Whispers of Heaven (14 page)

Beside him, the ruffled hem of her skirt swished back and forth, back and forth. "Warrick tells me you've been taking all this time because you think it's important to learn more about a horse you're working with." He glanced up to see that smile he didn't like, still curling her lips. "But then, Warrick doesn't know how familiar you already were with this particular horse."

He straightened. "Not that familiar."

She tilted her head, her brow furrowing as if with thought. "Oh? So you've learned something new, have you, Mr. Gallagher?"

"Some things."

"Indeed. Such as?"

He watched as Finnegan's Luck, ever hopefully in search of sugar and other delectable treats, chose that moment to stretch out its neck and sniff interestedly at the white fichu on Miss Corbett's bodice. Disappointed, the stallion snorted, exhaling a blast of horsy breath against her face. She let out a startled laugh, her hands coming up to catch the bay's nose and turn its head away. "No, I don't have anything you can eat, you appallingly uncivil Irishman," she said to the horse, rubbing her palm over its cheek.

He liked what that laugh did to her face, the way it swept across her features, making her look both softer and more likable. Abruptly, he turned to reach for the bridle. "Looks like you've discovered a thing or two yourself He does love to eat, this here Irish lad. And he has a very sweet tooth."

She let her hands ease down the horse's satiny neck. "An interesting discovery, no doubt. But not exactly relevant to his bucking problem, surely?"

"That depends," said Lucas, easing the bridle over the stallion's big head.

"On what?"

"On whether or not he's had his breakfast."

"Has he?"

"No." Reaching for the reins, Lucas led the stallion out of the stables, to the small paddock.

She followed him. "That's your brilliant plan, is it? To starve the poor brute into submission?"

In the paddock, Lucas paused to adjust the stirrups. "I'm not exactly starving him. I'm just upping his interest in my bribe."

"What bribe?"

Gathering the reins loosely in one hand, Lucas nodded toward the fresh, succulent bundle of green lucerne he had hung from the fence at about saddle height, some four or five paces in front of the stallion's nose. "What do you think Finnegan's Luck is more interested in? Bucking me off, or getting at that nice sweet bunch of alfalfa?"

"Bucking you off," she said with a broad smile, and backed out of the way.

Gallagher laughed, and swung into the saddle.

The horse quivered a moment, but it didn't take its eyes off the succulent treat, dangling just out of reach. And it didn't buck.

"That's me boy," whispered Lucas. Still holding the reins loosely, he walked the bay forward the few steps needed for it to reach out and pluck the alfalfa from the fence. The morning air seemed suddenly, intensely still. He could hear the clatter of milk pails in the dairy across the yard, the happy chomping of the horse's jaws, chewing the lucerne, the creak of the saddle leather as he stretched. He expected her to say something, but she didn't.

"So," he said at last, leaning forward to pat the bay's shiny withers, "did you want to go for a ride, then? You're not exactly dressed the part."

"No. I'm attending a lecture in Blackhaven Bay this morning." She paused. "How did you know?"

He swung his head and looked at her over his shoulder. She stood with her back pressed flat against the far fence, her arms braced at her side, her lips parted as if in wonder. He found himself gazing at her mouth, so that it took him a moment to find his voice. "How did I know what?"

"How did you know what to do?"

Turning the horse's head, Lucas nudged the stallion toward her. "A very wise man once told me that the best way to make a horse do what you want it to, is to make obeying you more pleasant than disobeying."

She watched him come at her, her head falling back as he rode closer. "I didn't think you could do it," she admitted.

"I know." He drew rein before her and brought his hand up to push his broad-brimmed hat farther back on his head. "You came here hoping to see me go sailing arse over teakettle, didn't you?"

A startled leap of laughter sparkled in the impossibly blue depths of her eyes, and a naughty kind of smile curled her lips. "Yes, I suppose I did. Why?"

He stared down at her upturned face. He was suddenly, intensely serious. "That's my question. Why? Why would you want me to fail?"

The teasing laughter died out of her eyes, to be replaced by a curiously bleak, haunted look. She shook her head, and he saw her fine white throat work as she swallowed. "I don't know. Perhaps because you ... you don't behave as one ought."

He rested his forearm along the saddle's high pommel and leaned into it, the big horse moving restlessly beneath him.
"Behaving as one ought
is important to you, is it?"

"Yes." The breeze lifted the white satin ribbons of her hat, fluttering them and causing Finnegan's Luck to snort in alarm. Reaching out one hand, she caught them, thoughtfully, and wrapped them over and over again around one fist. "Yes it is. It's not always easy, at times. But I do try to do what is expected of me. To be the daughter my mother and father always wanted."

"Why?"

She jerked, her breath coming hard and fast enough to shudder the lace at her throat, her hands tightening on the ribbons in a curiously flustered gesture. "What do you mean, why? What kind of a question is that?"

He gave her a slow smile. "Obviously a pretty good one, if you can't answer it."

Her chin came up, her nostrils flaring in that haughty way she had that never failed to rub him the wrong direction. "I should think the answer is obvious. After all, if you'd broken a few less rules in your life, Mr. Gallagher, you wouldn't be in the situation you are today."

He went quite still. "Perhaps." Straightening, he gathered the bay's reins. "Then again, maybe if you'd broken a few more rules yourself, you wouldn't be caught in the situation you're in, either."

"What's wrong with my situation?" she demanded, pushing away from the fence and going to open the gate for him.

"I don't know." He paused in the open gate and looked down at her. "You tell me."

The urge to linger was strong, the urge to stay and banter with her, to watch the subtle play of emotions across her smooth young face, to notice so many things—things a man in his position had no business noticing, such as the regal curve of her long white neck when she held her head just so, or the way a stray shaft of sunlight peeking through the clouds brought out the fire in her golden hair.

Swallowing an oath, Lucas tightened his knees and sent the hunter past her, through the open gate, toward the rolling expanse of pastureland beyond.

The monthly lectures of Blackhaven Bay's Scientific Society were held in the town's only church, a staunchly Anglican, neo-Gothic pile of roughly cut sandstone known as St. Anthony's, located high on a grassy, windswept hill overlooking the sea.

Herr Professor Heinrich Luneberg proved to be a tall, gangly man with a craggy face dominated by a bold black mustache and startlingly thick eyebrows he had a habit of raising and lowering to punctuate each sentence. It was one of Jessie's favorite topics, speleology, and the professor's information was valuable. And still she found her mind wandering.

There was something magical about the clear, vibrant quality of the light near the sea, she thought, as she let her gaze rove over the church's soaring whitewashed walls and ceiling. No wonder Genevieve loved her cottage on the point. It would be nice to live by the sea, someday, Jessie decided; to wake up every morning to a world bathed in this spectacular light. And then she remembered. She already knew where she would be living the rest of her days: at Beaulieu Hall, with Harrison.

He sat on the pew beside her, and she let herself look at him. He was a handsome man, Harrison Tate, his features even and regular without straying into the flamboyant beauty of Warrick, or the darkly stirring ruggedness of a man like Lucas Gallagher. There was nothing extreme about Harrison. He was the epitome of a colonial English gentleman: balanced, moderate, and in control, always.

As if sensing her attention, he glanced down to catch her looking at him, and gave her a small smile. But the smile was tight around the edges, a gentle reminder to Jessie that she should at least appear to be listening to Herr Professor Heinrich Luneberg, rather than admiring the effect of the light on the church's high vaulted ceiling or wondering why the thought of living the rest of her life at Beaulieu Hall with Harrison brought a sad, hollow ache to her chest.

After the lecture, they walked side by side down the grassy hill, among the churchyard's jumbled granite tombstones, toward where they had left the carriage. A fitful wind was blowing, chasing intermittent small, puffy white clouds across the sun so that the afternoon felt warm and cool by turns. In the bay below, the sea surged dark and brooding, beating the shingled shoreline with a rhythmic rush and drag.

"Interesting lecture," said Harrison, crooking his arm so that she could place her hand on his elbow. "Although not, perhaps, quite as entertaining as the time that fellow used a jolt of electricity to briefly reanimate a dead frog."

Jessie laughed. "Poor Herr Professor Luneberg. He should have been allowed to present his lecture in the limestone caverns up in Fern Gully, surrounded by mysteriously glowing crystalline stalactites and stalagmites. Then I'm sure you'd have found caves more interesting than dead frogs."

"Huh," said Harrison. "If the professor had been lecturing up in Fern Gully, I, for one, would not have attended. I didn't enjoy the caves when you dragged me through them as a child. I certainly have no desire to revisit them now."

She swung her head to look up at him. "You don't think it would be interesting to explore the caves again, now that you understand them better?"

An odd silence lay heavy between them. He said, "You're not seriously considering it, are you? Exploring the caves again, I mean."

"Of course I am."

Harrison's nose quivered in that way he had, although he was still smiling. "Really, Jesmond. Attending fashionable lectures on speleology is one thing. But for a grown woman to go scrambling about in caves like some bizarre thrill seeker is something else entirely."

She swung to face him, her hand sliding off his arm as her step faltered. "Something else entirely? Exactly what else is it, Harrison?"

"It's just.. . not done." He was making an obvious effort to keep his voice light, although she could see the worry in his eyes. "Even you must see it wouldn't be proper."

A passing cloud threw a shadow across the hillside as the wind gusted up, sending dried eucalyptus leaves rattling along the gravel path. "Is it really so important? To always do what the polite world considers proper?"

"Of course it is," he exclaimed, genuinely shocked.

She looked at him, at his fine, handsome face, his faultlessly starched collar, his carefully knotted tie. "Have you never done anything in your entire life, Harrison, that the polite world might consider improper?"

An oddly boyish, endearing smile quirked up the edges of his lips. Reaching out, he recaptured her hand and held it in his. "I'd like to say no, but I must confess to one secret: At the age of fourteen, I fell madly, passionately, irrevocably in love with a beautiful, utterly fascinating if slightly unpredictable girl. And my obsession with her endures to this day."

"And is love improper, then?" she asked, her voice hushed. "Is it not the
done thing?"

His grip on her hand tightened as his expression grew intent, earnest. "When taken to such an excess, I fear it must be. But this is one impropriety I have no intention of giving up."

The sun had come out from behind its cloud to pour warm and golden over the hillside and the sparkling sweep of the wind-whipped bay below She told herself she should have felt both gratified and excited to know that he loved her with such uncharacteristically wild abandon. A woman should be relieved to know that the man to whom she had given her hand loved her with such passionate devotion.

Instead, Jessie found her breath clogging in her tight throat, choking her. She had the oddest sensation, as if she were sliding helplessly into a deep, dark well of despair from which there was no escape.

Jessie had almost finished saddling Cimmeria when Charlie wandered into the stable, his hands shoved casually into the waistband of his trousers, his sharp, street-bred features contorting as he labored to whistle a tune she didn't recognize.

Coming after the bright afternoon sunshine, the gloom of the stable blinded him, so that it was a moment before he saw her. He pulled up short, his boots digging into the dusty straw, his whistle cutting off midnote.
"Miss."
He started forward, his face going white beneath his freckles. "I didn't know you was wanting to go for a ride. Here, let me do that for you."

She gave the boy a gentle smile as she slipped the bridle over her mare's ears. "You weren't here before I went away to London, were you?"

"No, ma'am." He hovered at her elbow and shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. "If you'll just let me—"

"I often saddle my own horse," she said, and led the mare out into the yard, to the mounting block.

The boy followed her, his eyes widening. "But Miss—You can't mean to go riding without a groom."

She swung her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Heaven help me. You sound like Harrison."

"Miss?"

"Never mind." She gave the boy another smile, so he'd know she wasn't irritated with him. "I looked in on Old Tom, but he's not well and I didn't want to trouble him." Gathering the reins, she reached for the pommel.

"I can get Gallagher," said Charlie, still dancing nervously about her. "He's just in the south paddock, working with a chestnut gelding the master's been having trouble with."

Jessie settled into the saddle with practiced ease. "I don't need Mr. Gallagher, thank you. I'm not going any appreciable distance." And then, before he could say anything more, she touched her heel to the mare's side and cantered away.