The Horsemaster's Daughter (36 page)

Yet when she worked with the horse, she felt Henry Flyte surround her, as if his hand guided her hand, his voice whispered in her ear and his spirit soared with her own.

So when the horse broke from her, pawed the ground with crazed savagery and ran until he foamed at the mouth, she wouldn’t let herself get discouraged. The stallion was a gift in disguise, brought by a stranger. The gift from her father was more subtle, but she felt it flow through her each time she locked stares with the horse.

Hunter wondered how much longer he should pretend he believed in her. He had stopped worrying that the stallion would murder her outright. So long as he wasn’t confined or restrained, Finn didn’t seem to go on the attack. As hard as Eliza worked with him, however, she seemed no closer to penning him than she had that first day.

Yet she went on tirelessly, certain he would become hers to command. Hunter decided to give her just a little more time, a day or two perhaps, then return to Albion. To pass the time, he did some work around the place, repairing the pen where she swore they would train the horse once she haltered him. The mindless labor of hammering away at a damaged rail was oddly soothing—until he accidentally hammered his thumb.

Words he didn’t even realize he knew poured from him in a stream of obscenity. He clapped his maimed hand between his thighs and felt the agony radiate to every nerve ending.

Eliza chose that precise moment to see what he was doing. Caliban—as ugly a dog as Hunter had ever seen—leaped and cavorted along the sandy path beside her.

“Hit yourself?” she asked simply.

Her attitude infuriated him. “I hammered my thumb. I think it’s broken. That should make you happy.”

“No, because if it’s broken or gets infected, you won’t be able to work. Come with me.”

He started to say that he didn’t plan to stay and work here any longer, but she had already turned from him. She led the way to the big cistern near the house and extracted a bucketful of fresh water. The big dog sat back on his haunches, the intensity of his attention seeming almost human.

“Ow,” Hunter said when she plunged his hand into the bucket. “Damn, that stings.”

“I know. It’ll be even worse with the lye soap.”

“Hey—damn it to hell, Eliza.”

Caliban growled a warning. Clearly he didn’t like Hunter’s threatening tone to his mistress.

She showed no sympathy whatsoever as she applied a grayish, irregular cake of soap to the cut thumb, then worked the joint to prove to him it wasn’t broken. Ignoring the curses that streamed out from between his clenched teeth, she fetched a tin of wormwood liniment and rubbed it into the wound. He noticed her staring at the wedding band he had never bothered to discard, but she said nothing. The ointment soothed his fiery, raw flesh, and as she wrapped his thumb in a strip of clean cloth, he grew quiet.

She regarded him through eyelashes that were remarkably long and thick. “You’ve stopped swearing. I suppose this means you’re feeling better.”

“Might mean I’m about to pass out from your tender care,” he said mockingly. The truth was, he caught himself enjoying the sensation of her small hand rubbing the herbal liniment on him. Though impersonal, her touch was gentle and caring, undemanding.

She glared at him. “It wasn’t my fault you pounded your thumb.”

“I wouldn’t have been pounding if you hadn’t insisted on fixing up your pen.”

“I wouldn’t need the pen fixed if you hadn’t brought me that horse.”

“I—” He yanked his hand away from hers. “All right. So it’s all my fault.” Despite his amusement at sparring with her, he grew serious. “Eliza, we have to end this.”

“End what?”

“The pretending. That horse isn’t going to get any better.”

Something flickered in her eyes—fear, rage, distrust—something that reminded him eerily of the stallion.

“You’re wrong,” she said in a low, angry voice. She stepped back, wiping her hands on her apron. “Come with me. Maybe you’ll understand better when I show you.”

Motioning for the dog to stay back, she led Hunter on a hike northward, perhaps two miles along a narrow, sandy track that wound along the edge of the loblolly pine forest and skirted the dunes. After they crossed a low, marshy area, Hunter noticed hoofprints and droppings on the path and in some of the thickets they passed.

“Stay very quiet,” Eliza said, leading him around a curve in the path. “They’re not terribly shy, but they are wild.”

“The ponies, you mean.”

She nodded. “Let’s climb that dune there. Be very quiet.”

He found himself lying, belly down, next to her on the slope of a dune. The spiky reeds framed a view of a broad saltwater marsh crammed with tender green shoots of cordgrass. A herd of about eighteen large ponies grazed in the distance while starlings and sparrows perched on their backs and pecked insects from their hides.

Hunter had seen herds before. But the sight of the island horses, wild and free, moved him. It was a scene he knew he’d hold in his heart for all his days—the placid animals with their heads bent to their grazing, the salt-misted air soft around them, the white-winged gulls wheeling overhead. He glanced over at Eliza and saw that a similar wonder had suffused her face. That was her charm, he realized. Her sense of wonder, her different way of looking at things. He suddenly wished he could see the world through her eyes.

“Where did they come from?” he asked.

“My father brought a herd down, one animal at a time, from Assateague.”

“I wonder how they got there.”

“Pirates, some say. Others think they’re descended from horses turned out to graze by settlers on the mainland. My father believed they’re descended from a shipwrecked load of Spanish ponies. They were being sent to Panama to work in the mines, and every last one of them had been purposely blinded.” She made a face. “So they wouldn’t panic when they were lowered into the mines. Those that survived the wreck swam ashore and turned wild.”

They listened for a while to the deep rhythm of the sea and the wind through the pine forest behind them. He felt surprisingly comfortable, lying in the dunes beside Eliza Flyte. It was something he wished he could do with his children—simply lie still in the sand, in the late afternoon, and watch a herd of horses. He hadn’t done anything of the sort with his children, not in a very long time. Maybe not ever.

“Now watch,” Eliza whispered. “That big shaggy gray is the stallion, and you’ll be able to recognize the mares by the way they behave. See that yearling there, the little bay? He’ll ask the mare for a grooming.”

She turned out to be right. The younger horse approached the mare obliquely, head down, mouth open. The mare rebuffed him, laying back her ears. He persisted even when she reared up and threatened to bite, and after a time she accepted him, nibbling at his head, mane and neck. The exchange was remarkably similar to the interplay Hunter had seen on the beach between Eliza and the stallion.

“Funny how he keeps after her even when she’s ignoring him. I reckon I’ve met a few Virginia belles who must’ve gone to the same finishing school as that mare.”

She propped her chin in her hand. “What are they like—Virginia belles?”

He thought for a moment, remembering the endless dancing lessons he had endured as a boy, the stiff and awkward society balls and the tedious conversation that had droned on and on when the belles went on their annual husband hunt. “Like that mare,” he said simply. “Bossy, fussy about grooming, and fascinating to youngsters and males.”

She blew out an exasperated breath, scattering grains of sand. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

He fell silent and watched the herd for a while. Then he reached out and skimmed his finger along Eliza Flyte’s cheek in a slow, sensual caress. It felt even smoother than it looked.

She smacked his hand away and whispered, “What are you
doing?
”

“If I keep after you,” he said in a teasing voice, “will you eventually give in?”

“I’ll eventually box your ears.” Yet despite the threat, merriment danced in her eyes, and—wonder of wonders—she was blushing.

They watched the herd until the sun lay low across the island, plunging toward the bay in the west. Eliza stood and brushed herself off. Some of the ponies looked up, but settled back to their grazing or resting when she and Hunter started along the path. About halfway to the house, she turned into a thicket bordered by holly and red cedar.

There in the middle of the clearing stood a weathered gray stump. Carved on the trunk was the name Henry Flyte, d. 1853, and, encased in sealed glass, a painstakingly copied verse Hunter recognized from
The Tempest:

“Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.”

The image of Eliza Flyte, giving her father a solitary burial and marking the grave with the weird and beautiful verse, tore at his heart. The peaceful wonder of the afternoon had gone. “You should leave this place,” he said. “Make a new life somewhere else.”

She made her way back to the path. “You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I have riches beyond compare, here on this island.”

“And you’re content to live here for all of your days.”

Just for a moment, a secretive look flashed in her eyes. “I—yes,” she said hastily. “Why would I want anything else?”

“Because you’re human,” he said, speaking sharply. He wasn’t certain why she made him angry, but she did. “You don’t belong with a herd of horses. You belong with other people.”

“People like you?” She sent him an insolent, sidelong glance.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“I might just choke on all that Virginia charm,” she retorted, flipping her plaited hair with a toss of her head.

She made him want to stay long after common sense told him it was time to leave. Hunter watched the struggle between Eliza and the stallion with a mixture of admiration and hopelessness. There was something to be said for being stubborn enough not to give up, but how long should he let her keep denying the truth? The difficult battle of wills might go on for weeks, months, maybe even longer.

Enough was enough, he decided two days later. It was time to end the charade. He found Eliza and Finn easily enough. All he had to do was follow the stallion’s piercing, bloodcurdling scream.

They were on the long south beach, the one shadowed by the tallest dunes. Hunter was not surprised to see the horse up on his hind legs, his open mouth working furiously. Below him, Eliza looked helpless, yet curiously unafraid.

The stallion’s front hooves raked the air. Then he came crashing down mere yards from the woman. Up he went again, and down. Hunter imagined he could feel the ground shaking. A tight, nervous fear clutched his chest, but he told himself he’d only infuriate them both if he interfered. Though Eliza had made no progress with the horse, she had convinced Hunter that Finn would not hurt her.

The tantrum continued for a few more moments. Hunter waited on the dune until it subsided. Then the stallion planted his front hooves in the sand, and the woman reached out and touched him. The silent, familiar ritual gave the false impression that the horse was hers to command. But when she looped her soft rope over his head, he exploded again. He shook his head like a wet dog and started foaming at the mouth.

Eliza waited patiently, then started the ritual all over again. The crazed eyes of the stallion tracked her every move. The horse’s nostrils quivered and his muscles twitched. Yet after a while, Hunter realized the horse was standing his ground rather than going away. The next time Eliza put the rope around his neck, he pulled his head back but kept his feet firmly planted.

This was different, Hunter realized, lowering himself to the sand and forgetting his purpose. Something was changing, even as he watched. The stallion clearly didn’t like the rope, but the woman had somehow convinced him to bear it.

She went to his side, touched him gently along his neck and cheek. The horse stood frozen, alert but not alarmed. Eliza put the halter where the rope had been. She loosely placed it around his neck. Finn trembled, then broke away in a sweeping, athletic feint.

Hunter’s hopes plummeted. Enough, he thought, getting up.

But then the horse stopped and turned back toward Eliza. As if she had bade him, he walked to her and stood placidly while she touched him all over, head and neck and sides and flanks. His chestnut hide quivered beneath her small, questing hand, and he kept his bright stare fixed somewhere out beyond the waves. But he let her slide the halter over his muzzle and ears.

Then she tugged on the rope. The horse snorted and snapped his back, kicking up sand. Eliza let go and waited for him to calm down. He made a rumbling sound in his throat and dropped his head. She picked up the rope and positioned herself in front of him.

The horse gave a deep sigh, dipping his head in relief and surrender. The air between horse and girl seemed to tingle with electricity, yet the tension had a different quality now. Like a wave of wind through the marsh grass, an ineffable softening came over Finn’s body; he was visibly giving himself over to Eliza. This time when she started to walk, the stallion gave a nod of his noble head and followed. Hunter stood aside to let them pass. He knew he would never forget the sight of the black-haired girl leading the huge stallion along the path to the burned-out barn and paddock.

By magic, Finn had been transformed from savage to docile.

No. Not by magic. The girl had done it. The stallion’s madness had been cooled by the horsemaster’s daughter.

Eliza’s back and shoulders ached, but she felt warm all over with pleasure in the work she had done. Leading the stallion to the round pen, she felt a rare and welcome lifting of the spirit. It was a good feeling, clean and pure, that rose and spread through her. She had found a way to understand this horse, had managed in some small part to penetrate the scrambled rage inside the confused animal’s head.