Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,68
“Where else would I want to be?”
“Silly girl, dancing your feet off at a disco in Knightsbridge, if you had any sense,” Annabelle teased her.
“My father and the boys need me here, or the house will look like the stables.” But two days later, she got a call from Lord Hatton at the queen’s stables, with an offer that was seriously tempting. He was inviting her to tour the stables and view Her Majesty’s racehorses, and he offered her a summer internship if she was interested. It was an offer that was nearly impossible to resist, and her stepfather insisted she had to take it. He said she’d never get another offer like it, and she was inclined to agree. So she called Lord Hatton back and said she would be delighted to work for him for August and September if he wanted her. July was already almost half over. He said he could use the help, and was sure that she’d enjoy it. Who wouldn’t? With the queen’s racehorses all around her. She hoped he would let her exercise them.
Her recognition by the royal family had brought nothing but happy changes to her life, in spite of the brief furor in the media, which calmed down within a week after the paparazzi got enough pictures, which Annie hated. She didn’t like being a media star. She wrote the queen a note to thank her for the internship at her stables. She was sure that Her Majesty had put in a word for her with Lord Hatton. Lord Hatton reported that the queen was very pleased with Annie’s dignified handling of the press.
“This is going to be a seriously fun summer,” Annie said, beaming at her stepfather, as she walked into the stables. Balmoral to meet her family, and an internship at the royal stables. The queen wanted to give her time to adjust to the changes in her life, which suited Annie too. She wasn’t ready to leave home yet, except to work at the queen’s stables instead of the Markhams’. And all the current excitement balanced some of the sadness of Lucy’s death.
She took one of their stallions out to exercise him that morning and rode like the wind across the meadows. She was inheriting the life she had been born to. It was almost too wonderful to be true.
Jonathan delivered Annie to the queen’s stables in Newmarket himself. It had taken just under two hours from Kent, and they chatted on the way. She was excited by the internship Lord Hatton had offered her. She didn’t care if she had to muck out stalls, or curry horses, or simply sponge them down after a run. Just being there was an honor, surrounded by the kind of horses the queen owned.
Newmarket was the center of Thoroughbred horseracing, and the largest racehorse training center in Britain. Five major races took place there every year. Tattersalls racehorse auctions were held frequently, and there were excellent equine hospitals. The queen had five main horse trainers to train her horses in different locations. The famous trainer Boyd-Rochfort was one of them. She kept horses at the Sandringham Estate too, and in Hampshire before they were sent to Newmarket to train. There were more than fifty horse-training stables and two racetracks in Newmarket. A third of the town’s jobs involved horseracing. Most of the stables were in the center of the town. The top trainers in England were there.
Lord Hatton was very gracious to Annie and her father when they arrived, and he already knew that Annie was the queen’s long lost niece who had recently turned up. Jonathan was the stepfather who had brought her to them, the only father she’d ever known, and was the stable master for the Markhams, who had impressive stables too. Though the queen’s horses surpassed them all. While Lord Hatton and her father talked about the stud services for the Markhams’ mares again, Annie walked around, and stopped to admire each of the queen’s racehorses. She had some of the finest horses in England.
She was halfway through her quiet private tour going from stall to stall, when she noticed a striking-looking young man leaning against a wall and staring at her. He was wearing white jodhpurs, a crisp white shirt, and tall black riding boots. He had jet-black hair, and a surly expression as he watched her. He didn’t greet her or approach, and then finally when she reached the last stall, he