The Horsemaster's Daughter (57 page)

He wanted to explain that a determined man could snap her will like a dry twig. But now was not the time to describe something ugly. Let her have this one special night. He would watch out for her.

A foolish notion. Because he wanted to eat her alive.

“I met your Mr. Vega,” she said abruptly. “The man from California.”

“And…?”

“And I realized that dreaming about something is quite different from actually doing it.”

“You mean you really don’t want to go?”

She stared at a spot over his shoulder. “I honestly don’t know,” she whispered.

He was reluctant to let her go, but he couldn’t very well monopolize her the entire night. He decided to let Ryan have the next dance. Of all the men present, his half brother was the least likely to have any untoward thoughts. Ryan adored his wife too much to even consider it.

They traded partners in the middle of the contra dance. Isadora was nearly as tall as Hunter, and her merry eyes grew merrier as she studied his face. “Don’t sulk, Hunter,” she teased in her funny, flat, Yankee voice. “You look like a baby that’s had its sugar-teat snatched away.”

“Ah, but I have, sister dear.”

“The horsemaster’s daughter has turned out to be the belle of the ball.”

“True.” He sought Eliza out with his gaze, and his hold on Isadora tightened.

Her smile disappeared. “Oh, heavens be, say it’s not so.”

“What’s not so?”

“You’ve made love to her, haven’t you? You’ve already taken the poor girl.”

“What—”

“Don’t lie, Hunter. Remember who I am. Your bossy sister-in-law, formerly an old maid. Old maids are lied to more than any other sort of woman, so we know what a lie sounds like. We recognize a young woman in love for the first time too.”

His step nearly faltered. “What are you saying? That you think Eliza’s in love with me?”

“It’s possible. When I see her looking at you, I see myself three years ago, looking at—”

“At my brother, Ryan?”

Her generous mouth twitched with a rueful smile. “At Chad Easterbrook.” The dance ended, and she kept hold of his arm, bringing him to the side of the room where the tall French doors stood ajar to let in a breeze.

“Who’s he?”

“A man I once thought I loved.”

“But you didn’t,” he said urgently. “Not really.”

“As it turned out, I mistook a certain starry-eyed attraction for true love.” Her smile softened. “I didn’t know the difference until I met your brother.”

“And you think Eliza is wrong now.”

“I think she’s very naive. She’s led a sheltered life. Whether she’s right or wrong is for you to discover.”

He watched Eliza spin past as the dance set changed. Her skirt swirled like a pinwheel and her head tilted back as she laughed at something her partner said. She was vibrantly beautiful, blossoming under the golden heat of the chandeliers and lamps of the ballroom, and under the attention of hordes of inquisitive friends and neighbors.

A brief solemnity came over Isadora. “I’d say the sheltered part of her life is over.”

Eliza had never worn shoes for so long in her life, and she discovered that she did not much care for it. The dancing slippers pinched, and after several sets she begged for a rest. Her partner, a Mr. Martin, grabbed both of her hands and begged her for another chance.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s not you. If you must know, my feet hurt.”

“Forgive me, then. I had no idea.” Gallantly he swept her along to a velvet-covered bench at the side of the room and held her hand while she sat down. He was so earnest as he sank to one knee before her that she didn’t dare to laugh, though he looked comical. “Shall I go for help? Can I order a servant to bring something?”

She felt the stares probing at them, and she flushed. “Truly, there’s no need. If I could just get these slippers off, I’ll be fine.” She bent down and unbuttoned the cross-strap.

“Miss Flyte!” Poor Mr. Martin looked as if he might faint.

“Sir, if the sight of a bare foot offends you, then you’d best look away.”

As she slipped off the confining slippers, she heard, quite clearly, a series of gasps and whispers all around her. Her faux pas was serious indeed. But where was the sense in mincing around with tortured feet all night while pretending to have a good time?

She searched the crowd for Hunter, but so many revelers pressed close that she couldn’t find him. She knew she must brazen it out on her own. She squared her shoulders and stood up, pushing the slippers under the bench with her foot. “It’s not as if I’ve stripped myself naked,” she stated baldly to the people watching her. “My feet hurt, and Mr. Martin was kind enough to keep me from getting an injury.”

“My feet hurt too, Mama,” a young lady whispered. “Can I—”

“Certainly not,” came the hissed reply.

The orchestra struck up a lively reel. Eliza had no idea what to do now that she had managed to offend everyone in the room. Help arrived in the form of a smiling Cousin Charles, who elbowed his way toward her and took her by the hand.

“May I have this dance?” he asked.

She let out a breath of relief. “I’m honored, sir.” She laughed at herself. It was exactly how they spoke in
Jane Eyre,
but it felt strange to be in a situation that seemed like something out of a book. Jane would not have taken off her shoes, but then again, Jane was just a character made of ink and paper.

They went into the reel with a lively step, and the music and light surrounded and possessed her. She forgot all about the fact that she had just committed a highly improper act. Didn’t these people understand? She had never heard music before.

“I suppose after this,” she said breathlessly, “I am going to have to hide myself away in shame.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Charles said, a darkly amused gleam in his eye.

“Why not?” She passed behind him and emerged on the other side, eyeing him with growing suspicion.

“Because you’re no ordinary young lady.”

She laughed. “There are those who would dispute that I’m a lady at all.”

She sailed through the reel, loving every moment of it. Now that her feet no longer hurt, she skipped as if walking on a cloud, and changed partners with the smoothness of a practiced lady. It was an enchanted night—the music, the food, the smiling faces. Never could she have imagined such an experience. Charlotte Brontë had written of stiff, formal affairs with currents of gossip undermining every moment. It wasn’t like that at all.

She found herself wishing Hunter would reclaim her for a dance, but he had gone off to a doorway with a group of the older men to smoke cigars and talk business. She was determined to show she could have fun without his constant company.

Dance after dance spun by, and she felt like Cinderella in the fairy tale—except that she had discarded both slippers and didn’t care a fig about getting either of them back. She forgot to watch for impending disaster—until the couple behind them in the set slammed into them. With a little shriek, the young lady tumbled back. Eliza noted vaguely that it was Tabby Parks, and that she sprawled on her backside with very little grace.

“I am so sorry,” Eliza said, holding out a hand.

Tabby sputtered like a wet cat. Ignoring Eliza’s hand, she grabbed her partner and lurched to her feet, tottering away on shoes that looked as if they fit even more tightly than Eliza’s had. No wonder she was so cross.

“Now I understand why all the ladies carry fans,” Eliza whispered to Charles. “Dancing is a hot business. Oh, Charles. Did I disgrace myself entirely?”

He chuckled. “No, only partially. Miss Tabby will survive, I’m certain. They say a cat has nine lives.”

Eliza escaped the dance floor. Spying a gap in the crowd, she darted outside onto the brick-paved veranda. In the relative coolness and privacy of the night, she felt a mortified heat high in her cheeks. As she strolled down a garden path, she tipped back her head to enjoy the night breeze. She stopped short when she noticed a knot of ladies, young and old, clustered in the glow of torchlight near the stone fountain in the middle of the garden.

“…has managed to offend everyone present, right down to the lowliest servant.”

Eliza stopped and stood completely still. She recognized Miss Cilla Parks’s scandalized voice.

“Personally, I think he should dismiss her immediately. What a disaster for those poor little children. They’ll be the laughingstock of Virginia, running around barefoot and speaking so strangely. Did you know we saw her wearing breeches?”

“Really?” someone asked.

“She was dressed like a boy. What can he be thinking, letting a creature like Eliza Flyte mingle at his affairs as if she were one of us?”

Eliza stepped into the circle of torchlight. “Maybe you should ask him,” she said, smooth fury in her voice.

Mrs. Merriwether Martin sucked in a shocked breath. “This is a private conversation.”

“But if I’m the topic,” Eliza said, trying not to let her humiliation show, “then surely I should be privy to what is being said.”

“Brave girl,” Tabby Parks murmured, snapping her fan shut. “I’m sure I wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“If you’re rude enough to discuss me behind my back—”

“It’s not rudeness,” Cilla interrupted, her eyes wide with innocence. “We are concerned about Hunter. He’s been a friend and neighbor for many years, and it worries us when a stranger comes into his life and begins…changing things.”

Changing things, she thought. Like turning the tide of his fortune. Getting his son to speak after two years of silence.

“Just who are you, anyway?” Tabby asked.

More kindly, Lady Margaret inquired, “Who are your people, dear?”

Eliza thought the question absurd. “I’ve not kept a pedigree on myself, if that’s what you’re asking. Breeding matters with horses, not people.”

Feminine gasps all around. “Believe me,” Mrs. Martin intoned, “it matters to Hunter Calhoun.”

“How do you know?” Eliza asked.

“Because we understand him in a way you never could. All we were suggesting, Miss Flyte, is that perhaps you should limit your training to Hunter’s horses, not Hunter’s children.”

The bald statement reverberated across the veranda. The blow hit Eliza harder than she ever could have anticipated. She knew there were those who thought her strange, an outsider, someone who didn’t belong in this closed and close-minded society. But she had dared to believe that, in time, acceptance would come.

Her understanding of the situation crystallized. Any number of young ladies were lining up to snare Hunter. They saw her as a threat. Nothing she did or said could convince these society belles that she wasn’t a barefoot bumpkin whose presence would bring about the ruination of a good man.

She really didn’t care what these anserine creatures thought of her. But she did care about Hunter and his children. Was she a mortification to them? Would Blue and Belinda suffer ridicule because of her?

“Excuse me,” she stated, forcing into her voice a conviction she did not feel. “I’ll let you line up for Hunter like mares to the stud. I understand he’s about to commence a new breeding program.”

A gale of outrage followed her as she crossed the veranda, marching around to the back of the house to let herself into the kitchen. Amazingly, she kept her composure until she lit a candle in the kitchen, then felt despair tear at her soul.

She held the edge of the big scrubbed wooden table and sank down to the bench. It was madness, trying to fit in to this society. She didn’t want this at all, not for any price. She understood females being combative to defend their territory. That happened in nature all the time. But until tonight, she hadn’t understood what it was like to be the challenger.

Hearing a step on the threshold of the kitchen, she looked up. Moonlight framed Nancy’s decrepit form, her abundant white hair. “What you doing here all by yourself, girl?” the old woman asked.

“When I’m by myself, I don’t get into trouble.” Eliza stood and took Nancy’s hand in hers. “Sit with me.”

Nancy’s eyes, as deep and unseeing as the night itself, crinkled at the corners in a smile. She took a biscuit from the jar on the table and handed one to Eliza. “Always helps to eat something.”

“I should have stayed away from the ball. It’s not the sort of affair for me.”

“Liar,” Nancy said, not unkindly.

“Nothing escapes you, does it?”

“Not with a house full of folks and hired servants running everywhere, talking their fool faces off.”

Eliza took a bite of the biscuit. “I loved it, Nancy. The music, the food, the dancing—I never wanted it to end. But these people…They know I’m not one of them, nor would I ever try to be.”

Nancy finished the biscuit and dusted the flour from her hands. “Ain’t no point in trying, honey. That ain’t the path to happiness.”

“Then what is?”

The old woman slowly rose from the table. “You’ll find it, girl. Or it’ll find you.”

Eliza helped Nancy to her room. Then she checked on Blue and Belinda, touched by the untroubled beauty of their sleeping faces. Belinda’s tiny fist was curled like a bud upon her pillow. Blue clutched his own close against his chest, his breathing soft and even. She bent and kissed each child on the forehead, feeling love for them swell in her heart. It ached, because she knew she couldn’t love these children the way a mother could.

Walking slowly, on bare feet that still felt the phantom rhythm of the orchestra, she made her way to bed, seeking a sleep that would not come.