Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,98
into it, by the queen or the tabloids.
“Not really,” she said honestly. “Why don’t we just call a moratorium on it, and make the decision in two years when I turn twenty-five. I’ll be ready then. You’ll be thirty-three. And screw what the tabloids think, or anyone else.”
“Sounds perfect to me,” he agreed. “Two years, and then we’ll jump in. Done.” He kissed her to seal the deal. It seemed like an unromantic decision, but the right one for them.
The press continued to follow them around after that. But not as avidly. They got bored with it without an engagement or a wedding date. And the queen continued to drop hints whenever she saw them, but she was much more upset about her sister, who seemed to enjoy creating scandals. She always had.
Annie and Anthony were happy as they were. She stayed with him when she was in London, and he stayed in her room at the stables now, since everyone knew about them anyway. His father lent him his house frequently. So everything calmed down, and their relationship continued. In their minds, they figured they’d get married, or at least engaged, in two years when Annie turned twenty-five. It seemed the right age to both of them. And to satisfy her longing to race, Anthony’s father convinced her to enter the Newmarket Town Plate that fall. It was the only women’s race under jockey club rules. She placed second and was jubilant. But it only made her hunger to race against men more acute. She entered again the following year and placed first. Shortly before her twenty-fifth birthday, before they could revisit their marriage plans, Annie got a call from a famous trainer in Lexington, Kentucky. He invited her to race for the stable he worked for, in the Blue Grass Stakes Thoroughbred race at Keeneland racecourse in Lexington. She would be competing against male jockeys for a million-dollar purse. It was a pari-mutuel race, the opportunity she’d longed for all her life. They had heard of her, and seen her race at the Newmarket Town Plate. She would be the first female jockey registered for the race in Kentucky, and her heart was pounding when she hung up after the call. She was so excited she could taste it. She had waited for this moment for years, and she knew she was ready. She had accepted on the phone, and now she had to tell Anthony. She hoped he’d be reasonable about it. She knew Lord Hatton would be excited for her, and Jonathan would too.
She waited until Anthony came up for the weekend, and didn’t say anything to him about it before that. They were paying her a fortune to do it. But she wasn’t doing it for the money, although that was nice too. She was doing it because it was her dream, and she knew she had to do it. And she expected Anthony to know that too.
There was no avoiding the subject. He could tell that she was hiding something, and she didn’t want to conceal it from him. She told him about the call an hour after he got there.
“You turned them down, I hope?” he said, looking tense, his eyes never leaving hers.
“I couldn’t. I’ve waited all my life for this, and you know it. I have to do it.”
“And risk your life as a jockey? Competing against men?” He looked horrified.
“I’m not going to die, Anthony. This is my dream,” she said quietly.
“I thought we were your dream, you and I. If I ask you not to do it, will you turn it down?” He was turning it into a proving ground, and a test, which wasn’t fair. She didn’t answer for a moment, and then shook her head. It was a crucial moment in their relationship, and she knew it. But she couldn’t give up the race for him.
“I can’t. Don’t ask me to do that. It’s not right. I’ve wanted to be a jockey as long as I’ve been riding.”
“What about us?”
“Why can’t we do both? I’m not going to race forever. But give me a year. There’s talk that they’ll allow women to race in the Kentucky Derby next year. It would be the high point of my life.”
“I don’t want to be married to a jockey. What do you want, Annie? Me? Us? Or to be a jockey? You can’t have both.” His eyes were like steel as he looked at her. He had