At first, until a new pair was made for her, Candida had to wear her own disreputable, almost out-of-toe, riding boots.
The first morning she appeared in them Major Hooper said,
“I doubt if your boots will hold a spur.”
Candida raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t need a spur,” she protested.
“Of course you need one,” Major Hooper said sharply. “All women use a spur.”
Candida remembered with a shudder Firefly’s bloodstained flanks after Lais had ridden him that first evening when she had been watching from the gallery.
She had also turned away from the Queen’s bootmaker, Mr. Maxwell, with a gesture of revulsion when, after he had measured her for her riding boots, he opened a box for her inspection. In it, arrayed like jewels on velvet, were a number of spurs.
“I don’t know which is your
