Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (12 page)

He cursed silently. “She did, did she?” So much for his attempt to stay out of Nonie’s game of petty revenge. She either hadn’t listened to a word he’d said or had decided to drag him into her lies. What irritated him even more, however, was that Jordan seemed all too eager to brand him as the villain in all of this.

“Yes, she did.” Jordan’s very nice chin rose in the air once again. “Which is interesting, since I distinctly remember you agreeing with Nonie that my ideas for the cottage were excellent.”

“I did think they were good. I told Nonie that repeatedly. Listen, I didn’t try to—”

Clearly on a roll, she cut him off. “You obviously said something to dissuade Nonie from giving me the commission.”

“I didn’t say anything against you or your ideas.” His clipped tone betrayed his growing impatience. “I
encouraged
her to go with you. Though I’ve got to tell you, if you intend to stick around in this business, you might want to develop somewhat thicker skin. The majority of designers routinely pan their competitors’ work.”

“I’m perfectly able to take criticism, but in this case there wasn’t any. Nonie liked my suggestions.”

Annoyed that he’d been drawn into an argument when he’d done his best to encourage Nonie to hire Jordan Radcliffe, he shrugged. “Why Nonie ended up choosing Gage and Associates is her business. I don’t spend my time analyzing my clients’ motives. If I had to guess, I’d say she chose us because she knows the quality of our work. I even told her that our decorator’s booked solid. But I guess she decided to wait until Emily was free.”

“I just don’t understand it. I was so sure she liked my ideas.”

And because the confused look on her face made him feel even more damnably awkward, he let his mouth run. “Maybe she was worried that the demands of the project would be too much, after all you’ve been through.” He shut his mouth with a snap and felt like grinding his teeth as loudly as the mare was playing with that steel bit.
Damn it all
, that was about the worst thing he could have said.

He continued cursing himself as he watched her expression change from confused to blank with hurt.

“With all I’ve been through?” she echoed.

“Look, I’m sorry. I have no idea what Nonie’s reasons could have been—” he backpedaled quickly, then stopped. She wasn’t listening to his lame explanation. She’d gathered her reins and backed Sava up a few paces, putting distance between them. Realizing she was just going to ride away made him try again. “Jordan, will you please wait a second—”

Talking to him for another minute was more than she could bear. If she tried to speak, her voice would crack, and she’d been humiliated enough for one morning.

Oh God, she wailed silently. Was this never going to end? Didn’t it matter that she was still haunted by the death of her father and stepmother, and by whether their marriage had been just as much of a lie as hers and Richard’s? Did the events of the past year and a half have to be kept fresh by the likes of Nonie Harrison’s vicious tongue?

It mortified her to know that Nonie had gossiped about her and her family to Owen. Had he been repulsed or entertained by the Radcliffe family’s sordid trials? A shudder gripped her as she imagined him, for all intents and purposes a stranger, listening to the details of her failed marriage. And now he was a front-row spectator to her first professional disappointment.

She had to get away from here. Refusing to spare him even a parting glance, she nudged Sava behind the girth, turning the mare in a half circle, then urged her into a collected canter over the bright green fields, not slowing down until she was deep in the shelter of the woods and far from the man she was coming to despise.

T
WO WEEKS
had passed since Jordan’s ride to Hawk Hill. Thanks to the children, she hadn’t been able to stew over Owen Gage. Kate had caught a bug in her class, which then hopscotched from one child to the next. With the three of them home all day, her hours had been defined by deft positionings of Kleenex and promptings of “One, two, three, and there you go with a big blow!” She’d baked cookies with M&M faces, each sporting a red nose, had spooned as much chicken soup into their tummies as they’d been willing to swallow, and pillaged the linen closet for old sheets so they could build a tent fit for a sultan in the double parlor downstairs. There they’d camped, organizing and reorganizing all the stuffed animals they’d brought down from the third floor and munching on Goldfish. When their fevers peaked and they were too miserable and fretful to nap, she would crawl into the plush animal–crowded tent and read their favorite stories until they’d quieted.

Max and Kate had returned to school, and Olivia was pretty much Kleenex-free. But too many restless nights in a row had left the toddler atypically cranky; little nothings set her crying and she refused even her favorite foods. Though she was fever-free and Jordan knew her daughter wasn’t in any real discomfort or likely to starve if she didn’t eat her shepherd’s pie or chocolate pudding, it tore at her heart to see her sunny angel teary-eyed and woebegone. Despite the house being full of people whom Jordan loved, and Miriam coming daily to help lift the kids’ spirits, it was
on days like these that she felt the loss of Richard as a partner and parent acutely. She might justifiably condemn him as a husband, but he’d always shown his better self with the kids.

To pacify her unhappy toddler, she’d had Miriam play a
Sesame Street
DVD—Olivia’s absolute favorite—while she ran some errands for Margot and Travis and did the grocery shopping before picking up Kate and Max from preschool.

Her first stop was Steadman’s Saddle Shop, the town’s tack shop, which stocked five-thousand-dollar Hermès Steinkraus saddles for the horse show set and wool hunt coats in the Warburg Hunt colors for the avid fox hunters—as well as every other item a horse or rider might want.

The brass bell attached to the door rang as she entered. There were a few customers in the store, some browsing through the racks of breeches, others checking out the boots that were on sale. Sara Steadman was over by the bridles with Freddy Banks, discussing the different types of bits displayed on a wall. They broke off to call out a hello.

“How’s that new stud of yours doing?” Freddy asked.

“Great. Nocturne’s a real gentleman. We’re having him cover Mystique today—you might recall she’s the mare Margot did so well with in the Hunt Cup.” She didn’t need to say more. Two years later, people were still talking about how Margot, Travis, and Jade had blown away the competition the year RJ Radcliffe died. “She’s just given us a fine colt, too, one of Stoneleigh’s get. We’re hoping she and Nocturne will give us an equally stunning foal.”

“I’ll have to drop by someday soon. I’m in the market for a new hunter.”

“You should, Freddy. We’ve got some nice horses we’re bringing along that would make excellent fox hunters. Just give Travis a call,” she said lightly, careful not to reveal how thrilled she was by his comment. It was a sign that in spite of the many changes that had come to Rosewood
Farm in the past two years, local riders and horse owners continued to view it as a source for their future mounts.

Turning to Sara Steadman, she said, “Is Adam around, Sara? I’ve got some pieces in need of his expert care,” and she opened a canvas tote full of leather.

“He just went to put a pair of paddock boots away in the stock room—oh, here he is. Adam, Jordan has some leather that needs to be repaired.”

“Good to see you, Jordan,” Adam said, stepping out from behind the counter. “All that for me?” he asked, eyeing the bag. “Come on over here where the light’s better.”

She followed him over to the counter and laid two girths, a bridle, two stirrup leathers, and Jade’s pair of chaps on the glass countertop. “Ned was wondering how soon you might be able to repair these.”

“Let me take a look.”

She waited while Adam Steadman, who’d owned the store with his wife, Sara, since Jordan wore jodhpurs with garters and short pigtails, picked up the pieces and examined where the stitching had worn away.

“This lot’s not too bad. I think I can get it back to you by next week.”

“And the chaps? They’re Jade’s. She wears them almost every weekday. It’s so much quicker than changing into her breeches.”

Adam ran his finger along the zipper lining the inside of her sister’s worn suede chaps. “Looks like I’ll have to replace the zipper. See how the teeth are missing? And the other leg looks like it’s going, too. But on account of their being Jade’s, I’ll get to work on them right away. How she doing? She still teaching your little ones?”

“Yes, and doing an excellent job with them. I think you’ll be seeing Kate in the walk-trot classes this summer.”

“Can’t wait to see the next generation of Radcliffes in the hunter ring. By the way, we’ve got a sale on children’s saddles coming up in two weeks. There’s usually a run on them, as
parents get ready for the show season and pony clubs. With Max following in his sister’s footsteps I thought you might be interested, too.”

If she’d gotten the commission from Nonie, she could have easily splurged on a new saddle for the children. “Will you have trade-ins for sale, too?” She wondered if her question had shocked him. Surely this must be a first for him, to have a Radcliffe inquire about used equipment. But as she’d said to Travis the other night, times had changed. She couldn’t continue her father and stepmother’s spendthrift ways and burn through money. Especially if she didn’t have a job.

But Adam, who over the years had sold thousands upon thousands of dollars in merchandise to her family, merely nodded. “Good thinking. I’ll look over the used ones we get in and set a couple aside for you.”

“Thanks, Adam, I really appreciate it. I’ll send their instructor down to look them over. She’s very particular.”

“Don’t I know it. Jade made Brian earn his wages when she came in to buy a running martingale for that gelding, Aspen.”

Brian was Adam’s nephew and a year ahead of Jade in the high school. Like his older cousins and siblings before him, he worked for Adam and Sara in the shop after school and on weekends. “I hope she didn’t give him too hard a time.”

“Learning how to do his job is good for him. Jade’s a smart one. She had him detailing the relative merits of the Pessoa, Showmark, and our own martingale, which is made for us in England. He might not have gotten his nerve up to ask her out on a date, which I know he’s real keen to do, but at least he got her to buy our model.”

“If it’ll make him feel better, tell him I don’t think anyone else has worked up the courage to ask her out, either. He shouldn’t give up hope.” Jordan wasn’t sure it was wise to offer false encouragement, but Brian was a nice kid. And
since he knew about horses, maybe Jade would relax her antiboy stance.

Adam smiled. “I’ll definitely tell him, but only at the end of his shift. Don’t want the boy mooning about. Tell Jade I’ll have the chaps repaired by tomorrow afternoon.”

Back in the minivan, Jordan made her way to West Elm, where the supermarket was located, passing the small shops and establishments that were the lifeblood of the downtown area. Warburg’s small size had allowed it to retain its horsey country roots; its proximity to Washington, D.C., gave it a certain patina of sophistication. It was a town that supported three churches and an equally well-patronized liquor store that stocked Dom Perignon and single-malt whiskeys. There were four restaurants and a bagel shop that also served thick, hearty deli sandwiches and soups for the lunch crowd. Three or four days a week, Felix, one of the farm’s hands, would stop at Braverman’s Bagels to pick up bagels and smears for the hands’ mid-morning break. But today Jordan was doing a sandwich run for Margot and the guys after she’d done the shopping.

Many of the stores in town were independently owned—the Corner Bookstore had managed to survive in the era of Barnes & Noble and Amazon by joining forces with the small cafe next door and smashing through the adjoining wall so that patrons could wander from one space to the next and even buy a book to enjoy with their mocha latte. In the mid-morning the place was a meeting spot for mothers and their preschoolers. After three, teenagers invaded to sprawl on the sofas and armchairs and slurp their frappes and munch on chocolate chip muffins. In the evenings the bookstore ran several different book clubs, and on weekends the staff offered reading events for children.

Two doors down was True Beauty, a beauty salon with a crème de la crème day spa on the second floor, offering hot stone massages and aromatherapy body wraps for the likes
of Nonie Harrison and her sister, Pamela Hood. The florist, Fleur de Lys, did a bustling business creating lush arrangements and exquisite posies for the steady stream of dinners and parties thrown by the social set. One of the bigger shops, J.T. Ross, was a women’s clothing store that carried Lily Pulitzer and Ralph Lauren. When Margot did a shoot for Ralph Lauren, the store blew up posters of her and hung them in the store’s windows. Afterward, the manager wrote a letter thanking Margot for what had been the best run on their inventory ever, hinting, too, that they couldn’t wait for her next shoot with Ralph.