by Eloisa James
“We looked all over the grounds,” Imogen put in, with a rather waspish note in her voice.
“Let me see how the race goes,” Lucius said in a voice that quelled any further questions. “I’d be happy to think about the two-year-old, Maitland. Perhaps I could stroll with you to the stables?”
Draven’s attention swung like a child’s when offered a toy back to the important theme of the horse. “Good man! Let’s be off, then. As I say, I’d wish to just check on that jockey and give him a last few words of advice. I’d love to be running Blue Peter myself, in all truth.”
“You promised,” Imogen said sharply.
He blinked and looked at Imogen as if he’d forgotten her very existence. “So I did,” he answered. “It’s just a matter of bracing up Bunts. He’s being crotchety about it at the moment, but I’ll have a word and all will be well.” And he took himself out the door, obviously eager to chide the fearful Bunts.
Lucius looked down at Tess. He was wearing his noncommittal expression, but she could read him. Not that there was much interpretation needed in the way his hand touched her cheek and the back of her neck, a caress so fleeting that it burned her skin with its intensity.
“I shall return shortly,” he said, inclining his head to Tess, and then bowing to Imogen.
Lucius had lovely manners, Tess thought to herself.
“I gather you didn’t mind your husband making a cake of himself like that,” Imogen said scornfully.
Tess straightened. “What do you mean?”
“Touching you in public,” she said disdainfully. “Caressing you. I know we didn’t grow up with a governess, Tess, but really, you must learn to tailor your behavior to that of proper society, or no one will wish to know you.”
“Coming from someone who was saved from a Gretna Green marriage by my husband, your censure seems out of place,” Tess said. “You certainly didn’t consider tailoring your behavior, nor the effect that your elopement might have on Annabel’s and Josie’s future marriages!”
“Since Draven and I did not marry in Scotland, the question is moot,” Imogen said icily.
“I fail to see what was so improper about Lucius’s farewell,” Tess said, trying to keep her temper. Imogen was unhappy. She wasn’t sure why, but she could see it well enough.
“If you don’t realize, I’m sure it’s not my place to tell you.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Imogen sniffed. She leaned forward out of the window, and said, “I’m almost certain that the Cup is about to begin. This box is all very well, but one can’t hear any of the announcements.”
Tess swallowed a violent desire to tell her sister to go stand at the rail if she didn’t like the box.
Horses were pacing slowly toward the starting line. Tess always thought the jockeys looked so precariously small, perched on the great backs of the horses.
“I can’t tell,” Imogen said. “It might be the last race before the Cup. I don’t see Draven’s colors anywhere. What are Felton’s colors?”
“I don’t have any idea,” Tess said, realizing that she’d visited Midnight Blossom, but ignored the rest of Lucius’s stables. “He’s running Something Wanton, though. Do you see him?”
They both squinted off toward the starting line, but it was well around the curve. The royal box was beautifully situated to see the end of a race, but not its beginning.
“I find it hard to believe that you don’t even know your husband’s colors,” Imogen said. She could feel the meanness uncurling in her heart; it wasn’t fair that Tess should marry a man who kissed her like that. In public, without a thought for what others thought. And who looked at her in such a way as if—as if—she shrugged away the thought.
“We haven’t discussed his stables,” Tess said.
“Well, if you want to have that sort of marriage,” Imogen began.
But her sister cut her off. “To what sort of marriage do you refer?”
Imogen curled her lip. “The type in which the wife spends her day consulting with the housekeeper, which certainly appears to be your daily routine. The husband’s wishes and deepest ambitions are never discussed. His true life happens outside the house, outside the marriage.”
“My goodness you’re dramatic,” Tess said. She had a haughty, older sister expression that further inflamed Imogen’s temper.
“I know every dream in Draven’s heart!” Imogen said, knowing she should feel sorry that Tess had no real understanding of her husband. Their relationship was shallow. But it was hard to feel sorry when Lucius Felton looked at his wife that way. It wasn’t fair.
There was a distant sound of a pistol shot, and they both glanced toward the starting line. The huge mass of colored horses were milling about, rearing in the air.
Tess could hear whickers from the horses and shouts from the jockeys. She certainly didn’t know all the dreams in Lucius’s heart. In fact, she doubted she knew any of them.
“A false start,” Imogen said. “Draven says half of the false starts are because the legs are trying to exhaust a given horse and stop it from winning. Blue Peter would never be exhausted by such shabby tactics.”
“I doubt Something Wanton would either,” Tess said.
“Not that you would know. Have you even bothered to tell Mr. Felton about Something Wanton’s likes and dislikes, so that he has the slightest chance of winning the race?”
“Likes? Dislikes?” Tess cried. “What does it matter? Something Wanton never won a race for Papa, for all the fact that he was so certain the horse liked apple-mash. And no, I haven’t spent a moment discussing that horse with my husband.”
“I forgot,” Imogen said spitefully. “You need to discuss important matters like the linens and the household accounts.”
“If I lived with my mother-in-law as you do, I undoubtedly wouldn’t have to bother with the accounts,” Tess snapped, finally exasperated beyond all measure. “What is the matter with you, Imogen?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Imogen said primly, straightening her back and pretending to take a great interest in the horses pounding around the nearest curve on their first circle about the grounds.
Tess ground her teeth. “You told us repeatedly that you would expire if you weren’t able to marry Maitland. And you did it. If you have rethought your position, there’s no need to be rude to me.”
Imogen bristled all over like a cat cornered by a terrier. “I have rethought nothing! I adore Draven. He is the very air I breathe!”
Tess stared at her. “I believe you. I simply begin to wonder whether breathing that air is poisoning your character.”
“That is such an unpleasant thing to say,” Imogen said slowly. So slowly that Tess had time to feel a pulse of heart-stopping guilt.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” she said in a rush.
Imogen was gripping the window ledge in front of her and staring blindly out at the horses rounding the curve for the second time in a dazzling sweep of pounding hooves and flashing colors. “I’m being a beast, Tess,” she said. “And it’s not because I regret marrying Draven. I love Draven.”
She turned and Tess saw that truth raw in her eyes. “I adore him. I—well you know about me. I worship the ground he walks on. He…he doesn’t feel precisely the same for me.”
“Oh, dearest,” Tess whispered.
“He cares for me,” Imogen said. “It’s just that he cares for his horses more.” She said it fiercely, and when she looked up, her eyes were shiny with tears. “He talks about them in his sleep. He can’t help talking about them all the time. He can’t help it.”
“I know,” Tess said. “Papa was just the same.”
“I thought of that,” Imogen whispered. Her gloved fingers were clenching on the wood again and again. A light rain was beginning to splatter down on the track, dampening down the puffs of dust that blew in their direction. “But I don’t think that Mama was unhappy, was she?”
“No,” Tess said instantly. “She wasn’t.
I remember her quite well. She loved us, and she loved Papa. And I don’t think she minded for a moment that she’d given up—well, the chance at a marriage in England, and the season, and all those gowns.”
“I don’t either,” Imogen said. “I don’t either!”
“Of course you don’t—” Tess began but there was a sudden howl from the crowd, a primitive scream or moan that made both of their heads jerk back to the track.
“A horse is down,” Imogen said, gloved hand to her mouth.
“Oh dear,” Tess moaned. “I hate the racetrack, I hate it, I just hate it. Every time a horse goes down I think of all the horses that Papa lost, and how dearly he loved them, and the agony of putting them down…”
“I know just what you mean,” Imogen said, reaching out and taking her hand tightly. “Remember how he wept when Highbrow had to be shot?”
Tess nodded. “He was never precisely the same again.” People were rushing all over the racetrack. Horses were being led off. Clearly the accident had been a serious one. Tess had a terrible longing to rush out to Lucius’s carriage and return to his house. Go back and check the linen and forget that the life of the track, with its glories and tragedies, ever existed.
“No, you’re right,” Imogen said. “Papa was never the same after Highbrow. All the money was gone, for one thing.” She obviously remembered, suddenly, and glanced at Tess. “Not that anyone blamed you, Tess. He should never have listened to you in the first place. You were nothing more than a girl.”
“Well, he never did listen to me again,” Tess said woodenly.
The door opened and Lucius was standing there. Tess started up with a gladness that she couldn’t conceal, but he was looking at her sister.
“Imogen,” he said, and it was the first time he had used her first name.
Imogen rose from her seat. Her face had gone pale, but her voice was steady. “Draven?”
Lucius nodded.
“Was he riding?” And then, without waiting for an answer: “He was riding Blue Peter.”
Lucius took her arm, and said, “We must go to him now.” He looked at Tess, and she snatched Imogen’s pelisse and bundled her into it, her hands trembling as she buttoned the front.
“He was riding Blue Peter,” Imogen repeated, looking white about the lips. “But he’s alive—isn’t he alive?” she gripped Lucius’s arm as he was opening the door.
“He’s alive,” Lucius said. “He wants to see you.”
But Tess saw something in his dark eyes that Imogen wouldn’t have recognized, and her heart sank.
The rain had stopped, leaving a clean smell in the air. The crowds were rapidly thinning. People rushed off, carriages jostling with gigs, fleeing in all directions to warm houses, sweltering pubs, cozy villages nearby.
They half walked, half ran through the people strolling away, all of them talking of the accident.
“He went down like a log in a firestorm,” one man said.
“The odds were eight to one against ’im,” another voice said. “Why the devil would he risk his skin at odds like those?”
Imogen didn’t look as if she could hear anything, to Tess’s relief. She said in an oddly calm voice, “Where is he? Where have they taken him?”
“He’s in the stables,” Lucius said.
“Is he—” But she started running now, dropping Lucius’s hand and picking up her skirts. With one look, they ran after her, Tess’s bonnet falling off her head. Years later, the only thing she could remember of getting to the stables was her sharp sense that without her bonnet everyone would see her hair and know—know what?
The lost bonnet was irrelevant once they walked into the stables. Draven was lying on a cot, clearly the bed of one of the stable hands who guarded the stables at night.
He looked up at them with such a cheerful expression that Tess’s heart bounded, and she turned to Lucius with delight. But when she grabbed his arm, he was looking at Imogen with such an expression of pity in his eyes that she looked at the cot again. Imogen had thrown herself on the ground beside her husband.
“I’ll need a little nursing, I expect,” Draven was saying, his voice feeble but jovial. “I know you want me off the racetrack.”
Imogen touched him, her hands trembling. “Does it hurt? Has someone summoned a doctor? Do you have a broken limb, Draven?”
“A rib or two, I expect. Won’t be the first ribs I’ve broken. And the pain is less now. I can bear it, Immie.”
“You promised that you wouldn’t ride Blue Peter,” Imogen said, holding his hand tightly. “You promised, Draven, you promised!”
“I couldn’t do it,” he said, and his eyes fell away from hers. “I had to ride him, because Bunts wouldn’t do the job.”
Imogen realized she was crying because Draven’s face blurred before her. Was he even whiter than he had been a moment ago? Why was he lying so still?
“Where is the doctor?” she cried up to Lucius.
He bent down beside her, and she met his eyes. “Call a doctor,” she said, her voice faltering as she said it.
“The doctor saw him as soon as he fell,” he said.
What she read in his eyes turned her heart to stone.
“It’ll be all right,” Draven said with something of his old jaunty confidence. “I’ll need to mend for a while. The important thing is that Blue Peter is fine. I’ll promise the little wife that I’ll never jump on that horse again, how’s that?”
“Nor any other dangerous animal,” Imogen said, striving to smile at him as tears fell onto his cot.
“I didn’t mean to ride,” Draven told her. “You ask Felton. I was talking the jockey into doing it; he was an old woman to act as he did. I had him convinced, I did. And then he just lost heart at the last moment, and I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to win, Imogen.”
“I know you did.” She clutched his hand against her cheek. “Oh sweetheart, I know you did.”
“And it wasn’t just to win either,” he said, struggling almost as if he would sit up, but he lay back.
“Are you in pain?” she whispered. “Oh, Draven, does it hurt?”
But he shook his head. “That’s how I know I’ll be all right, Immie. I’ll be all right. I was worried at first, because it hurt so much, but then the pain went away, and I knew I would live. I’ll win next time, darling.” He took his hand away from her and cupped her cheek. “I’ll win a cup and we’ll have a grand house in London, as grand as anything your sister has. And a royal box too.”
“I don’t want that,” Imogen said, turning her face to kiss his hand. “I don’t care, Draven. I only ever wanted to marry you. I always loved you, from the very moment I saw you.”
“Silly girl,” he said. He didn’t seem to be able to raise his head anymore.
Imogen bent over him, putting her face against his chest. She could hear his heart beating, but it sounded a long way away. “I saw you coming across Papa’s courtyard. You were so beautiful, so alive, so—yourself. Your horse had just won the Ardmore, do you remember?”
“Twenty-pound cup,” he said. But he was blinking. “I can’t see so well, Imogen.”
A sob choked her voice, and she didn’t answer immediately.
“I haven’t—have I?” he asked.
Imogen raised her head and cupped her husband’s face in her hands. “I love you, Draven Maitland. I love you.”
Something in her face seemed to tell him the answer to his question. But he asked it again, his eyes fixed on her, “Immie. Do I really have to die?”
And when she didn’t answer, just leaned down and kissed him on the lips, he merely said, “My Immie.”
Draven was a reckless boy who’d grown into a gambling man. But he had never lacked courage, for all his recklessness. He had never been less than a man, for all his wildness. And he had never been less than the wild thing Imogen’s papa used to call him, except for now. Because now he took what was clearly his last strength and reached for her hand.
“I love you
, Immie.”
Imogen couldn’t answer. Sobs were tearing through her chest.
“I don’t think I married you for the right reasons,” he said, his voice lower now, and palpably thin. “I know I didn’t. But I thank God I did it, Immie. It’s the only good thing I’ve done in my life.”
“Draven, don’t—” she said. She bent her head onto his chest again. His hand was stroking her hair, slowly, so slowly. And she couldn’t hear his heart. Could she?
“I’m not good at saying such things,” he said. “I’d better say them now. I married you, well, for who knows what reason. But I knew by nightfall, Immie, that it was the best thing I ever did. And what I’ve done since, it was all for you, even though I’m not good at saying those things.”
Imogen came to kiss him. There was bright color at the edge of his lip. She dabbed it with her handkerchief, then realized to her horror that it was blood.
“Know that I love you,” she whispered. “You were all I ever wanted in life. Being married to you was all I ever wanted.”
“You deserve better,” he whispered, squinting as if he was trying to see her better.
“There is no one better!” she said fiercely. “No one!”
“That’s my Immie,” he said. “Will you tell Mama that…” His voice trailed off.
“You love her,” Imogen said. “I’ll tell her, Draven. I’ll tell her.”
His hand had been on her shoulder, but it slipped back to the bed. There was a rustle behind her. Imogen didn’t look until a man stooped at her side.
“I’m Reverend Straton. The doctor sent me,” he said, kneeling next to Imogen with an utter lack of pompousness. He put his hand on Draven’s forehead, and said in a deep voice, “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust…”
Imogen put her hand on Draven’s chest. She couldn’t feel his heart. The priest was saying, “verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”