley drew his shoulders back, preparing for another volley of arguments, but I preempted him.

“My friends and neighbors,” I called out. I waited until everyone was looking at me, then smiled. If it was a little forced, they were too far away to see me falter. “I see no reason for conflict. You know my family.” I nodded towards Mother, all dignity and swooping silver hair. “We all know each other, and we should act like it. Everyone, please come in for refreshments and wine. Get yourselves out of this blowing weather. We have strawberry tarts made from fruit grown in our good, plain dirt.”

Among the uninvited mob, no one moved. A few looked to Greeley for his reaction, but he was red-faced and indecisive. Branch stationed himself at the open front door.

“Go on, then,” Everett muttered behind me. “Go on, you stubborn mules.”

Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Johnston entered first, followed by the other dinner guests. The villagers lingered, pitchfork tines drooping and expressions turned wary. One man glanced back along the driveway as if considering the long walk home.

“Well, Greeley?” asked one of the men. “You brought us all this way. Your girl looks safe enough to me. Are you satisfied?”

“No,” he said loudly. “Sarah is mine. I will not be satisfied until she is back in her rightful place by my side.”

“He talks about Sarah like she is a prized sheep,” Everett scoffed. His voice was pitched low enough that the man below would not overhear. “He wants to own her and control her breeding, not see her settled and independent.”

“Yes,” said Juno. “Fatherhood is possession and control for him.”

Something about that bothered me, but I didn’t have time to consider. The mob’s energy faded until they were no more than a knot of loitering villagers. They were still torn, however, between Greeley’s promise of violence and the temptation of a painless resolution—and desserts. Greeley himself seemed to be wavering, his shoulders hunched.

“I am going down there,” I said. “We shall act as if everyone was invited and welcome. Understood? Make this all very neighborly.”

“Understood,” Everett said. He plastered a huge smile on his face.

Juno kept pace with me as I turned from the window and stepped off the stage, but she was less sure about the plan. “I’m terrible at pretending anything.”

“I know,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I would not wish you otherwise. You may glower at Greeley all you like, just smile sweetly at the others.”

We hurried down three flights of stairs to the main floor. In the crowded foyer, the dinner guests had intermixed with the invading mob quite naturally. Many of them were, after all, lifelong neighbors and acquaintances, albeit from differing levels of society. Mrs. Johnston chattered and teased two younger men, and Mrs. Hargreaves leaned on the elbow of a man who had been wielding a burning torch only half an hour prior. Slowly they filtered through the hall. I trusted Branch to seat them at the benches in the hot house.

One man, a villager with a poorly healed break interrupting the bridge of his nose, planted himself in front of me. I stopped. Did he still hope to defy me? There was no room in the entrance hall for a fight. I turned my shoulder to angle past him, but he grabbed my arm. The man was nearly a head shorter than me. I narrowed my eyes and let my annoyance show. How dare he accost me in my own home? He removed his hand.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Just wanted to mention…”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Don’t think Greeley had the right idea of things after all. Said Sarah was kidnapped, and such.”

“She’s fine, I assure you.” I softened my voice and gave him a nod. “Dessert is being served through there.”

The man did not yield. He twisted his hands together, plainly mulling over another comment. I forced myself to patience.

“Mr. Hood was a good man. He helped me through a spot of trouble when I was young, and he never breathed a word about it. No questions, no sermonizing. Trusted me to know my own way forward.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. There had been many small loans listed in the Maida Estate account books, some repaid, others inked through without a reckoning. “My father had the best of—”

“Not your father,” the man cut in. “Sorry, sir. No disrespect to him. But I meant the previous Mr. Hood. Your brother. He was a good man.”

“Ah.” I fell silent. The remark would bear further consideration when I had the time and peace to do so. We rarely spoke of Joseph and rarer still of his many virtues. The man faded back into the group.

When I shook off the unsettling exchange and turned to face the front door, I was beside Lucy and Mrs. Toth. The girl glared through the doorframe out toward Greeley. “I don’t like him. He’d better stay away.”

I smiled at her fierce words. There was much in her that reminded me of Everett. “I agree wholeheartedly. But he’s Sarah’s father, so we’re trying to smooth things over.”

“That man was at our house the last day I saw my cat.”

“Your cat?” I repeated, surprised. “But I just saw your gray kitten the day before yesterday, when your mother trimmed my hair.”

Lucy shook her head. Her own hair had been pinned into a chignon for the party, and it made her look older than her years. “That’s my new kitten. My old cat, Bluebell, disappeared. And she was going to have kittens.”

Mrs. Toth set her hands atop Lucy’s shoulders. “I tried to tell you, Ben.”

“You warned me about Sarah—”

“Sarah didn’t leave home because her father was such an easy, understanding man. And that girl is still hiding things, even from herself. She doesn’t like to think about her mother.” Mrs. Toth’s face was unreadable.

“You’re not telling me everything.”

She shook her head. “You haven’t asked the right questions. Get Greeley to talk to you.”

Her implication rattled me. I tried not to make unfounded assumptions but found myself stretching for connections. We had all thought Greeley so pitiful, misguided but harmless until he showed up with a mob and a gun. Suddenly it was important to get him away from my house full of friends and family.

“Mrs. Toth…I’m sorry I haven’t handled this better.”

“Handle it now, my dear boy. And keep Everett out of it.”

Greeley remained outside alone, still stubbornly mounted astride his cart horse. I went to stand before him and put a hand on the gelding’s bridle. A few of the torches had guttered, but most still burned. Firelight reflected off the musket gripped in Greeley’s right hand, its muzzle angled towards the ground.

“Sarah has grown up, Greeley,” I said. “She is old enough to know her own mind and old enough to work. Mrs. Stephens is paying her fair wages. Let the girl go.”

Greeley stared into my face. I did not flinch from his hard eyes. Something in his expression was…disconnected. I wasn’t sure he heard me. He fidgeted in the saddle, and the horse tossed its head in irritation. I glanced over my shoulder as Sarah and Juno emerged to stand just outside the doorway.

“Go on, then,” I urged, then tugged at the horse’s headstall. “Go home, Greeley.”

The horse took one turning step, then another. Greeley did not resist, the reins loose in his left hand. I stepped back. He was leaving of his own free will. After he had gone, I could think about what Lucy’s missing cat might mean for missing children. Juno might find meaning in something I had overlooked. What had Sarah failed to tell us about her mother? What had I failed to ask?

I didn’t notice when Everett came out of the house, but Greeley did. He turned his head sharply. I followed his line of sight over to Everett, who had stopped beside Sarah. With the casual intimacy the two had developed over the past few weeks, he slung an arm around her narrow shoulders, and she leaned into him.

“What,” Greeley said. He sawed at the reins. The horse startled. “What is this?”

Everett and Sarah sprang apart. Their expressions, guilty and abashed for no good reason, made my temper flare.

“Nothing that happens on my property has anything to do with you,” I said. “Now go. That’s the last time I’ll say it.”

Greeley ignored me. “With him?” he shouted. “Another Toth? How could you? How could you?

Sarah cowered. Everett stepped up and positioned himself between Sarah and her father. I should have realized it earlier, but finally, the truth became unavoidable. Up close, I saw the difference in Greeley’s face that I had not seen from more distant vantage. In an instant, his eyes changed from flat to wide, wild, and utterly unfamiliar. By the tight line of her jaw, Juno saw it too. Greeley was unmoored. There was more to his anger than just seeing his daughter with a boy. We had underestimated him. His face suffused with blood, made horrible by the red torchlight, and his right hand tightened on the musket.

I jumped forward and grabbed the horse’s bridle again. “Another Toth? What do you mean?”

He leaned over the horse’s shoulder and spat on me. It was so unexpected that I did not dodge. Juno, somewhere behind me near the house, took in a gasping breath, a noise of shock. I swiped saliva from my cheek and temple.

“You would ask me that, wouldn’t you?” Greeley jeered. He was damp and twitching under his coat. “You don’t know when to keep silent. You’d think a man who can hardly speak would make less of a habit of it. Instead, you’ve been asking questions and harboring witches. None of this would have come about if it weren’t for you, Hood.”

“What do you mean by ‘another Toth’?” I repeated.

“She wronged me, but she’s still mine. I don’t give up what’s mine.” He yanked savagely at the reins, but the bridle was still clenched in my hand. The poor cart horse snorted and stamped in distress. “I’m collecting Sarah and taking her home to the others.”

“Greeley,” I said. A dreadful uncertainty washed through me and lodged in my throat. “What others?”

“Come on, Sarah,” he said.

“Who else?” I demanded.

The musket barrel swung up over the horse’s neck and leveled at my face. “Stop asking me questions!” Greeley screeched.

I stood motionless. Oddly enough, the long gun pointed at me was less terrifying than speaking to the assembled crowd had been. The immediate threat seemed to clarify my thoughts, forcing aside considerations of embarrassment and concern for the others. I focused on Greeley and his gun. Despite his mounted position, despite the weapon, he looked like a cornered animal.

He believed he was defending himself. From what? There was hidden guilt there if I could uncover it.

“And if I don’t, you’d shoot an unarmed man on his own property?” I lifted my eyebrows, mocking. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll tell you what we are going to do. Sarah’s not going with you, but I will. Take me instead. You are going to show me. Do you understand?”

Something sparked in his fevered eyes. The idea caught his interest.

I spoke again before he could think better of it. “Whatever it is, whatever is on your mind, you’ll feel much better after having shown someone. Just me. Big, dumb, Benjamin Hood. Are you listening, Greeley? Are you paying attention?”

Slowly, I raised a hand and pushed the muzzle aside. Greeley twitched. Perspiration ran down both sides of his ruddy face despite the cooling breeze. His expression shifted to triumph. “Oh, I can show you,” he whispered. “I suppose you’d be the right man for the job, eh? You won’t like it, but I can show you. Perhaps you might even come to understand.”

I swallowed hard. What would I be forced to witness? “Fine.”

Swiftly, so Greeley could not object, I took three strides and wrapped Juno in my arms. The embrace was a welcome reassurance, but my true motivation was to whisper in her ear. “Watch over them while I’m gone,” I said through the dark curtain of her hair. “Keep them safe. I love you.”

“Ben.” Her arms tightened around my ribs. “No, I want to—”

“Leave the witch!” Greeley shouted, pointing the musket at us. “Back up.”

I released Juno and stepped away. Her lips compressed into a thin line. After the gun drooped, I approached Greeley’s horse and swung up to ride pillion. With a shout and a shift of his knees, he urged the beast into a canter. I stared back at Maida House as we rode away, still aglow for a festive dinner party.