The Arrangement

by Joan Wolf

  A green velvet sofa was placed at right angles to the fireplace, and the earl guided me to sit upon it. He sat next to me.

  I stared at my hands, which were clasped tensely in my lap. “I don’t want that money, Savile,” I said.

  “Is the good opinion of other people more important to you than this chance to secure your son’s future?” he said.

  My head snapped up. “Do you really think I care what other people might think of me?” I said bitterly, staring defiantly into his eyes. “Think for a moment, Savile. Can you tell me how I am to explain to Nicky that a man who is a perfect stranger has left him such a huge sum of money? He might not question it now; he’s only eight. But as he grows older he will question it, and I don’t want that to happen.”

  The golden eyes looked gravely back into mine.

  “Yes,” he said after a minute. “I see what you mean.”

  Hope flickered in my heart. “Then you will allow me to refuse the inheritance?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. Suddenly, all my senses were acutely conscious of him, sitting at a respectable distance from me on the sofa, but still much too close.

  He said, “What if I find a way to give the money to Nicky without him ever knowing that it came from George?”

  But I would know it came from George, I thought.

  “No,” I said in a hard voice. “I don’t want it.”

  He leaned toward me, compelling me with the extraordinary power of his physical nearness. “Let it go, Gail,” he said softly. “Whatever wrong George may have done to you, let it go. Take the money for Nicky.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t know,” I said. “You don’t understand.”

  “You won’t be punishing George by refusing to take his money,” Savile said reasonably. “You will be punishing Nicky.”

  I jumped to my feet and backed away from him until I fetched up against the desk on the opposite side of the fire from the sofa.

  “I will never forgive that man,” I said. “Never! And I will not take a penny of his money.”

  Slowly Savile rose to his feet. He did not move away from the sofa, however, and when he spoke his voice sounded oddly flat. “You look like a piece of delicate porcelain, but you’re as adamant as rock, aren’t you?”

  I met his eyes challengingly. “No, I’m not delicate, my lord. I can’t afford to be delicate. I’ve learned to survive on my own, and I am going to continue to do just that. I have no need for George’s blood money; I can provide for my son myself.”

  “Blood money?” he said.

  I could feel my nostrils quiver with tension. I had said too much already. I shook my head, turned my shoulder to him, and did not answer.

  The silence between us lasted for what seemed a very long time. Then he said, “Very well. If at any time you change your mind about this, let me know. Otherwise I will hold the money in trust for Nicky until he is twenty-one.”

  I started to protest, then closed my lips. It would be many more years until Nicky turned twenty-one, I thought I would deal with the problem of George’s legacy then.

  Chapter Nine

  The remainder of my stay at Savile Castle passed in an uneventful and civilized manner. The Coles, apparently still swayed by fear of Savile, were subdued at dinner, and once more I retired to my room early, although with a much easier mind than I’d had the night before.

  The worst had not happened. George had confirmed Tommy and me as Nicky’s parents, and I was free to go home to my son and pretend that I had simply been looking at a stallion.

  Life would go on as usual.

  * * * *

  And so it did.

  February passed, then March and part of April. I was beginning to think that Savile had forgotten his promise to let me breed Maria to one of his stallions when I received a communication from him that he would be arriving at Deepcote in two days’ time to help me take Maria to his stud near Epsom.

  I had never expected to see Savile himself. If he had remembered his promise at all, I had fully expected him to send a groom.

  I did not at all like the excitement that jolted through me at the thought of meeting him again.

  Don’t be a fool, Gail, I told myself firmly. Savile is probably coming because he wants to keep an eye on Nicky.

  He is just the sort of man who will feel obligated by that absurd will of George’s. He most certainly is not coming to see you.

  I did my best to put all thoughts of Savile from my mind, but this proved rather difficult as Nicky talked about nothing else until the afternoon when the earl arrived at Deepcote.

  I was working with a client in the paddock behind the stable when I heard Nicky shouting, “Mama, Mama! His lordship is here!”

  The man I was longeing on Sampson turned and gave me a startled look. “Pay no attention to Nicky, Mr. Watson,” I commanded. “Concentrate on what you are doing.”

  Samuel Watson took a deep breath and nodded.

  Sampson’s trot had begun to lag a little and I clicked to encourage him to step forward.

  “Up—down—up—down—up—down,” I counted. “That’s the way, Mr. Watson,” I approved as my student rose and fell to the rhythm of Sampson’s trot. “Try to keep your legs under you. That’s very good.”

  I had found that teaching new riders to post to the trot on the longe line was the best way to help them find their balance and feel the motion of the horse. Consequently I was standing in the middle of the paddock, with the longe line in one hand and a long whip in the other, while Sampson went around me in a big circle. As I turned with Sampson and Sam Watson, I saw Savile come around the corner of the stable and approach the paddock.

  I rotated away from him.

  “Look down, Mr. Watson,” I said. “Can you see your toes?”

  “Yes,” came the breathless reply.

  “Then your legs are too far forward. Move them back.”

  Mr. Watson moved his legs back.

  “Straighten your shoulders. Try not to hunch forward.”

  Mr. Watson’s shoulders came back. He sat up straighter. He continued to post to the motion of Sampson’s trot.

  “Excellent!” I said with sincerity. “You are one of my best students, Mr. Watson.”

  The tense, concentrated face of my client broke into a quick smile.

  The lesson was finished fifteen minutes later, and I held Sampson while Mr. Watson dismounted the way I had taught him, then the two of us walked toward the stable and the Earl of Savile, who was standing outside the paddock fence, watching us.

  He was hatless, his dark gold hair bared to the spring sun. I had forgotten how tall he was.

  “I am very glad to see you, my lord,” I said with a smile I tried to make merely pleasant. “May I introduce Mr. Samuel Watson to you?” I looked at Mr. Watson. “Mr. Watson, this is the Earl of Savile.”

  I saw Sam Watson’s blue-gray eyes flicker with surprise. He had not made a fortune in the city, however, by giving away his feelings. “A pleasure to meet you, m’lord,” he said with dignity.

  Savile let a small silence fall as he looked down at my client from the other side of the fence. Then, “Mr. Watson,” he replied in a voice that was definitely frosty.

  I was surprised. I had never thought that Savile would be too high in the instep to be on pleasant terms with a Cit.

  I said, “Mr. Watson has taken the Edgerton estate on the other side of Highgate, and I have just begun to give him lessons. I think he is going to be one of my best students.”

  Mr. Watson gave me an engaging grin. “You’ve a kind heart, Mrs. Saunders. I appreciate it.”

  “I take it that Mr. Watson is not staying in the house then?” Savile said in a voice that was only marginally less frosty than before.

  I looked at him thoughtfully. “No,” I replied. “He drives over each afternoon for his lesson.”

  Nicky said, “Edgerton is a bang-up place, my lord. It even has a maze! Mama got lost in it and Mr. Watson had to find her.”


  “Indeed,” Savile said.

  I hesitated, wondering what to say next. In the last few days, after his lesson Sam had come into the house for some refreshment before driving home, but Savile sounded so forbidding that it didn’t seem a good idea to try to throw the two together.

  Sam saved me. “I had better be going, Mrs. Saunders,” he said. “The same time tomorrow?”

  Sampson pulled at the rein I was holding, as if to remind me of his presence. Absently I reached up to rub his forehead.

  “I think we will have to take a few days off, Mr. Watson,” I said apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  He smiled easily. “I shall miss coming, but of course you must see to your own affairs, Mrs. Saunders. Just send me word when you are ready to begin again.”

  I smiled back at him. I liked Sam Watson. Like Albert Cole, he was a self-made man, but unlike Albert, Sam had imagination. He understood that there was more to life than making money—something that I thought was probably very rare in a man who had literally worked his way out of the sewers of London.

  Sam was in the process of remaking himself. He had learned to speak without his original, disfiguring accent; he had learned to drive and to dance; he had acquired a country house; now he was learning to ride.

  There was a sense of adventure about him that reminded me very much of Tommy.

  Now he quite calmly ducked through the paddock fence and straightened up so that he was standing next to Savile. Sam was not a tall man and he had to look quite far up to meet the earl’s eyes. “Good day, my lord,” he said calmly. “It was nice to meet you.”

  Humor softened Savile’s mouth. “I am delighted to have met you also, Mr. Watson,” he said, with much more courtesy than he had shown thus far.

  Sam walked off toward the carriage house, where his phaeton and groom awaited him.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, I turned to Savile and said hotly, “I’ll have you know that Mr. Watson is one of my best clients. He is paying me a small fortune to teach him to ride. I’m not asking you to socialize with the man, but you could at least be polite!”

  “I was polite,” Savile replied calmly.

  I snorted.

  Over the earl’s shoulder I saw John Grove approaching. “We’ve got the curricle and two horses, plus another horse to use to pony your mare to Epsom, Mrs. Saunders. Is there room for the three of them in your stable?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have an empty stall, and my ponies can spend the night in the paddock. You may put your horses in their stalls, Grove.”

  As we walked around the corner of the stable, a fashionable phaeton came from the direction of the carriage house and headed toward the open gates. It was pulled by a neat pair of grays and was driven with smooth competence by Sam Watson.

  “He drives very well,” the earl said dispassionately.

  “He’s a remarkable man,” I said. “I was not flattering him when I said that he is an excellent student.”

  “You know him socially as well?”

  “Yes,” I said, and rubbed Sampson’s forehead again. “He has been a welcome addition to our small neighborhood.”

  A small frown drew Savile’s dark gold eyebrows together in a look I took to be one of disapproval. I said haughtily, “You may be too exalted in rank to inhabit the same room as a Cit, my lord, but I can assure you that I am not.”

  His mouth set in a grim-looking line. “I did not say that.”

  “Well, that is how you looked.”

  “What is a Cit, Mama?” Nicky asked.

  “A Cit is someone who has made money in investment or banking in the City of London,” I answered promptly. “Some people look down on Cits because their parents were poor and landless and because their taste is usually uneducated. A situation which is not their fault.”

  “Oh,” Nicky said doubtfully, not quite certain what I meant. He looked at the earl. “Mr. Watson is a good’un, really he is, my lord. He’s paying Mama a lot of money to teach him to ride. And he can hit a ball farther than anyone I’ve ever seen.” Nicky turned back to me. “Can’t he, Mama?”

  “He certainly can, sweetheart,” I replied.

  “He sounds like a perfect paragon,” the earl said smoothly.

  I didn’t reply to that provocative remark and instead led the way into the house.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Macintosh was thrilled to see Savile again and Mr. Macintosh outdid himself with dinner. We started with a light vegetable soup, then progressed to wild ducks served with a shallot sauce. For dessert there was a trifle.

  It was a very simple meal compared with the dinners served at Savile Castle, but for us it was lavish. Nicky’s eyes were enormous as he regarded the three different vegetables served with the ducks.

  “Mr. Macintosh has outdone himself for you, my lord,” I said. There was no point in pretending otherwise; Savile had seen what our normal fare consisted of.

  He put a morsel of duck in his mouth and closed his eyes. “Magnificent,” he intoned.

  Nicky giggled, and even I had to smile.

  “Do you know how tempted I am to lure the Macintoshes away from you?” Savile said. “It is only my sense of honor that keeps me from making them an offer.”

  “It isn’t your honor at all,” I retorted. “It’s that you know they wouldn’t go.”

  He turned to my son. “I think I have just been insulted, Nicky.”

  Nicky laughed. “Mama knows you were making a joke, sir.” Then he added, with just the faintest undertone of worry in his voice, “You wouldn’t take the Macintoshes away from us.”

  “You’re right,” Savile said, his face suddenly grave. “I wouldn’t.”

  I changed the subject. “How are you planning to get us all to Epsom tomorrow? Did I hear Grove say something about ponying Maria?”

  “Yes,” Savile replied. “I thought I would take you and Nicky in the curricle with me, and let Grove ride Domino and lead Maria. Domino is a nice, steady old campaigner and will be a calming influence on her.”

  I said, “I think I had better ride Maria myself. One has much more control over her from the saddle than from the back of another horse.”

  He looked at me. He took a sip of wine, then carefully replaced his glass in exactly the same spot as it had been before he picked it up.

  “Do you think Maria will be unsafe on the road?” he inquired softly.

  I gave him one of my best smiles. “Only if she is handled by a stranger.”

  We continued to look at each other.

  “She will be fine with me,” I said seriously, answering the worry that I saw in his eyes. “I ride her on the road all the time around here.”

  “Country roads are not the same as a highway,” he pointed out.

  “You have never seen me in the saddle, have you, my lord?” I asked.

  “I have not had that pleasure.”

  “If you had, you wouldn’t worry,” I returned.

  A smile glimmered in his eyes. “Such modesty,” he said.

  “Modesty has its place,” I agreed, “but sometimes truth is more useful.”

  At that he laughed.

  “Mama is a wonderful rider,” Nicky assured the earl.

  “Very well then. It looks as if it will be just you and me in the curricle, Nicky.”

  Nicky’s face glowed. “How long will the ride be, my lord?”

  “About four hours, I should think—my stud is about twenty-five miles from Deepcote. If we leave in the morning we can be there well in time for me to show you around the farm. You can meet the gentleman who is to be the father of Maria’s baby”—Nicky laughed merrily at this sally—“and your mother can assure herself that Maria is going to be well cared for and happy.”

  Maria would have to remain at Savile’s stud until she came into season so she could be bred to his stallion. I would go home without her the following day.

  Nicky helped Mrs. Macintosh clear the dishes from the main course and then the trifle
was brought out and set before me. After we had finished the dessert, I sent Nicky up to his room and Savile and I moved to the drawing room. Mrs. Macintosh had started a fire while we ate, but I was acutely conscious of how the room must look to a man who called Savile Castle home.

  We took our places on either side of the fire and I picked up the poker to push an imaginary branch back into the grate. I said, without looking at him, “I am very grateful to you, my lord, for this chance to breed Maria.”

  I knew my voice sounded a little stiff. It was not that I wasn’t grateful, it was just that it galled me that after I had made such a point of being able to support Nicky on my own, I was forced to accept Savile’s generosity this way.

  “There is no need to be grateful, Mrs. Saunders,” he returned easily. “I know I will get my money from you in time.”

  His reply soothed my pride, and I felt some of the stiffness drain out of my body. I said a little too fiercely, “I will repay you the moment I sell Maria’s foal.”

  He didn’t answer, and when I looked at him he was regarding me with a grave expression.

  I said quickly, “It was very kind of you to come for us yourself, my lord. Nicky is thrilled to have a chance to ride behind your famous chestnuts.”

  He nodded and transferred his gaze to the fire.

  A dreadful suspicion suddenly leaped into my mind.

  Would Savile take the opportunity of being alone with Nicky to inform him about the legacy?

  I stared at the earl’s clear-cut, classical profile and knew instantly that he would never resort to such underhanded tactics. I felt a stab of guilt for even thinking such a thing of him.

  His gaze lifted from the fire and returned to me. He said, “I thought you told me that you taught children. This Watson fellow looks to be about my age. He most certainly is not a child.”