A Song Across the Sea (25 page)

Julian almost welcomed Adrienne’s intrusion. Almost. In spite of Waldron’s plain speech and slow, deceptively easy drawl, Julian felt as though he were losing control of the conversation. He should have expected her appearance, anyway. Adrienne could not keep away when her beloved thoroughbreds were concerned.

“Noah Waldron—my daughter, Adrienne.”

She nodded, hooked a slender arm over the top rail of the wooden paddock fence and gestured toward a clumsy-looking roan mare.

“That may-uh is destined to win many purses,” she remarked confidently. “Ah predict it mahself.”

Waldron took a closer look, frowning and seemingly unimpressed. “She looks a little swayback to me.”

Adrienne’s greenish eyes fastened on him like beautiful daggers, her lips forming a haughty smile. “If you knew anything about racehorses, sir, you’d know that that pa-ticulah featuh does not interfeuh with running ability.”

“Adrienne!” Julian felt the prospects of a sale slipping away. “That kind of rudeness is uncalled for.”

She smiled prettily and looked terribly contrite. Julian knew it was an act.

“Oh, Ah am sorry, Mr. Waldron. My enthusiasm does tend to run away with me when it comes to that may-uh. Walker!” she called out to the stable boy. “Bring Mistress Maya here!”

The mare didn’t look any more impressive up close, and Julian began to doubt his daughter’s judgement. Mistress Maya was swaybacked all right—Waldron hadn’t been wrong on that point. She allowed herself to be led toward them with little enthusiasm. Her desultory, ambling gait and disinterested air hardly hinted at future racing glory. The mare seemed downright lazy! To top it all off, the muddy color of her coat hid whatever muscle definition she might have.

Yet Julian knew that her pedigree was of the finest, and that those bulky, muscular hindquarters might be powerful. But how fast could she really be?

Waldron deliberately directed his next remark to Julian. “I thought roans were known to be slow.”

“Purely a myth,” Adrienne answered for her father. “And an ignorant one at that.”

“In the west,” Waldron said slowly, gazing steadily at the mare, “women do not interfere with business dealings. They know their place.”

Julian held his breath, worried that his impetuous daughter might actually reach up and slap the Oklahoman, but she—miraculously—controlled her infamous temper.

“It sounds very much as if you treat your women like you treat your cattle,” she remarked. “How charming. And people say that the west is a backwards, savage region! But perhaps, Mr. Waldron, you’re just afraid that Ah, a mere woman, am right about that may-ah. That would make you, naturally, wrong.”

Waldron almost smiled. Or was that an annoyed grimace? “What makes you so sure about that mare?”

“I have an instinct about horses, Mr. Waldron. There is a quality beyond the usual attributes—wind, bone, bloodlines. Somethin’ the ah cannot see, but which is there nonetheless, in a few—a very few—horses. It’s heart, sir. A spirit that will not allow itself to be defeated. That may-uh has such a spirit.”

Waldron looked toward Julian. “I thought young ladies in the Carolinas were only interested in embroidery and dancing at balls.”

Adrienne, once again, did not give her father a chance to respond. “And ah thought you, sir, were interested in a fast horse. One to take to Saratoga and impress your Yankee friends with.”

She said the word Yankee as if it were the name of a disease. If Waldron was angry at the jibe, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he held a brief, whispered conversation with Wellbourne. Julian could tell by the way the jockey looked skeptically at Mistress Maya and shook his head that he, too, was unimpressed with the mare.

Julian cleared his throat, casting about for a way to salvage a sale out of this stalemate. Should he direct Waldron’s attention to another horse? That would be difficult to do, now that Adrienne had made Mistress Maya the focus of the potential transaction.

“Mr. Waldron, my daughter may be a bit outspoken,”—here he glared at Adrienne, hoping that she could keep her tongue for at least a few moments—”but she does have a remarkable eye for horseflesh. A gift, as it were.”

“Oh, really?” Waldron’s tone was droll, unreadable. “Let’s say I trust your daughter’s…instincts. Just how much would that amazing mare cost me?”

Julian named his price.

Waldron laughed out loud. “For that mare? That’s highway robbery.” He nodded to Wellbourne and the two men started to walk away from the paddock.

“Mr. Waldron!” Adrienne’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Ah don’t suppose you’re a bettin’ man?”

He turned around. “What have you got in mind?”

“You put your jockey there up on any of my father’s horses. We’ll put our best rider on Mistress Maya. If we win, you purchase her—at our price.”

“And if I win?”

“You can take any two horses in my father’s stables—at no cost.”

“Adrienne!” Julian was horrified. It was far too reckless a wager. He stood to lose rather a great deal of money in the form of fine horseflesh. “I’m sure Mr. Waldron wouldn’t be interested in—”

“But I would. How about it, du Louvois? Are we on? Or are the stakes your daughter proposed too high for you?”

Backed into a corner as he was, Julian could only do the honorable thing and accede to the terms named by his daughter. The race was set for noon, just a few hours hence. Blast Adrienne! Her willfulness was going to cost him money today!

•  •  •

“Absolutely not! I forbid it.”

“But, Papa. Do you want that arrogant man to walk away with your two finest horses?” Adrienne sat at her lace-trimmed dressing table, pulling on a pair of leather riding boots. They fit snugly over the boy’s breeches she wore.

“I’ll put Samuel up on Mistress Maya.”

“Ah’m the better rider, Papa. You know that ah am.”

She stood. The oversized muslin shirt she wore concealed the feminine curves of her figure, and when she tucked her long, sun-streaked hair up under a nubby cloth cap, the effect was complete. She looked like a young lad.

Julian, as he so often did, felt quite unable to control his headstrong daughter. He noted irritably that the cornflower blue dress she’d been wearing earlier—made by the finest, most expensive dressmaker in Charleston—lay in a careless heap at the foot of the bed, waiting for a servant to remove it.

“Your mother will not hear of it.”

“She needn’t hear of it at all.”

“But if you should get hurt…the poor woman will take to her bed again.”

“Ah have been causin’ mah mother to take to her bed for years now, and somehow we’ve both survived. Don’t you want to see the look on that awful man’s face when Ah beat him and win the bet?”

“I don’t dislike him nearly as much as you seem to. My main concern is about my purse, not his personality.”

She took his hand, pleading earnestly. “Let me do this, Papa. Please. Pleeeeease. Ah can win on Mistress Maya. Ah know ah can.”

Julian sighed, a thoroughly beaten man. He loved Adrienne dearly, but for the hundredth time, he wished she’d get married.

Let her become some other man’s headache.

•  •  •

Waldron was surprised that Adrienne du Louvois wasn’t present to watch the race, considering the keen interest she’d taken in arranging it. He concluded that her exasperated father had banished her to the house, and found himself slightly disappointed. True, she was headstrong and more than a little rude, but the gold-flecked promise of fire in those strange, translucent green eyes…

He watched Nathan mount the horse he’d chosen, silently congratulating himself on the wisdom of his selection. “Moonrunner,” a three-year-old chestnut colt, paced nervously under his mount. His powerful hindquarters and long shoulders should give him a tremendous stride. With his black coat burnished by sunlight and his proud head thrust forward in impatience, he reminded one of a coiled spring—every inch the champion.

Nathan’s face was expressionless—a sure sign that he was excited about this horse.

Mistress Maya, having been walked and saddled, resembled a racehorse only a little more than she had earlier this morning. At nearly 16 hands she was big for a mare, but ungainly looking. She peered warily out from the corners of her eyes as the slim boy who’d be riding for du Louvois mounted her in one sweeping, graceful stride. Waldron was a trifle surprised to see Mistress Maya’s tail swishing in threat and to see her stare head-on at Moonrunner. Such behavior was a direct challenge to another horse. Maybe she had a competitive spirit after all. That, however, was a far cry from having the physical ability to be a winner.

And then the race was on!

Nathan quickly gained the lead and held it easily for several laps. Mistress Maya kept within range, but she did not appear to be straining to overtake her opponent.

This was going to be too easy. Which two horses should he take when he won? Moonrunner would be one, of course. As for the other…there was that big bay he’d admired earlier in the paddock.

In an instant, Waldron saw a roan blur move alongside Moonrunner, then streak effortlessly ahead, its rider snapping a whip into the air over Mistress Maya’s haunches for the crackling sound it made. Du Louvois’ rider had been holding back! He had to admire the strategy. The sudden lightning-like burst of speed caught Nathan unawares. He drove Moonrunner forward to close the gap, drawing a length or two closer, then falling behind. Closer, then behind. The boy in the cloth cap was playing Moonrunner like a banjo! Nathan leaned forward in the saddle even further, determined to pull ahead.

The boy tapped Mistress Maya’s shoulder and she changed leads in mid-stride, as smooth a motion as Waldron had ever seen. Apparently tiring of her game of letting Moonrunner get within a few tantalizing lengths and then streaking ahead, Mistress Maya unleashed an all-out burst of speed that carried her down the final stretch and past the finish marker like a cyclone.

Waldron found that he didn’t at all mind losing the race. And the bet. Miss Adrienne du Louvois had been right about Mistress Maya. Despite appearances, the mare was that rare blend of speed and spirit, talent and competitive temperament that every true horseman hoped to find. Waldron would have paid twice du Louvois’ asking price to get her. And when her racing days were over, she’d become a brood mare, the foundation of the breeding farm he intended to start.

But there was one more thing. Waldron wondered if he could hire that jockey away from du Louvois. The boy probably wasn’t a professional yet. He’d jump at the chance to race on the big courses up north, for the handsome salary Waldron was prepared to offer him. He’d keep Nathan on, of course. Nathan was very good. Still, there was no reason he couldn’t employ a second jockey.

The boy was still standing next to Mistress Maya, whose heaving sides, dirt-spattered chest and legs and foam-lined mouth testified to the enormous effort she’d put into the race. Yet triumph shone through her fatigue. Her head was held high. She cast her dark, intelligent eyes boldly around her, as if trying to spot her next opponent. One might almost think she was eager to run another race—right at this moment!

Nathan and the du Louvois jockey handed the horses off to waiting stable boys, who would walk them to cool them down. Waldron was about to speak to the jockey but the words died in his throat when the “boy” took off his cap and released a lush bundle of wheat-colored hair.

Adrienne looked up at him, her green eyes glimmering in the sunlight, her white teeth flashing in a victorious smile.

Waldron had been beaten by a woman. A woman unlike any he’d ever met before.

•  •  •

Julian, somewhat aghast at the brazen manner in which his unconventional daughter had bested Waldron, sought to make amends by inviting the man to dinner that night.

Waldron’s large, work-roughened hands looked absurd wrapped around an English bone china coffee cup, and the hand-loomed Italian tapestry on the wall behind him looked too civilized to be a fitting backdrop for the big Oklahoman. In spite of the discord with his surroundings, the man himself seemed completely at ease. He spoke little but listened intently to the conversation that swirled and eddied around him, occasionally letting his eyes wander over to Adrienne.

Freshly bathed and dressed in a fawn-colored organza gown, her uplifted hair styled in waves of tawny curls that were held in place with ivory combs, it was hard to believe she was the same girl who’d thundered down an improvised racetrack only hours earlier. She sat, pale and strangely silent, at one end of the massive, marble-topped mahogany dining table, keeping her gaze averted from Waldron and resisting his occasional efforts to engage her in conversation.

“Maybe you could give me some advice about thoroughbreds again some time, Miss du Louvois,” Waldron said to her at one point, his tone friendly. “I have a feeling I’m going to be mighty pleased with Mistress Maya.”

Adrienne, keeping her head down and managing a half-smile, mumbled something that could have been, “Of course,” or perhaps, “good horse.”

Julian would never understand women. You’d think the girl had lost the race! Then an intriguing yet unlikely thought lodged itself in his brain. Was it possible that Adrienne was smitten with Waldron? That his arrogant, impatient daughter, who’d spurned the clumsy overtures of so many perfectly acceptable but somewhat dull local lads from good families, found herself attracted to this unlikely stranger from the west? If so, she had a peculiar way of showing it, hardly looking at or talking to the man.

It was a preposterous idea, anyway. Waldron had no background, no breeding, a shadowy history. Although Julian personally liked the man and felt a growing respect for him, all of Waldron’s money couldn’t buy the kind of social status that would make him Adrienne’s equal. His daughter might chafe against the traditional restraints of her role, but she was, nonetheless, a du Louvois through and through. Julian was willing to do business with carpetbaggers, Yankees, and vulgar, newly rich captains of industry, but marrying his daughter off to one was quite another matter. He was certain that he needn’t worry, though. Adrienne would never give serious thought to a man like Noah Waldron.