Christie (44 page)

Again, a curt affirmative.

"Then it will not come as a surprise to you when I tell you I won that bracelet in a game of whist. But I'm afraid I must disappoint you, sir, for beyond that, I can tell you nothing which might be of help in your terrible quest for the beast who murdered your parents. I won the bracelet, oh, a good score of years ago, I should say. Yes, at least that, for it was well before the war. And I'm also afraid, much as I'm ashamed to admit it, that I was quite inebriated at the time. Came by my win utterly through luck. The fellow who lost it? I can no more remember his name than I can his face. They are all lost to me—lost through the besotting qualities of the demon, rum."

With this, he turned to face his guest, smiling thinly through colorless lips. "Forgive me, my boy, for I can see how much it would have meant to you to discover the man's identity. But perhaps I can make it up to you, if only slightly. Please tell my niece she is welcome to keep the bracelet, with my blessings. We'll consider it a belated wedding gift. And, after all, it does belong in your family."

Garrett's reply was so low, Philip had to strain to hear it. "I see. Very well. Thank you, sir. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go up and dress for dinner." And, picking up both cases and their contents, Garrett quietly left the study.

Chapter Twenty Seven

"Psst, Lissy, can I come in?" Belinda's voice preceeded her through the open door to her sister's sitting room.

"You're already halfway in anyhow," came the sour reply.

The younger Stanhope daughter entered the room which had been hers before it had been converted into a part of the set of chambers allocated to the young Richardsons as living quarters after their hasty marriage and the accompanying news that Melissa's new husband would be penniless until he reached the age of twenty-five, at which time his father could no longer keep back his estate. She found her older sister standing before a Chippendale mirror which hung above a small ladies' desk at one end of the spacious chamber, and Melissa was bent forward, staring into it as she ruthlessly pinched her cheeks.

"Where's Beau?" asked Belinda in a tentative voice.

"How should I know?" snapped Melissa. "All I can tell you is, he's still somewhere around the house because when he came in awhile ago with the idea of
changing and going out, Mamma rushed in after him and let him know in no uncertain tones that he was expected to dine at home this evening and that if he disappointed our guests by his absence, she could not be responsible for Daddy's reaction."

A malicious little smile curled Belinda's lips. "Then what did Beau say?"

"Nothing. He just stormed out like he always does when one of us has a disagreement with him. But out in the hall I heard him lace into and box the ears of that little pickaninny we've been trying to train as a valet's helper. Ugly! He was just ugly!"

Melissa sniffed at her image in the mirror before turning to face her sister who had found a comfortable position on the room's powder blue upholstered love seat. "Looks like you're dressed for dinner. I must say, I wore that color far better than you, with your mousy brown hair. That shade of green was just meant for auburn."

"Well," smirked her sister, "if you fancied it so much, you should have done something about getting back into it. I'm not fond of wearing your castoff clothing either, but Mamma insisted on this because you only wore it once, for an hour."

"Belinda Sue Stanhope, if you've come here to make nasty comments about my figure again, you can march straight out that door! I swear, I won't stand for anyone else being hateful to me after Beau's being so brutal. I won't, hear?" The strain in her voice caused it to move from a colorless, anemic level to a high-pitched whine.

"I apologize, Lissy. Goodness, that's certainly not why I came." Belinda's voice lowered to a loud
whisper. "Did you hear about Christie and that gorgeous man she's married to?"

Melissa's face brightened at the implied hint of a bit of gossip. "No, not a word. Tell me." She joined Belinda on the love seat.

"Well, first of all, you saw the way they looked at each other? All those long exchanges between them?"

Melissa nodded, trying to seem nonchalant. Privately she was filled, for about the tenth time this evening, with a fierce jealousy over what she had observed in the looks and glances that had taken place between her cousin and Garrett. She would give anything for Beau to look at her the way Garrett Randall gazed at Christie!

"Mamma says it's disgraceful," said her sister. "She says it's quite out of fashion for married people to be enamored of each other. Imagine, a man looking at his wife as if he couldn't wait to—to—" An embarrassed giggle. "And Miss High-and-Mighty Christianna throwing it back at him, look for stare! Why, she acted no better than a common gutter wench, if you ask me!"

"Belinda! Hush with such talk! If Mamma were to hear you repeating such things, you'd catch it, for sure! Besides, I'm not entirely certain your assessment is accurate. He
is
her proper husband, you know. Even if its unfashionable, it's not indecent!"

"If you call that scandalous elopement 'proper,' " retorted Belinda. "And then, you remember all that gossip about their not living together for so long? Why, even Daddy said they were supposed to get a
divorce!"
She said the last word with particularly venomous glee as her sister put her finger to her lips,

looking around to-be sure there was no one who could have overheard.

"Belinda, you know Daddy warned us never, never to mention that. That's why we introduced her as Christie Trevellyan when she stayed with us. Of course, now Mamma's worried about how to explain to all of our friends how come the newly married Christie already has a son who's two months old! You can bet, no matter what story she comes up with, the tongues will wag at the ball—and after!"

Chortling over this, Belinda whispered, "But that's not all! What I really came to tell you is how the darkies have it all over the house how Christie and that handsome brute take
baths together!"

"No! Belinda, you'll roast in hellfire, telling those kinds of monstrous lies!"

Belinda's lower lip stuck out in a pout. "I am not lying. Ask Toby and Liza, if you don't believe me. Not only were they bathing together, but it was done > the tune of a shameful mess of giggling and other . . . sounds a lady cannot talk about." She watched her sister's face go beet-red. "Lissy, do you suppose Christie was his
mistress
before she married
hi
m?"

"Oh, Daddy would skin you if he heard such talk," answered Melissa. "You'd better hush if you know what's good for you. The darkies had better hush, too! He'll whip them, surely, if he hears our kin put in a bad light! You know how he's always been about preserving the family honor!"

Belinda would have commented on this, but they
interrupted by a rapping at the door as a black
servant informed them dinner was about to be served.

Pledging each other to sworn silence, the two sisters hurried toward the dining room.

Garrett sat holding his son as he watched Lula put the finishing touches to Christie's hair. He enjoyed seeing the shiny wheaten mass being swirled and looped into shape by the black woman's skillful hands, although he also knew he preferred, when he' and Christie were in private, to see the heavy tresses tumbling freely about her shoulders in sensuous abandon. It was hair a man could get lost in, he mused. His mind fastened on an image of her during the previous night. She had been beside him on their bed, sitting on her heels, gazing softly down at him. Thus she had remained for several quiet moments. Her hair, thick and curling, had hung wildly about her, flying like a lion's mane in back, twisting and clinging like a thousand silvery snakes in front as it swirled and parted where her creamy breasts pushed forward there. Then she had bent forward, kneeling to place a tongue-tipped kiss to his lips, and those silken masses had fallen over him like a seductive canopy, teasing his senses, filling his mind till he felt he would drown in the ecstatic pleasure of it.

An infant hand closed over the silk jabot he wore and pulled, wrenching him out of his reverie. Garrett chuckled, gently prying apart the tiny fingers.

"Take care, Adam, lad. A father's clothes may be easily set right again. But the restoration of pleasant daydreams is a far sight harder to come by."

"What, sweetheart?" asked Christie, turning to look at him.

"Nothing, love." Garrett smiled. "Your hair looks
exquisite. Thank God you're not given to powdering or frizzing it as some of the women one sees. Why, I've never been able to understand, would a woman want to take the glorious crown nature gave her and twist and torture it until it no more resembles what God intended it to be, than a mule does a fine thoroughbred?"

"Maybe," said Lula, "your answer lies in the fact that not all women are blessed with hair as beautiful as your wife's. Powder and wiggery can hide a host o£ sins!"

Laughing, Christie came forward to take Adam from Garrett. "Hush, Lu! You'll be turning my head with such praise. You look tired. Why don't you sit here and relax a moment with Garrett? I'll put Adam to sleep."

She gave her son a kiss on each cheek. "Hello, my handsome fellow! How long will it take those green eyes to close this evening? Five minutes? Ten? I declare, it ought not be much longer. Your daddy and mamma are almost overdue at dinner."

As she closed the door to the nursery behind her, Garrett indicated the chair across from him, signaling for Lula to sit.

"Ah was wondering when we'd get a chance to talk some more about it," whispered Lula as she leaned forward in her chair. "So that old weasel claims he won it in a card game, does he? Tell me, Mr. Garrett, why does a man keep a gaming wager's prize of twenty or so years tucked away under lock and key?"

"Just one of the questions I would pose Lula," said Garrett quietly. "But also noteworthy was what I learned in taking a hint from you. Lula, the man
would not meet my eyes, the moment I commenced relating my tale. And when I asked him what he knew of the bracelet's origins, he went even further and deliberately, I would swear, moved well out of range-of my vision and avoided letting me see even his face. Got up and crossed the room, and this after avowing earlier, he was too tired not to sit. All circumstantial things, I'll admit, but I, like you, am one to judge a person as much by what is not said, as by what is. I read the silent clues."

Lula nodded. "And what, exactly, are the silent clues Philip Stanhope gives forth?"

"I don't know that I can put a finger on it exactly, Lula, but the man makes me uneasy. I don't know; call it my old swamp soldier's sixth sense working. I support your view, Lula. Somehow the man is not to be trusted."

"But your wife trusts him. What are we going to do about that?" countered Lula.

Garrett took a slow breath before answering. "Christie's appraisal of the whole world is trusting. She's a wide-eyed innocent whose love of life and the world around her is one of the very things I love most about her—I wouldn't destroy that wonder for anything. And yet—"

"And yet you're aware of how vulnerable that makes her to hurt and disappointment, not to mention actual physical danger," finished Lula.

"Exactly. On the one hand, I want to hold Christie to me, to protect and cherish her to every limit of my ability to do so; on the other, I see a need to help her develop that magnificent strain of independence and strength of spirit she has, another side of her I love

and admire—have from the beginning, I think."

"So how does that translate in terms of how you're going to approach her on this business of her uncle?" questioned Lula.

Garrett gave her a thoughtful look. "I'm going to try to assemble something besides just instinct on the matter—evidence. Even now, Jesse's probably putting his head together with Carlisle to see what the past has to say of Philip Stanhope. Research," he added and smiled as he saw Lula's look of surprise. "I never took anything you said lightly. I respect your judgment too much, Lula. If any factual information materializes to support our views of Philip, I'll speak to Christie at once. In the meantime let's allow her the carefree fun of this social engagement. She hasn't been to a ball or party in a very long time, and not at aid since she came to Riverlea. I want her to have fun! I want to watch her having it. But in the interim, Lula, let us—you and I—keep a careful, protective eye on her. Will you help?"

"As if you need to ask." Lula smiled. "Ah love that lady like mah own, don't you know?"

The door to the nursery chamber opened and Christie rejoined them. "That's one weary babe!" She laughed. "It must have been the long ride this afternoon. He never even heard the end of my lullaby."

Garrett rose and held out his arm. "Shall I escort you to dinner my lady?"

"By all means, my lord." Then as they walked toward the door, Christie laughed. "Do you know, I've relatives in England who actually
are
lords and ladies, but I've never met an actual peer of the realm
in the flesh? Of course, that's as it should be. I've only room in my life for one lord—one who's Unique, with no peer. And right now, I'm about to go to dinner with him."

She raised warm liquid eyes to Garrett, and just before the door closed behind them, Lula saw Garrett's arm steal around his wife's tiny waist and pull her to him in a joyful squeeze.

Dinner in the magnificently appointed, rococo dining room of Stanhope Manor was an instructive affair for Christie. She learned that the household suffered from a great deal of strain which emanated largely from difficulties brought on by the Richard-sons' marriage. This, in itself, was not surprising, for she well recalled the circumstances which had brought that about. But she hadn't been quite prepared for the bitterness she encountered within Beau, or the pointed manner in which his wife and her family seemed bent on ignoring its existence.

Amid continued barbed comments regarding Melissa's declining figure and sour face, the Stanhope son-in-law imbibed huge quantities of wine, becoming drunker by the minute. The only times, during the .course of all this, he showed any inclination toward resembling the old Beau Richardson, the one Christie knew to be devil-may-care albeit somewhat puffed up with a sense of his own self-importance, occurred when he paid his attentions to her. Then some of the earlier Beau returned as he commenced to flatter, joke, and flirt outrageously with his former neighbor, much to her own embarrassment and Garrett's amusement. Through it all,
her uncle, aunt, and cousins behaved much as if they heard nothing he said. It was as if whatever Beau said or did was in a vacuum, except that the guests were allowed to enter it with him if they so chose.

"Christie,!' commented Beau at one point, "I swear, if any of us in Virginia had had the slightest inkling you were ready to embark on marriage, we'd have camped on Windreach's doorstep, day and night, hoping to gain first chance with you. Instead you fooled us all, making us believe you wanted nothing of men. And what happened? An unsuspected South Carolinian swept you away, first chance he got. No offense, sir," he offered to Garrett. "I'd be the last to criticize a quick and active man when I see one. You saw your opportunity and you took it. Ah, but what a prize you gained! Whence come another like her?"

At this he gazed dreamily at Christie and heard his wife's request that he refill her wineglass only when he repeated it for the third time. At this Garrett privately wondered why, if Philip disapproved of Beau's drinking, he allowed his son-in-law to pour the wine, rather than entrust that responsibility to the butler or discharge it himself. But Philip, he noticed, took no wine for himself at all, choosing to sip casually from a goblet of water instead.

"Tell me, Garrett," said Philip, "what is the primary crop or crops you plant at your plantation these days? Rice? Indigo?"

"We've always been heavily into tobacco, sir, but
ri
ce is beginning to come on strong, especially since
we acquired some additional tidewater lands. Indigo
is only minor, my father having cut back its planting
severely with the advent of the trouble beginning to brew with the crown shortly before his death. We also cultivate lumber, having three mills on additional property in the upcountry. Of course, if you ask me where my heart lies among the plantations' businesses, I'd have to tell you, in horses. The development and breeding of quality thoroughbreds has always interested me greatly."

"Aha!" said Margaret. "Now I begin to see a clue as to your fascination for my niece. Christie and her horses! They're inseparable!"

"Ah, forgive me, Aunt Margaret," said Christie, "but I'm afraid I must insist on a correction. It is true, horses have always held a fascination for me, but I must reject the notion that that was the route my husband took to my heart." She looked directly at Garrett, the turquoise eyes more deeply blue now. "He, and only he, is the chief fascination of my life, and were I never to see a horse again, as long as I had him, I'd be content."

Garrett returned her gaze with one totally and fiercely loving, a look meant for her alone, and Christie knew it. They remained thus for several moments, amid the growing silence, oblivious to those around them.

Suddenly a nervous giggle shattered the air. "Why, Christie, I declare," said Melissa. "How you do run on. You'd best take care tomorrow night at the ball. If the men hear you sighing over your own husband like that, none of them will dare or care to ask you to dance!"

"But Melissa," retorted Christie, "why should I wish to dance with anyone but Garrett?"