The Horsemaster's Daughter

by Susan Wiggs

  He wore fitted riding breeches and a plain shirt. As she watched, he took a dipper of water from a jug and drank it, letting the droplets sluice down the front of him. Then he peeled off the shirt and slung it over a fence rail. Eliza hoped the children hadn’t noticed her staring at their father’s bare chest, glistening with sweat. She hoped he hadn’t noticed how lonely she was for him.

  “You can get started digging in the roses, right here at the entrance to the racetrack,” she said to Blue and Belinda. “A lot of important people will be coming to see the Thoroughbreds run, and we want to impress them.” She knew enough of the racing world to know that, to the gentry, appearances were everything.

  She tried to compose herself as she approached Hunter. He barely glanced at her, but said, “He won’t take to the starting gate today.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We can get him to back in,” said Noah, “but he won’t come out.”

  She walked slowly around the apparatus. Finn had proven himself tractable going in and out of stalls, and this was no exception. Noah was able to bring him into the gate. But then, when Hunter released the bar, the horse bridled and balked.

  Eliza set her hands on her hips and studied the track. The long, straight sides of the oval had been beaten smooth. It appeared to be the ideal racing ground. A short distance to the east lay the beach, where waves broke on the shore and blue herons stood one-legged in the shallow surf. To the north, a fringe of green brier nodded and shimmered in the sea breeze. The meadows of Albion bordered the other two sides of the track. In the high rippling hills beyond, the white house gleamed, its flaws invisible from a distance.

  The horse had never looked better. Under Noah’s constant care, he had gained weight and bulk and muscle. His coat was polished to a high sheen by constant grooming. But the flare of fear in his countenance troubled Eliza. As she watched, the fear intensified and the horse turned his head sharply to the side.

  “Lead him out of the gate,” she said to Noah.

  Then she went in and stood there, thinking hard.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter asked.

  She’d nearly forgotten he was there. “I’m trying to see what the horse sees.”

  “But—”

  “Hush. I need to concentrate.” Didn’t he know by now that he should trust her when it came to training a horse?

  She felt the breeze in her hair and face, and smelled the salt-heavy air and the rotten-sweet aroma of wrack that washed up on the beach. Heard the shimmering chimes of the wind in the wax-myrtle trees. And saw a dead branch bobbing, bobbing, at the distant north end of the racetrack, preparing to drop off.

  Looking at it, she laughed.

  “What is it?” Impatience edged Hunter’s voice. He was anxious about the upcoming exhibition; she knew it. He wanted the stallion to perform, to make him proud, to bring legitimacy to Albion.

  “Come with me,” she said, walking down the track. Hunter peppered her with questions, but she enjoyed keeping him in suspense.

  When they reached the end of the track, she pointed at the precariously swaying branch of deadwood. Sun and wind had bleached the branch to the color of bone. Two dark knots, like malevolent eyes, marked the end of it. “We’ve got to get that down.”

  “What for?”

  “Because the horse is afraid of it.”

  He snorted humorlessly. “That’s absurd.”

  The wind caught at the pale, bare wood, causing it to nod ominously up and down. “See?” she said. “It looks like a—a snake, or a dragon, doesn’t it?”

  “Looks like a dead tree.”

  She glared at him. “Do you really want to question my judgment in this?” she demanded.

  He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll fetch an ax. I’m going to have to hack through the brush to get to the dead tree.”

  Over the next hour, he worked up a fine sweat, and when he emerged from the brush, his torso was raked by scratches. “There,” he said, gesturing at the place where the huge branch used to be. “I slew your dragon. Are you happy now?”

  “That depends,” she said, trying not to laugh. But he did look comical, scratched and cranky and unkempt.

  “On what?”

  “On what the stallion thinks,” she said, then turned and went to plant flowers with the children.

  She was right, of course, Hunter conceded. The dead tree must have looked alarming to the horse—surely one of the densest of all God’s creatures. If Finn had the wits of Eliza’s laying hens, he would be considered gifted. Once the offending object was removed, the stallion stood calmly in the starting gate. He lowered his head and distended his nostrils, blowing calmly into the dust.

  Hunter and Noah exchanged a glance. “Ready?” he asked the boy.

  Noah gave a brief nod.

  Hunter shoved back the barrier.

  If he had blinked, he would have missed it. But he didn’t. The stallion shot out faster than a stone from a sling. Hunter had never seen any start so swift, and the promise didn’t end there. The stallion thundered hell for leather around the track, his great body stretching to its limit, his head focused and determined with the single-minded absorption of a true champion. The savagery that had made him so difficult had been transformed into pure energy on the track.

  Hunter didn’t have to check the timing in order to know that he’d never seen a horse run faster. He tilted his face to the sky and shut his eyes tight, feeling elation rise like the sun, warming him with rare shimmers of hope. Could it be that finally his fortunes were turning?

  The slowing tempo of hoofbeats alerted him that the run was finished. Noah would have to walk the stallion now to cool him down. Behind him, Hunter heard a familiar low whistle. He was already smiling when he turned.

  “Did you see?” he asked.

  His cousin Charles strode across the yard toward him, hands outstretched in an expression of wonder. “Lord Almighty, I saw. Can’t believe my eyes.”

  “Believe, cousin. It’s the Irish Thoroughbred I wrote you about. It’s going to race in the exhibition run before the yearling auction.”

  “This is the horse that went mad?”

  “The very one.”

  “What happened to you?” Charles asked, eyeing him up and down. “Have you been in a fight?”

  Hunter picked up his discarded shirt and dabbed at the stinging scratches on his chest, shoulders and back. “Not in the way you think,” he said, putting on the shirt. Ever since his confrontation with Eliza after the picnic, they had been locked in a battle of wills. She claimed the children needed to reminisce about their mother, to weep over her picture and grieve for her. He couldn’t make Eliza understand that they had all been grieving for two years. No good could come of probing deeper into the wounds. The best solution for all concerned was for him to settle on a new wife and concentrate on Albion. That was the only way to get on with their lives.

  He shook off the thought. His cousin’s visit provided a welcome distraction.

  Charles Calhoun’s green eyes glittered merrily. He lived in Richmond, where his father used to manage the business end of the tobacco trade. One day, about seventeen years back, Charles’s father had simply got up and left. Charles had been just thirteen at the time, confused and frightened by the sudden abandonment. His mother had taken to her bed that day and hadn’t been the same since. Like a young Odysseus, Charles had stalked his father, tracking him westward into the misty wooded hills of the Blue Ridge.

  He’d found his father in the arms of a Shawnee Indian woman. They lived in a cabin with a new baby and too many dogs, and his father had been too drunk to recognize the sallow-faced young man with the straggling new beard as his first-born son. Charles had returned home to Richmond, reporting to his mother that his father was dead. Then, in accordance with family tradition, he had taken his first drink of whiskey and hadn’t stopped until he was wildly drunk. That night he had begun a love affair with his mother’s maidservant, and less than a year
later the girl died giving birth to Noah.

  It was no rare thing for a man of the south to have fathered a mulatto child. The relationship was no secret, particularly if that child turned out to be as handsome as Noah was, and had a special talent, as Noah did with horses. Hunter supposed it was no great matter in Charles’s mind, but Charles had always been fond of parties and socializing and wasn’t given to searching his soul. He never wondered if there was something he should be doing for this boy who had been born into the world because of him.

  The matter wasn’t for Hunter to decide. Lord knew, he had a hard enough time being father to his own legitimate son. Charles was not a bad person, but a careless one, raised as he was in a climate of infidelity. Years ago, he and Hunter had vied good-naturedly for Lacey’s hand in marriage, and Charles had cheerfully backed off when she favored Hunter.

  “Cousin Charles!” Belinda shrieked with delight. Dropping her trowel, the little girl came tumbling pell-mell across the yard, Blue at her heels. The two of them rammed smack into Charles, who staggered back with exaggerated surprise, laughing and hugging them. They adored him, because he laughed easily and sang songs and never told them no. Hunter looked on proudly, thinking how beautiful his children were. Belinda was as fair and pale as the dawn, and Blue had his mother’s dramatic intensity. Like Lacey, he was keen-eyed and driven, filled with secrets.

  “Look at you,” Charles said, holding them at arm’s length. “Blue, you’re getting taller than a bean stalk, and I swear, Miss Belinda, you’re even prettier than your own mama.”

  “Was she?” Belinda leaped on the comment. “Was she pretty?”

  “Don’t pester your cousin,” Hunter warned. He felt Eliza’s silent censure, but ignored it.

  “They’re not pestering me,” Charles said. He chucked Belinda under the chin. “Your mama was just about the prettiest thing in Virginia, honey, and now that honor belongs to you. And who is this?” he asked, focusing a sharp interest on Eliza.

  “This is Miss Eliza,” Belinda said. “She’s our governess.”

  “You don’t say.” Charles took Eliza’s hand and bent gallantly over it.

  “I do so say,” Belinda objected. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “I heard.” He caught Hunter’s eye and winked. “Well done, cousin. Well done indeed.”

  Eliza watched the play of sunlight on Charles’s shining dark hair, and Hunter watched her. His gut twisted with an unpleasant twinge. What was it he didn’t like about this moment? The genuine warmth in her smile as she said “How do you do?” or the clear pleasure in Charles’s eyes when he smiled at her? Or the way he kept hold of her hand and brushed his thumb lightly over her wrist?

  Hunter grabbed Charles by the shoulder and drew him away from Eliza. “It’s been too long since your last visit, you old sinner,” he said. “Come and inspect this horse of mine.”

  He felt Charles straighten his shoulders as they approached Noah. The youth had slowed the stallion to an easy walk, back and forth at the end of the track.

  When the boy saw his father coming, his face drew into sullen and wary lines. The two of them had never known each other well. When the boy was a baby, Charles had given him to a wet nurse at Albion, and he had been raised here, neither family member nor slave, but an uneasy guest who worked hard to earn his keep. Eventually he had found his place by proving himself gifted with horses. His small stature and keen sense of timing and control made him the best jockey in the county.

  “Mister Charles,” he said formally.

  “Noah, you’re looking fine. Just fine up on that big old Irishman.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Noah turned the horse away. “I’d best keep him on the move so he doesn’t get a windgall.”

  “I thought you were going to shoot this horse,” Charles said to Hunter, his admiring eye checking out every inch of the stallion.

  “I thought I had to,” Hunter admitted.

  Eliza and the children had finished planting the flowers at the front of the track. He hadn’t thought flowers could improve the place, but the color added a festive air. Now Eliza took her charges out to the beach. They scurried about, collecting shells and letting the waves chase them. He wondered if his children had always been this playful. He couldn’t recall Lacey cavorting on the sand with them, ever.

  “Noah convinced me to get help from the horsemaster of Flyte Island,” he said to Charles.

  “I always thought that was a tall tale.”

  “Turns out it wasn’t. But once I got to the island, I learned that Henry Flyte died last year.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Hunter gestured at Eliza, who had picked her skirts up to her knees to let the waves splash over her bare feet. “That’s his daughter.”

  Charles slapped his forehead. “Goddamn it, Hunter, where does your luck come from?”

  Hunter laughed, genuinely baffled. “What the hell do you mean, luck?”

  “You get this stallion for a song, and then its trainer is a goddess who winds up looking after your kids. Most would call that luck.”

  “A goddess?” Hunter said. “You think she’s a goddess?”

  “Look at her.”

  Both of them looked. Unaware of their scrutiny, she frolicked in the waves with the children. Her black hair flew like ribbons on the wind, and she laughed with a ready joy that was infectious. She made the very picture of beauty in full flower—natural, unrestrained, untainted.

  Hunter forced himself to tear his gaze away. “I know what she looks like.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s the horsemaster’s daughter. She’s weird, Charles. Raised all alone out on that island. She’s got some crazy notions.”

  “What sort of crazy notions?”

  That love is something that happens regardless of who you are or what you think you want, he thought. That two people pleasuring each other is a natural expression of that love.

  He gritted his teeth to keep from speaking aloud. He could never confess his thoughts to anyone, not even Charles.

  “Unconventional ideas.” He recalled the flurry of speculation that had erupted around her at the Beaumonts’ picnic. “She has no idea what society is like.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  “She wants to go to California.”

  “That’s not so weird. A few years back, everyone on earth wanted to go to California.”

  “She’s not interested in gold. She and her father always meant to see the unsettled land on the north coast. Some of the Spanish land grants turned out to be fine horse country.”

  “So when’s she going?”

  “I convinced her to stay and look after the children until—” Hunter had to swallow, for his throat suddenly went dry “—until I find myself a wife.”

  “You’re finally going to do it, then.”

  “I reckon it’s past time. The kids need a mother. Belinda’s getting to a girly age, and Blue—well, Blue’s not getting any better.”

  “So who’re you going to marry?”

  Hunter shook his head. “I’ve got a few prospects in mind. Those two Parks sisters from Norfolk—”

  “Tabby and Cilla?”

  “Yeah, those two.”

  “You can only marry one of them.”

  “I know that, numbskull.” He didn’t admit that he had never been able to tell them apart. Pale and conventionally pretty, they made themselves available to him every chance they got. For the life of him, he couldn’t say what sort of girls they were, except that they were wealthy and had nice manners and held the admiration of society.

  “You could do worse,” Charles murmured.

  “True.”

  His cousin turned and started down the track toward the house. “But then again,” he said over his shoulder, “you could do better.”

  Blue wondered if he should show Miss Eliza what he had found on the beach. On the one hand, it was special to have something secret and perfect all to himself. But on the other hand, what good was
having a secret if you were the only one who knew about it?

  He frowned, trying to reason it out. Sometimes, reasoning made his head hurt.

  He sat with his bare feet buried in the deep warm sand. Behind him on the track, he could hear the stallion running. Boomboom, boomboom, like a heartbeat. Only lots faster. Finn was so fast that he could go places no one else could, like maybe to heaven…and back again.

  Miss Eliza and Belinda held hands and stood in the surf, giggling when the waves shushed over their bare feet. They didn’t care when they got their dresses wet. He liked that about Miss Eliza. She wasn’t fussy about clothes the way most grown-ups were.

  Blue got up and walked over to her, holding out his hand. She turned to him with that open, easy smile that made him feel good inside. “What is it, Blue?” she asked. “Did you find something?”

  She talked to him all the time. She asked him questions, but she never waited for him to speak. She never smacked him when he didn’t give her an answer.

  He dropped his treasure into her hand.

  “A sand dollar,” she exclaimed, bending down to show it to Belinda. “Look, it’s been lying in the sun a good long time. See how bleached-out it is?” She held the round shell on the flat of her palm. “I bet you didn’t know there’s a secret inside a sand dollar.”

  Blue perked up. Belinda shook the shell and held it to the light. “What kind of secret?” his sister asked.

  “Five white doves,” Eliza claimed.

  “Inside the sand dollar?” Belinda wrinkled her nose. Blue frowned skeptically. “Let’s see,” Belinda said.

  “I’ll have to break the shell to let them out. We have to make sure that’s all right with Blue.”

  He took the sand dollar and thought very hard for a few minutes. In the background, he could hear his papa talking to Noah in a low, friendly voice. Papa talked to Noah all the time.

  Blue moved swiftly. He slammed the sand dollar down on a large, flat rock, breaking the shell to pieces. At first, all he saw were little white bits, like tiny bones.