Joan Wolf (31 page)

His long, purposeful stride faltered for a moment. “Nonsense.” He looked down at me, his gray eyes hard. “Who could possibly want to shoot at Stephen?”

I told him everything Giles had told me about that walk in the woods. “Giles was convinced that the shooter had to know he was firing at a man and not an animal,” I concluded,

“Good God,” Jasper said. “If what you say is true, then we are not looking for a poacher, Annabelle. We are looking for a murderer!”

Murderer.
The words sent shivers up and down my spine.

“I am sick with worry,” I confessed.

We walked in silence for a few paces. Then Jasper said, “Do you think the shooting might have something to do with those smugglers Stephen got himself involved with all those years ago? “

“I have been wondering the very same thing myself!” I looked at him with gratitude, immensely relieved that someone besides me had thought of smugglers.

“They can be a pretty desperate lot, Annabelle,” Jasper said gravely. “If they wanted Stephen out of their way, they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. But why should they want Stephen out of their way? “

I said through lips that felt stiff with tension, “Jem Washburn is back in the valley, Jasper, and I know he was the one who got Stephen into all that trouble five years ago.”

Jasper gave me a long, thoughtful stare. “But why would Jem want to harm Stephen? They were friends.”

“I don’t necessarily mean that Jem would want to shoot Stephen,” I explained. “But with Jem’s return, the smugglers may once again have started to use the path through the Ridge woods to transport illicit cargoes from the cove. I have been wondering if perhaps Stephen surprised someone who thought he was in danger of being caught in possession of the wrong goods.”

Jasper’s level brows now drew together in thought. I
watched him, so intent upon his reaction that I neglected to watch the path. When I tripped over a branch, I lost my balance completely and would have fallen if Jasper had not grabbed me and held me up.

“Thank you,” I gasped, grateful for his quickness. “I wasn’t watching.”

The arm that was holding me to his side was hard as steel. I tried to move away, but his arm didn’t yield.

“I’m all right, Jasper,” I assured him. “I shall have to tell the gardeners to be sure they clear this path. The storm seems to have brought down quite a few branches.”

Very slowly his arm dropped away from me, and I stepped back. He bent, picked up the branch that had tripped me, and flung it into the surrounding trees.

We walked over the bridge in silence. Then I said, “I would appreciate it if you would keep a close eye on Stephen, Jasper. You know how careless he can be of his own safety.”

Jasper kicked a stone off the path with his riding boot. Then he said carefully, “I must confess that this concern for Stephen rather surprises me, Annabelle. I was under the distinct impression that you and he had a falling-out before he left for Jamaica. Good God, during all those years that you maintained such a faithful correspondence with me, you never once even mentioned his name!”

Jasper’s words took me by surprise. “It is true that I was... somewhat annoyed ... with Stephen for getting himself packed off to Jamaica like that,” I said at last. “But I certainly don’t want anything to happen to him!”

“I see,” Jasper replied quietly.

We had reached the stableyard by now, and my eyes ran over the people standing grouped in front of the big stable doors. Everyone was there whom I had expected to be there: Giles, Miss Stedham, Nell, and Stephen. My eyes stopped at the one face I had not expected to see. Jack.

The look I gave him was not welcoming.

“Anything wrong, Annabelle? “ he asked amiably.

I could hardly blurt out that I suspected him of trying to seduce my son’s governess. “Of course not,” I snapped.

“Where are the dogs, Mama?” Giles asked.

At that moment one of the grooms came out of the stable, leading Magpie. Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re not going to ride that Bedlamite up to the Downs, are you?” he said to me.

“No,” I replied. “Stephen is.” I turned to Giles and said, “I left the dogs home because I didn’t want them to startle this horse, Giles.”

“He is beautiful, Mama,” Giles said with awe.

“Aye, that he is, my lord,” Grimes said with an approving smile at my son.

We all fell into the reverent silence that the sight of Magpie always commanded.

He was an extraordinarily beautiful animal, a quintessential Thoroughbred, with long, slim, elegant legs that were perfectly formed and totally unblemished. His coat shone like ebony in the late summer sun, and his long, chiseled head had a perfect white blaze set dead in its center. He was stunning, but he really did not have enough bone to be a hunter.

“He’s beautiful, but he looks nervous,” Nell said.

As if to prove her right. Magpie snorted and threw his elegant head up and down.

“How old is he?” Stephen asked.

“Four,” I replied.

Magpie pawed the ground with his right fore.

“He certainly looks as if he would be fast,” Jasper said.

“Lord Carlton told me he could run like the wind,” I replied cheerfully.

“Then why isn’t he racing?” Jasper asked.

“The first race they put him in, he tossed his jockey, jumped the fence, and was loose on Newmarket Heath for hours,” I said. “He did the same thing in his second and third races. He’s fast enough to win everything, but he just won’t
stay on the track. Lord Carlton was happy to sell him to me before he hurt himself and became worthless.”

“They probably jiggled his mouth,” Stephen said.

I looked at the large number of people assembled around me and had second thoughts about the wisdom of taking Magpie.

“Perhaps it would be wiser to wait until it is just the two of us before you try him,” I said to Stephen.

“He’ll be fine,” Stephen said again. He walked quietly up to Magpie and offered him a piece of carrot. Magpie’s ears flicked back and forth when Stephen got into the saddle, but he stood fairly quietly while the rest of us mounted. The seven horses and riders moved out of the stableyard in an orderly procession.

When they are in a group, horses have a definite preference for being in the front or being behind. Magpie was one of those who liked to be in front, so Stephen and Nell led the way. Nell was riding one of my semiretired old hunters, and I knew I could count on Sentry to remain placid no matter what foolishness Magpie might get up to.

Magpie went like a Iamb. There were perhaps half a dozen times when it looked as if he might startle and run, but Stephen always managed to reassure him before the event actually occurred.

If you are an intuitive enough rider, you can feel when a horse is about to be frightened. It’s like a lightning flash interrupting the flow of communication through the reins. That’s when you have to hold things together, before the horse himself realizes he’s going to do something foolish.

Needless to say, there are not many riders who are capable of such sensitivity that they can catch the horse’s flight signal in time to prevent it from activating. I can truthfully say that I myself knew of only four such horsemen, and I have ridden with the best that England has to offer.

“Magpie is being so good for Uncle Stephen!” Giles said with amazement.

I looked down at the small figure on the pony beside me. “Uncle Stephen can ride anything,” I said.

“He doesn’t ride as good as you, Mama,” said my faithful son.

Jack’s voice floated forward from behind us, where he was riding beside Miss Stedham. “No one can ride to hounds better than your mother, Giles. Absolutely no one.”

Giles turned his head and said over his shoulder, “Not even Uncle Stephen?”

Jack said, “Uncle Stephen doesn’t like to ride to hounds.”

“Uncle Stephen doesn’t like to hunt?” Giles’s raised voice was clearly horrified.

I saw Stephen’s head begin to turn.

“Not a word, Stephen,” I warned loudly.

He looked at me and then he looked at Giles. “I’d fall off at the first fence,” he said to his son, and then he turned back to Nell.

I let out my breath. The last thing I needed at the moment was one of Stephen’s heart-wrenching dissertations on the fate of the poor fox.

We all had a good long gallop along the Downs, and Magpie behaved almost as placidly as Sentry on the walk home. I felt beautifully content as I watched Stephen’s relaxed, easily following back in front of me and listened to Jasper and Giles talking across me. The sun shone through the overhanging trees and made designs of light and shadow on the soft dirt of the ride. For the first time I could smell a trace of autumn in the air. I noticed Magpie’s black coat was wet with the normal sweat of exercise, not lathered with nervous foam.

It was then that I realized why I had bought the beautiful Thoroughbred. I had bought him for Stephen.

* * * *

Stephen returned to the house only long enough to have a quick bowl of soup before the curricle was brought around to the front door for his trip into Brighton. I didn’t want him to go because I was terrified that something might happen to
him, but I knew nothing I could say would ever keep Stephen from what he perceived to be his duty. As soon as his carriage had disappeared down the drive, I excused myself from luncheon and went to lie down on my bed with a headache.

Marianne brought me cold cloths to put on my forehead, and I lay perfectly still for the rest of the afternoon, enduring the pounding in my skull and thinking gloomy thoughts about the tangle of romantic emotions that seemed to have invaded my household.

The worst of the headache passed in a few hours, but I sent a message to Aunt Fanny that I didn’t feel well enough to eat dinner. Instead I went along to the nursery to share a light supper with Giles and his governess.

For once we were without Jack, who was in the dining room, enjoying one of Cook’s delicious dinners. The main meal in the nursery was served at midday, and tonight’s supper consisted of a semi-warm soup made from summer vegetables, cold roast beef, and bread.”

In all my life I had never once had a hot meal in the Weston nursery. No matter how hot a dish might be when it left the kitchen, by the time it reached the third floor it was invariably lukewarm.

I sat at the old wooden table, with a bowl of vegetable soup in front of me, and regarded Miss Stedham with concern. I didn’t like what I saw. She had the-glow of a woman in love.

We talked about topics that Giles could understand: the horses we had ridden; the beauty of the Downs; the possibility of Giles being old enough to have one of Portia’s puppies the next time I bred her.

When supper was finished and the dishes had been cleared away, I told Giles to take the dogs down to the kitchen for their supper. While he was gone, Miss Stedham and I sat across from each other at the scarred old table and talked.

I began as soon as the noise made by Giles and the
spaniels had died away. “Eugenia,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind if I call you by your given name?”

“Of course I don’t mind, Lady Weston,” she replied.

“Please, won’t you call me Annabelle? I have known you long enough now to know that I should like to be your friend as well as your employer. It would make me very happy to hear that you felt the same way about me.”

“Why ... thank you, Lady Weston,” Eugenia said with obvious surprise.

“Annabelle,” I corrected firmly.

She gave me an amazed look. “Well... if you desire it...”

“I do,” I said. “If I have perhaps seemed a little ... distant ... to you, it was only because I’m not the sort of person who makes friends easily.” I searched for words that would explain my caution. “I have to know people a long time before I feel perfectly comfortable with them,” I finally said.

“I understand,” she returned in a gentle voice. “Great beauty can often be as much a burden as it is a blessing, can it not?”

I stared at her, astonished by her perception. “Not many people understand that,” I said at last “Of course, you are very beautiful yourself.”

“Thank you.” She smiled faintly. “But my face is not the kind to launch a thousand ships. There is a difference.”

We looked at each other in silence. The lines Marlowe had written about Helen of Troy rang in my brain:
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

I bit my lip in indecision, and then I told her something I had never told anyone else—not even Stephen. “I have this test I apply to people. I think: If I had smallpox, and my face became scarred, would this person’s feelings toward me change?”

Eugenia said, still in that softly gentle voice, “And that is how you select your friends?”

“Yes. For example, I know that no matter what I looked like, Sir Matthew would still want to hunt with me, and Susan Fenton would still want to gossip with me, and...” I let my voice trail away. “Do you see what I mean?”

What I hadn’t said was, “And Stephen would still love me.” I kept that thought to myself.

“I see,” she said. “And I have passed the test?”

I smiled at her. “Have you?”

“Yes, Annabelle,” she said. “I believe I have.”

I took a deep breath and said resolutely, “I am afraid you are not going to like what I have to say, Eugenia, but try to believe that I am speaking now as a friend and not as an employer.”

Her face became instantly grave and faintly wary. “Yes?”

“I am extremely concerned by the attention my cousin Jack is paying to you,” I said.

“Ah,” she said, and her face closed completely.

“I distrust his intentions,” I said.

Her beautiful, winged brows lifted slightly. “Oh?”

“Eugenia, I am afraid he is going to seduce you, which is just about the last thing you need right now, I should imagine.”

She said in a tight little voice, “Is it so impossible to imagine that his intentions might be honorable?”

My reply was blunt. “Jack is impoverished, Eugenia. He needs a wife with money.”

“I know he has no money. He told me that himself.”

“Well then ...” I spread my hands flat upon the table in front of me. “You see why I am concerned?”