When the Splendor Falls (5 page)

“How perfectly terrifying,” Beatrice Amelia murmured, feeling a twinge of pity for the unknown woman who had died so horribly.

“Poor Neil. It seems tragedy stalks him. I hope you are wrong. Even for the short time they had, I hope he knew her love,” Althea said.

“When was this?” Mr. Travers asked.

“A year ago. Many blamed Neil, but it’s just talk. They think he’s more Comanche than white, and it scares them. They don’t understand.”

“Were there any children?” Beatrice Amelia questioned, thinking this half-savage Neil Braedon probably had caused his wife’s death.

“No,” Nathan replied, his thoughts drifting back in time. “I haven’t seen Neil since Paris. I remember him far more vividly from that summer when he came to Royal Bay for the first time. He scared me to death playing those Comanche tricks on Adam and me. We played knights in combat and he’d beat us every time. No one could ride like Neil, even when he was sixteen. I never knew if he was on his horse or not the way he’d hang halfway to the ground on one side. I nearly broke my arm trying to copy him. And the first time he cut loose with that bloodcurdling howl, I had nightmares. In the very beginning, when we first met him, we really were enemies. He frightened me at times, because he didn’t think the same way we did. But after we came to an understanding, I had him on the ground and threatened to beat his brains out, we began to play a never-ending battle, albeit a good-natured one, of surprising one another by secret attacks. We rode all over the countryside and found the most likely places for ambush and secret hideouts. We even found the most secret of secret hideouts,” he confided with an almost boyish expression.

“Where was that?” his father-in-law asked, curious now how those three Braedons had managed to elude capture all of those years ago.

“I am afraid that I am under oath not to reveal the secret,” Nathan declared. “We all swore on our honor never to tell. We even took a blood oath, becoming brothers rather than cousins that summer. I’ll never forget my surprise when Neil pulled out that wicked knife of his and slit our wrists and his before either Adam or I could protest. Our blood mingled and we recited a vow of loyalty much like the Three Musketeers would have. It was all very exciting. Of course, Adam, with his devil-may-care attitude, always managed to even the score with Neil, which earned Neil’s grudging respect.”

Althea smiled, although she did not find it especially amusing, since she had been the object of Adam’s practical jokes since she’d been a child. One never knew what he was up to, but it was wise to be on guard whenever he was about. For even now, full grown man that he was, Adam was just as likely to put a frog in your picnic basket or a snake in your garden hat as kiss your hand with gentlemanly courtesy. He didn’t have a serious bone in his body, and Althea wished someone would get the best of him one day.

“At least, dear, you grew up, and it would seem as if Adam is still in his childhood,” Althea commented, pleased her own daughter didn’t have an Adam Merton Braedon to torment her. “I think it is time for your nap, darling,” she said, smoothing Noelle’s dark brown curls.

“Oh, Mama, not yet, please.”

“I should not admit this, but Neil and I managed to come close to expulsion several times when he was attending Yale and I was at Princeton.”

“I always knew there was more to you than just the Braedon name,” Mr. Travers said with new appreciation of his son-in-law. “By the way, where are those daughters of mine? It seems unusually quiet around here.”

“Leigh and Blythe, and Julia, have all gone on a picnic,” Beatrice Amelia informed him complacently, thinking it an appropriate afternoon’s excursion for her daughters.

“When I was leaving the kitchens earlier, I heard Leigh offer to fetch the blackberries for dessert,” Althea added absentmindedly.

“Blackberry picking,” Mr. Travers exclaimed with pleasure. There was still hope for his daughter yet. He hadn’t completely lost her.

“
Blackberry picking?
” Beatrice Amelia repeated in a less exuberant tone.

“Looks like we will indeed be having blackberry cobbler for dessert tonight if Leigh is doing the picking,” he chuckled, thinking this would be the best blackberry cobbler ever. “That girl has the best eye for horses and blackberries in all of Virginia.”

“I realize now that I was more fortunate than I thought when I married into this family. Because I was acceptable to Althea was the only reason I was allowed to have one of Damascena’s foals. I’ve never been subjected to such scrutiny from so wee a lass to prove I’d be an acceptable owner for a horse,” Nathan complained with a laugh.

“You are indeed fortunate. Did you hear that Leigh turned down Dermot Canby’s offer for Capitaine? He offered an outrageous sum for that colt, but she wouldn’t even consider it. The man turned purple in the face when she turned up that little nose of hers at his offer. Not that I would sell to the man either, too heavy-handed with the whip, but it isn’t likely she’ll ever part with the little lad,” Mr. Travers said with fatherly pride.

“She is too much like her father,” Beatrice Amelia said, shaking her smoothly coiffed head. “I seem to recall a certain Stuart Travers who has allowed each of his children on their tenth birthday to select any horse of their choosing at Travers Hill, despite what its worth might later prove to be, considering Travers Hill only has the finest bloodstock in Virginia. And upon graduation from college, were not each of this same Stuart Travers’s sons again granted so great a privilege, and were not each of his daughters upon their marriage to be given the same privilege?” Beatrice Amelia inquired, her needle and thread weaving in and out of the fine lawn with each word.

“How did you expect me, madam, to get any of my children to stay in school, especially Guy, without holding a tempting carrot out to them?” Mr. Travers demanded. “I’ve no regrets. They’ve all turned out winners.”

“I would have suggested a firmer hand on the reins, sir,” Beatrice Amelia responded.

Catching sight of his father-in-law’s harassed expression and fearing his mother-in-law was about to begin one of her long-winded recitations, Nathan sighed with exaggerated pleasure and declared, “I’d wager all my worldly goods that Mrs. Travers has the best recipe for blackberry cobbler in three counties.”

“I have always suspected that cobbler was why you married me in the first place, Nathan Braedon,” Althea said. Eyeing her complacently smiling husband thoughtfully, she added, “That…and marriage to me brought you Belle Rosa, and she just happened to be the dam of Dahoon Holly, that father sold to Jasper Drayton before you had a chance to bid on him. I’m surprised you didn’t break our engagement over that. Holly beat every two-year-old racing that season. You wouldn’t, by any chance, be hoping that Belle’s latest foal will turn out to be another Dahoon Holly?”

Nathan Braedon’s smile widened. “I am thankful I do not have to meet you in court, my dear. I fear I can deny nothing. When it comes to tasty cobblers and fine horses, how can a man resist such temptation?”

“I certainly couldn’t, and I’m certain it was the reason he married you, sister dear. I did warn you against marrying a Braedon,” declared a handsome young gentleman walking up the path beside the veranda. He was leading the roan hunter he’d selected as a graduation gift only last spring, and which was now limping noticeably.

“And some people know better how to care for their valuable property,” Mr. Travers said with a worried frown as he noticed the limp and hurried to examine the roan’s foreleg, his steps hindered by the pack of hounds that had accompanied his son and always seemed to be close on his heels.

“I’ve already looked at it, Father,” Guy Travers told his parent a bit defensively, “and it looks no more than a slight tendon sprain. There is no heat in it yet,” Guy informed him, but he couldn’t meet his father’s stern eye.

“Tried to jump the fence near the mill again, didn’t you?” Mr. Travers demanded, and upon seeing the guilty look in his son’s eye he snorted derisively. “I knew it! I’ve told you before, Guy, it is far too high. You take too many chances, boy, and this is all you have to show for it. Lucky it wasn’t your fool neck that was broken! Not that I wouldn’t have broken it myself if you’d broken this lad’s leg,” the master of Travers Hill warned, his voice raised with anger and growing louder as he tried to speak over the excited barking of the hounds.

Mr. Travers paused for a moment, staring around him as if counting noses. “I’d swear there are more hounds here than yesterday,” he said in surprise. “I thought I told you, boy, to get rid of that last litter.”

“I’ve tried, Father, but…I seem to remember you broke your arm taking that same fence ten years ago,” Guy reminded his father, meeting that old gentleman’s fiery eye with a challenging glint in his own now.

“Really! Such impertinence. Guy Patrick, you will apologize to your father this instant,” Beatrice Amelia demanded with outraged parental dignity, but her indignation was soon turned on her husband when she heard his muffled laughter turn into a wheezing cough.

“I’m sorry, Bea, but the boy’s right. I can’t scold him for something I myself have done too many times in the past. You’ve patched me up enough to know I speak the truth. And if I hadn’t gotten as thick as a bale of cotton with the middle hoop busted I’d still be trying to make that jump. Damned if I wouldn’t!” he vowed, then coughed apologetically as he noticed his wife’s pinkening cheeks and tightening lips.

Althea and Nathan exchanged knowing glances. Stuart Russell Travers, gentleman horse breeder and farmer, was far too lenient and generous with his family and friends. Besides her father—and perhaps her mother—only she and Nathan, and the local banker in Charlottesville, knew how heavily in debt the Travers family was. Stuart Travers had even taken out a mortgage on Travers Hill in order to get money to pay his most outstanding debts.

Althea could still hear her father’s angry curses when a man he owed money had demanded payment with ungentlemanly short notice. It just wasn’t done in polite society. What was the world coming to? he’d demanded with gentlemanly outrage. Apparently some men were not gentlemen and would not take a gentleman’s word of honor that he was good for the money—perhaps not today, or tomorrow, but a gentleman always paid his debts. To demand payment was not only ungentlemanly, it cast a slur upon the other gentleman’s honor.

Unfortunately, being too much the gentleman was Stuart Travers’s worst enemy. Too often he would sell one of his prized horses on the promise of payment once the horse won a race for the eager, and too often out-of-pocket, buyer, or collect a stud fee from a prospective horse breeder only after the mare gave birth to an acceptable foal the following spring—and then, more often than not, he would have to accept a promissory note of payment, for he was, after all, a gentleman.

“Well, if you ask me…” Guy began.

“Which no one has,” his mother reminded him, still out of humor with her son.

“Then I’m betting there will be plenty of disappointed buyers moping around the county when they learn that Leigh has no intention of selling that colt of hers. Of course, once the truth is out, I fear the homestead will be besieged with suitors, and were not my dear little sister Leigh an acclaimed beauty, we would still have no difficulty finding her a proper husband.”

Leaning negligently against one of the veranda posts, his booted legs crossed comfortably, a mint julep held in his hand and already half emptied, he expounded further. “What a horse race this will turn out to be. Talk about a race to the finish, I don’t know how I’ll ever handle all of the bets,” he laughed, anticipating the jockeying for position by the eager young bucks.

“I declare I’m already beginning to question the motives of those who would make my acquaintance, for as surely as I stand here before you today they eventually manage to mention the unparalleled beauty of Leigh Alexandra Travers of Travers Hill, and could I, by any chance, be related? Hardly, I respond with an appropriate guffaw of incredulity, since they obviously believe me some hick from the backcountry. However, someone is going to be a very lucky gentleman, so we should be especially particular about screening Leigh’s beaus. I think we should have pick of the litter. At least half, if not all, of the state is trooping up our path. Your prized roses, Mother, will never survive. So, lest we be too hasty and come out on the short end of the stick, let us exercise caution. After all, we should all benefit handsomely because of this fortunate circumstance of Leigh’s grace, beauty, and possession of Damascena and little Capitaine. She always has had the best eye for picking the true bloods—even when she was little,” he said with a disbelieving shake of his head, the chestnut curls falling into casual disarray.

“Well, really! You have gone too far this time, Guy Patrick Travers!” his mother exclaimed, outraged anew by her son’s vulgar talk. “Why, one would believe you were speaking of breeding our mares and collecting stud fees,” she said, fanning herself more rapidly.

“I knew I should never have allowed you to tour Europe with Adam. Forgive me, Nathan, for I do not mean to dishonor your good name, but…”

“But Adam prides himself on his rakish reputation. My brother is not your choice of tutor, and rightly so, sir, for your impressionable son,” Nathan said, unoffended by his father-in-law’s opinion.

“I can see I shall never be taken seriously by any of you.”

“I certainly shan’t as long as you stand here enjoying yourself instead of getting this lad to the stables,” his father reminded him.

“I will, Father. Let me finish my drink. Worked up quite a thirst.”

“That is your second glass already. Rambler has a thirst too.”

“I can hold my liquor, sir, never fear on that score, and I’ll see to ol’ Rambler, don’t you worry. And, to set everyone’s mind at ease concerning Leigh, I suspect it is the gentlemanly Matthew Wycliffe who has captured our Leigh’s heart,” he confided, patting several of his favorite hounds and hiding his grin.

“
Wycliffe?
Do you really think so?” Beatrice Amelia murmured thoughtfully, easily diverted from her earlier annoyance with her son by this pleasing revelation.