Fox River (13 page)

T
he house at Claymore Park was unabashedly Prairie style in a region more apt to celebrate Colonial or Classical architecture. Asymmetrical hipped roofs with wide overhangs sheltered courtyards and terraces outlined by square brick pillars and horizontal planters. Inside, ceilings soared whimsically or snuggled low, and turning any corner was an invitation to be surprised.

The original home, an antebellum Greek Revival mansion, had burned down at the same time that Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs were beginning to take hold. Peter’s grandfather had commissioned a friend at the University of Chicago to design a replacement, and the result had been the talk of Ridge’s Race—and sometimes still was.

When Peter inherited the family home he had opted for an eclectic decor. As a career naval officer he had traveled the world and shipped home furniture and art from every port. By the time he came back to stay, the house was a museum to his travels and a showplace in demand for charity house tours.

As a full moon rose higher, Christian stood looking at the silvered cedar siding, the narrow windows that Robby had described as holes where the soul of the house had leaked away after his mother’s death. For Robby Claymore, this house had ceased to be a home that day.

“It’s too big.” Peter stood beside Christian, gazing up at his home. “People still needed large homes when this one was built. Families were bigger, and guests came to stay for weeks. The house this one replaced had twenty-five bedrooms.”

As a boy, Christian had counted the bedrooms at Claymore Park. There were eleven. There were also two guest cottages and workers’ quarters on the property, and a smaller house of compatible design for the property manager.

Peter turned away. “Now that both Edith and Robby are gone, the only things I hear in the evenings are my own footsteps.”

After nine years of listening to sobs and belches, to coughs and demented laughter, Christian tried to imagine that sort of peace. One night, before the guards could intervene, he had listened helplessly as a man murdered his cellmate.

“Has it changed very much?” Peter asked.

Christian had changed, and everything he looked at was viewed through that filter. “It’s hard to imagine the house without Robby inside.”

“He never for a second believed you were guilty, you know. He died your best friend.”

Robby had never written or visited Christian in prison, but Christian had understood. Some things were too painful to talk about.

“Where would you like me to bunk?” Christian said. He had little enough with him. A razor and comb, a couple of T-shirts, a blue work shirt, two pairs of jeans. He needed a bed and a drawer, and even the stable offered those.

“I had Rosalita prepare a room upstairs for you. We’re renovating the property manager’s house. It’s yours when the renovations are finished next month.”

“An entire house?”

“I’ll want you to furnish it at my expense. The last family nearly destroyed it. I’ll feel better about having you in there. I know you’ll—”

“That’s too generous.”

Peter faced him. “Christian, what did you expect? A pile of straw and an old saddle blanket? You’ll be running this place for me when I can’t do it anymore. And that’s all the thanks I’ll need.”

“I don’t—”

“I’ve grown tired of this subject. I’m not in line for sainthood, even if we Baptists did that sort of thing. Claymore Park needs a young man who feels a connection to it. I expect you to take on more and more of the management of the place after you’ve rested and readjusted to life on the outside again. And I’ll compensate you fairly for your hard work.”

“You’ve already compensated me.”

“Everything I’ve done was for your daddy. Gabe was a good man, a talented man with a terrible disease. I should have helped him more. I should have insisted he get medical help. Lord knows the signs were easy enough to read. The only way I’ve been able to live with turning my back on him was to help you.”

“I don’t know why. One of the first things I learned in prison was to watch out for myself and not worry about anybody else.”

Peter smiled a little. “Did you now?”

Christian saw his skepticism. “I’m not the man you think I am. Not anymore.”

“We’ll see. Meantime, let’s take your bag upstairs and get you settled. These first few weeks I want you to take things easy. Get acquainted with open space again. Ride. Exercise the hounds, if you like, and get to know the rest of the staff. Then you can launch into a full work schedule.”

The sound of a car coming up the gravel driveway stopped them both. Christian turned as Peter did and watched a black BMW pull to a stop fifty yards away in a lighted parking space.

“It’s Bard Warwick,” Peter said. “Do you feel up to this?”

“Up to what?” Christian watched Warwick launch himself from the car. Lombard Warwick had never been a friend. Now he was the husband of the woman Christian had hoped to marry.

“There are two types of conversations one can have with Bard,” Peter said. “One’s dull as dirt. The other’s an argument.”

“I guess we’ll be having the latter.” The way Bard had slammed his door was proof enough.

Peter lowered his voice. “This is a man who looks like a gentleman, quacks like a gentleman, and doesn’t have one true quality of a gentleman. At least none I’ve ever observed.”

Bard strode toward them. “Carver, I want a word with you.”

“More than one, I imagine.” Christian folded his arms and waited.

Bard gave Peter the barest nod. “I’d like to speak to him in private, if that’s all right, Peter.”

“I resent being dismissed on my own property. So I’m going to stay and make sure you don’t cause this young man any more trouble than he’s already had today.”

“The way I hear it, today was sort of a celebration. He’s out. He’s standing here while the moon rises, and he’s not exactly in chains.”

“I can’t even imagine what we have to talk about,” Christian said. “But get it off your chest, Warwick.”

Bard looked pointedly at Peter, who didn’t move, except to tilt his head in question.

“All right,” Bard said. “I didn’t want to involve you, Peter, but I guess you’ve earned this. I know some bleeding heart judge let him out of prison today, and I know why. Because you’ve pushed and prodded and all around shoved the legal system to its max. But that doesn’t make it right.”

Peter shook his head as if to rid himself of a pesky fly. “Did you somehow miss the fact that another man confessed to killing Fidelity Sutherland?”

Bard was dressed as if he’d just come from the office, but his shirt was wrinkled and his tie was unknotted. Christian thought Bard wasn’t aging particularly well. He was beginning to resemble his father, a humorless, heavy-handed man with nineteenth-century ideas about self-worth and social class. In his earliest days in prison Christian had tortured himself with pictures of Julia married to a very different Bard, an urbane, intelligent Renaissance man who would give her everything she deserved and quickly take Christian’s place in her heart.

Now he revised that picture.

“I’ve heard the entire story,” Bard said. “It’s as full of holes as a fishnet.”

Peter was beginning to look angry. “We’re lucky a judge sees this more clearly than you do.”

“Are you finished yet?” Christian said. “Now that we’ve had your expert legal opinion?”

“I came to warn you,” Bard said, turning toward him and shutting Peter out of the conversation. “The judge may have let you go, but the people of Ridge’s Race can take care of their own. My property borders Claymore Park, and I don’t want to see you step foot on it. Not ever. You will never be welcome there, and furthermore, I want you to leave my family alone. You might have been friends with my wife once upon a time—”

Christian raised one brow. “Friends?”

Bard flushed. “But don’t you so much as speak to her or to my daughter. You’ll join Zandoff in hell if I discover you’ve laid a hand on either one of them.”

Peter stepped forward and put
his
hand on Bard’s arm. “You’ve said just about enough. Go home.”

Bard shook him off. “What’s the matter with you, Peter? Can’t you see what he is?”

“I can, which is exactly why I want him here and I don’t want you. Go home.”

“If he comes near Millcreek—”

“You’ll have to close the farm to Mosby Hunt, then,” Peter said. “As of this afternoon, Christian is our new huntsman. And as such, he’ll be riding everywhere we have permission to hunt. Is that what you want?”

“You have to be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

Bard forced a laugh. “You think anybody, any member of Mosby Hunt, will allow this man to be huntsman?”

“I’ll resign as Master of Foxhounds if the board decides against me.”

Christian wanted to protest, but he knew better than to do it in front of Bard. “You’ve said what you have to say, Warwick, and I’ve had a long day. I’d like to go inside and get settled.”

“Jesus, maybe you
should
resign,” Bard told Peter. He shook his head as if he was sure that Peter was the bloodiest fool east of the Mississippi. Then he strode back to his car.

“Let’s get you installed in the guest room,” Peter said, as the sound of Bard’s engine died away.

“That’s just a sample of what you’ll be facing if I stay here,” Christian said. “Do you really want to do this?”

“Christian, I’m curious. What did you see?”

“I saw a man, probably one among many, who doesn’t want me here.”

“You really have been away too long, son. What you saw was a man trying to protect something he’s lost a grip on.” Peter shook his head wearily. “Bard Warwick doesn’t speak for this community. He speaks for himself, too loudly at that. He’s worried, all right, and not that you’re a homicidal maniac.”

In silence they walked up the path to the front terrace.

It seemed the height of irony that by midnight Christian still wasn’t asleep, despite a soft bed and quiet house. He didn’t miss Ludwell, although he found his mind wandering back to his cell as he stared at moonlight dancing on the ceiling. He was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to Landis and wondered if he should try to contact the young man’s family now that he was on the outside. He wondered if Javier would look for him when he was paroled, and if Timbo Baines would stay with the guide dog program now that Christian wasn’t there to supervise him.

He wondered if Bertha had been told about his release. Would she travel to Ludwell to make certain the program continued to run smoothly?

He wondered if he was losing his mind.

He was free. He had a new job doing what he loved best, for as long as he wanted it. Next month he would have a real house he could call his own. He had the best horses in Virginia at his fingertips, some of the state’s most beautiful property and a clear conscience. And still, his heart was back at Ludwell.

He didn’t trust fate. A large part of him was waiting for someone to snatch away his freedom, for someone to say, “You know, it’s the funniest thing. We made an error and you belong in jail for the rest of your life after all.” Perhaps he was cushioning himself against that eventuality.

Or perhaps he was thinking about prison because he was unwilling to delve further back into his memories, to remember the life he’d led here at Claymore Park once upon a time.

Facing memories was an inexorable slide into the past, the veritable floodgate opening. For a moment he felt physically ill, the victim of vertigo and nausea. He sat up to stave off both and realized his skin was clammy. A cavern would have seemed smaller than this bedroom. A crypt would have been noisier.

He threw off his covers and swung his feet over the side, resting his head in his hands.

He was a grown man, but he felt like he was ten again. The second the nausea passed he got to his feet and made his way to the window. Stretched in front of him was one of the most remarkable tableaus in the state. Myriad acres of prime horse country divided by picturesque stone and wood rail fences, the occasional ancient tree anchoring the rolling hills for shade, state-of-the-art barns and stable designed by the same architect who had built the house, and out of sight right now but always presiding over the landscape, the Blue Ridge Mountains.

He remembered the first time he had seen Claymore Park. And he realized that if he stayed, he was doomed to remember every single moment.

“I’m hot, Daddy. We been driving since dawn almost.”

Gabe Carver looked down at his son, his eyes not quite focused. “You don’t think I’m hot, too, boy?”

“We’ve been driving in circles for a while now. You don’t know where this Claymore Park is, do you?”

“I’ve got me a map.” Gabe tapped the side of his head and grinned. “Don’t need anything more than that.”

Christian knew it was a lie. At ten he knew a lot more than most boys his age. He knew that his father needed to be taken care of, that he was good with horses and terrible with everyday life, that he had started drinking heavily right after Christian’s mother died and now he only stopped long enough to find the next in a series of low paying stable jobs.