Read The Horsemaster's Daughter Online
Authors: Susan Wiggs
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
He walked in to find both children standing by the old sea chest from the island. No one saw him come in. The room smelled musty from disuse, and old sheets still draped the sparse furniture. At one time, this had been a grand guest room, opulent with damask draperies and crystal vases filled with fresh flowers.
“Would you like to see my treasures?” Eliza asked them.
He remembered the night he had forced her to show him the contents of the locker. Reluctantly she had shown him the things that were important to her, revealed the things she dreamed about. How long ago that seemed, when they had been alone together in the driftwood cabin. Now it already felt as if their time on the island had never happened.
But it had, and he recalled every moment, every shining look she had given him, every gasp of wonder when he’d held her in his arms and made love to her.
Discomfited, he cleared his throat. “I see you’re getting settled in,” he said.
“Papa!” Belinda said excitedly. “Miss Eliza’s going to show us a treasure. Do you want to see?”
“I’ve seen her treasures,” he said.
“Lift the lid, Blue,” Eliza said, flushing at Hunter’s tone. “Let’s have a look.”
The boy opened the chest eagerly and peered inside. With a theatrical flourish, Eliza lifted the old muslin and took out the jockey’s silks that had belonged to her father, the old tankard and the gold mourning ring, and, finally, the gleaming pieces of the Spanish bride’s dowry. She put the old moth-eaten wig on Blue, eliciting gales of laughter from Belinda, who gamely tried on the Monmouth cap.
“You make a right proper sailor now,” Eliza said as the little girl preened. She showed them the book of maps and prints from the wild seacoast of California. “It’s a faraway place,” she said. “A magical place.”
“Do you think we could go there?” asked Belinda.
A shadow fell over Eliza’s face. “It’s so far away, almost no one goes there.” Then she brightened. “Here’s what it sounds like.” She held up the big conch shell. “Be very quiet, and you’ll be able to hear the wind and the ocean.”
The children put their heads together, pressing in close. Their faces shone with amazement. Eliza caught Hunter’s eye, and for a moment he felt completely naked. In that one glance, he saw her understanding. She sensed the turmoil that boiled inside him with every breath he took. He adored his children with a ferocity that ached in his chest. But he didn’t know—perhaps had never known—what to do with that love, except hurt.
Blue squatted beside the bed in the room he shared with his sister. He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder to make certain he was alone. He could hear Belinda and Miss Eliza—the governess—chattering like magpies across the hall, so he knew they wouldn’t disturb him. Pressing his belly to the floor, he squirmed like a snake under the bed. Dust-mice scattered and tickled his nose. He held his breath, trying not to sneeze. He couldn’t bear the idea of making a sound.
Reaching out, he groped in the dark until he found what he sought, feeling the smooth, dusty wood beneath his fingers. Inching back, he pulled it along with him, extracting it from its hiding place. It was a carved rosewood lap desk with brass fittings. His mama used to sit up in her bed, looking like a sunflower against a bank of feather bolsters, and write letters for hours and hours.
Blue hadn’t looked in the box since the day she had told him to hide it. Although he had only been a baby of seven back then, he could remember exactly what she said to him.
Take it away and hide it, Blue.
Mama’s voice had been harsh and whispery, because she was dying.
You must never say a word of this, Blue. Not a single word.
When he had gone to see her the next day, to tell her he’d done as she’d asked, he had found the room shrouded in darkness. His papa sat beside the bed with his head in his hands and the sharp smell of whiskey on his breath. Blue didn’t ask if his mama was dead. He just knew. And he did exactly what she told him—he never said a word.
Now he was a big boy of nine, and his hand looked big, almost grown-up, as he brushed it lightly over the surface of the lap desk and the brass hinges. In showing him the wonderful things in her battered old sea chest, Miss Eliza had inspired him.
Like Miss Eliza, he had a box full of secrets.
He wondered what would happen if he let them all out.
E
liza awoke but didn’t open her eyes, because she didn’t want the dream to go away. She was floating on a cloud, and everything smelled of dried rose petals and lavender, and someone, somewhere, hummed a song she had never heard.
It was all too delicious to relinquish. And yet a strange feeling crept over her—the feeling of being watched.
Her eyes flew open. At the foot of the bed, a shadow flickered. She blinked and shook her head. A trick of the morning light. She was completely alone in this strange, tall-ceilinged room.
And such a room it was. She realized her dream had been no dream at all, but the comforts she had encountered at Albion. The soft, floating cloud was actually a mattress—one stuffed with cotton rather than the dried milkweed she had used on the island. The floral smells breathed gently from the bed linens themselves, and the sweet melody wafted in through the tall double doors that opened out to a balcony with a fancy plaster rail.
So this was his world, she mused. Hunter’s world. He lived here in this vast, decaying place with a blind housekeeper, a cranky cook, two children and a jockey called Noah. Eliza had not met anyone else yet. She guessed that it was either Nancy or Willa singing outside the window.
Supper last night had been a strained, uneasy affair. After Hunter’s impulsive declaration that she would be the children’s governess, she had taken the children in hand. In truth she was glad to do it, for she couldn’t stand being idle. She discovered a deep fascination for the children. She had never known any before, and she felt a special affinity with them. Blue’s silent watchfulness reminded her of the vigilance of a young fawn, curious yet cautious and ready to flee at any moment. Belinda’s eagerness to please was puppylike, playful and guileless.
Eliza could not understand Hunter’s attitude toward his children. She could tell he loved them, but he seemed uncertain as to what to do with them. She knew the rearing of children was considered women’s work, and that children were to be kept in the women’s domain. Yet she had grown up in the light of a father’s love, not a mother’s, and the warmth of that love lingered even now, because her father lived in her heart, always. It was so important to give a child that sort of love, she thought as she lay there in the comfortable bed. The sort that defied even death. She must get Hunter to see. She knew it would be a challenge—but she had never shied from a challenge.
Last night she had wondered what was going through his head as he watched her showing the children her treasures from the island. She had planned to ask him at supper time. But she and the children had gone to supper to find themselves alone. Hunter was nowhere in sight.
“Papa doesn’t usually eat with us,” Belinda explained matter-of-factly.
Because he usually drinks alone. Eliza’s intuition filled in what the little girl hadn’t said, either because she didn’t understand or didn’t want to know.
Eliza quickly discovered that Belinda, who was seven, had cast herself in the role of explainer of all things. She supplied answers to questions, sometimes before they were asked: “Grandfather Beaumont thinks Papa is a disgrace, and so he hired a tutor for us.” “Blue doesn’t like butter on his bread. He likes it plain.” “My mama used to tell the cook what to fix for supper, but Nancy and Willa just fix any old thing they please.” “When Papa gets worried, it makes him thirsty.”
Eliza found the little girl delightful and charming. She found the boy…intriguing. His silence was an active, live thing. Not a void but something large and almost tangible. He and his sister had some secret rapport, so that with a single glance he could communicate with her. Like two wild creatures, they had created a mysterious means of talking without words.
“Blue doesn’t like turnip greens,” Belinda was wont to say. Or, “Blue wants to go look at the new stallion again.”
Eliza had stayed awake late, wondering about these children. Recklessly she had accepted them as her charges. She was out of her depth entirely. Now she understood exactly how Jane Eyre felt, encountering her young charge for the first time.
She lay back against a bank of pillows and shut her eyes again. “Lord, help me,” she whispered, “what have I done?”
Once again she had that uncanny sensation of being watched. Once again she opened her eyes, this time quickly enough to see a small bright head disappear behind the footboard of the bed, like a rabbit down a hole.
Eliza smiled and shifted to a sitting position. “Come on, then. I love a little company in the morning.”
It was true, startlingly so. She, who had awakened so many mornings to the emptiness of the island, felt a small twinge of excitement to find herself in the presence of this little towheaded sprite.
Belinda reappeared, cautious and inquisitive as a kitten. She wore a wrinkled muslin gown and her hair was tousled, her face still soft from sleep. Eliza patted the bed. It was a big wooden affair, almost boatlike, with a canopy overhead and organdy curtains draped around. The little girl had to use a wooden step stool to climb up.
“Where’s your brother?” Eliza asked.
“Under the bed,” Belinda whispered.
“Do you think he’d like to climb up too?”
Belinda shook her head vigorously and cupped her hands around Eliza’s ear. “I wasn’t supposed to tell.”
Eliza thought fast. “I was just pretending that this bed is a great ship upon the sea, and a storm’s about to blow in. I’d hate for Blue to drown.”
Belinda adopted the fantasy with the swift unquestioning acceptance of a true believer. She scrambled to the edge of the bed and held out her hand.
“Hurry, Blue!” she called. “Storm’s coming! Grab on, and I’ll pull you aboard.”
“Watch out for that wave.” Eliza flapped the counterpane dramatically. “We’ll be swamped for certain.”
Blue shot out from under the bed and leaped into the middle of the bedclothes.
Eliza didn’t make a fuss over him. She shaded her eyes and gazed out to sea. “‘Take in the topsail,”’ she recited from
The Tempest.
“‘Tend to th’ master’s whistle…Blow till thou burst thy wind!”’
The three of them sank deep into fantasy. Eliza enjoyed it immensely. Playing with the children was not so different from working with wild animals. She watched them and took her cue from them rather than trying to impose her will. Instinct told her not to press Blue with questions about why he never spoke. She knew it was up to her to find out where the hurt was coming from before she could figure out a way to heal it.
And she would. She didn’t know when she had made that vow or how she would carry it out. But she could no more turn away from this silent little boy than she could the stallion Hunter had brought to her island.
“Blue,” she said, “climb up to the topmast and signal to us if you sight land.”
He jumped up and clung to the bedpost, shading his eyes as Eliza had done earlier. He waved his hand and eagerly bobbed his head.
“Land,” Eliza called jubilantly. “We are saved!”
The three of them held hands and jumped up and down on the bed, churning through the mountain of bedclothes. A feather pillow tore open, and within seconds a snowstorm of white down filled the air. Eliza and Belinda yelled, “We are saved!” and Blue grinned from ear to ear.
They made such a ruckus that Eliza didn’t hear the door open. All of a sudden Hunter was standing there, his expression thunderous. He had shaved his beard and groomed his hair, and he wore fawn-colored trousers, tall riding boots and a generously cut shirt. With a flurry of feathers cascading over him, he looked slightly magical, like a prince from another land.
Eliza and the children collapsed in a heap on the bed, as if they were birds shot out of the sky.
Belinda recovered first, squealing, “Father, look out! You’ll drown in the ocean!”
“What?” He batted downy feathers away from his face.
“Hurry,” she cried, raising up on her knees and clapping her hands. “We’re in the middle of a terrible storm.”
His jaw tightened. For a moment he looked completely lost. Then he said, “Sorry, sweetheart. I haven’t the time to play this morning. Now, go and get dressed, both of you, and then you can show Miss Eliza down to the dining room for breakfast.”
Blue climbed out of the bed and headed for the door. Belinda followed him but paused before leaving. “Will you be having breakfast with us, Papa?”
“I’ve work to do. We’ve an exhibition race coming up, and then the yearling auction.”
She nodded and slipped out. Eliza wished the child would stand up to her father, demand his attention, but instead she and her brother complied too easily, without question.
Eliza found herself alone with the master of Albion. She felt uncomfortably aware of her state. Her hair hung in an untidy braid, and she wore a borrowed night rail that was too large and had slipped down to bare one shoulder. His gaze seared like a hot brand on her exposed flesh, and she tugged the neckline up.
Everything felt different here. On the island, such things as nightgowns and dresses didn’t matter. Yet in this strange mansion, an air of formality spun through the creaky old rooms like dust motes through bars of sunlight.
“The children shouldn’t be allowed to get so wild indoors,” he said.
“Why not?” She studied him for a moment. She hardly recognized him as the man who had brought his mad horse to the island. This man was stiff and angry, formal and excruciatingly correct. She caught herself thinking of the night they had made love and she’d been certain their souls had touched. It all seemed like a dream now. Perhaps it had never happened.
Her gaze dropped to his big hands. Oh, but it had happened. She remembered those hands.
“Because it’s not proper,” he said. “That’s why not.”
“When it comes to children, I have no idea what is proper and what is not,” she said.
“Then in the future you should heed me—”
“But I do know,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him, “that what makes a child happy is proper, and what makes him unhappy is not.”
“You have a lot to learn, Eliza.”
She got out of bed, her bare feet feeling the smooth wooden floor and stray feathers ruffling beneath them. Refusing to let this stuffy stranger intimidate her, she stood before him, fists on her hips. “So have you.”
“You’re a defiant article of baggage, Eliza Flyte.”
She lifted her chin, wondering if she only imagined the reluctant admiration in his tone. But she had more pressing concerns than his opinion of her. “I want to talk about Blue,” she said, watching his face closely.
He didn’t move, but his whole body seemed to tense and brace itself in preparation for a blow. “I’ve business to look after this morn—”
“You’ve a son to look after.” She swiftly crossed the room and shut the door.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
His gaze flicked over her. “It’s not proper.”
She laughed. “Oh, and behaving properly has always been so important to me.”
“Look at yourself.” He yanked a drape off a tall, flat piece of furniture.
“A mirror,” she whispered, intrigued. “I’ve never seen an actual mirror before.” She caught a glimpse of herself in the oval cheval glass. She had seen her reflection in still water and in the shiny side of her black china teapot, but she’d never seen her entire self with such clarity. The image in the glass startled her.
“Look at me,” she echoed Hunter, lifting her hand to brush a strand of wavy black hair out of her face. The stranger in the mirror did the same. She looked small and skinny in the overlarge night rail. Her face had a golden hue imbued by seasons in the sun. The color of her eyes startled her; she knew they were gray but she had never imagined the silvery depths of them. Her hair lay stark black against the snow-white nightgown. The thin fabric revealed the dark tips of her breasts and a shadow where her legs joined.
“Yes,” Hunter said in a low voice, “look at you.”
Watching in the mirror, she saw him come up behind her, bending his head to press his lips to the side of her neck.
Her head fell back in surrender. Lord, she had missed this, the feel of those big hands on her, the softness of his mouth kissing her. It was fascinating and deeply sensual to actually see the caress happening. His hands slipped around her waist from behind, hugging her against his hips. His hand skimmed upward, cupping her breast, thumb circling slowly, searchingly. When his other hand went downward, she lost the struggle to keep her eyes open. She closed them and dropped her head to the side, baring more of her neck and shoulder to his kisses. She felt herself floating away, and was sure she would open her eyes and see that the woman in the mirror was gone, having floated off to some distant place where sensation was everything and nothing mattered so much as the caress of his clever hands. And yet something tugged her, nagged at her, some issue unresolved.
In the kitchen below, Nancy launched into a new song, slow and mournful.
There was something suspect in the way Hunter handled her. His caresses seemed oddly calculated rather than spontaneous. He had never been manipulative with her, but he was now, and she thought she knew why.
Like a dreamer fighting wakefulness, she wanted to stay here in his arms even though she understood that he meant to distract her, nothing more. But inch by inch she fought her way back to reality. “You must…stop,” she forced out between her teeth.
His hands didn’t stop. “Don’t you like this?”
“I…” She made herself open her eyes. The woman in the mirror looked different from the way she had a few minutes ago. Now she was flushed, full-lipped and heavy-lidded. Wanton and somehow used. “That’s not the point.” She wrenched out of his grasp and moved away from him so she could think more clearly. “You’re clever enough to coax a reaction from a fence post, but that’s different from my liking it.”
He stared down at his trousers and set his hands on his hips. “You were more fun before you decided to join polite society. You’ve only been back to civilization for two days, and already you’re starting to sound like a typical woman.”