by Joan Wolf
“Hi Harry,” Meg said. “I want you to meet Tracy Collins. We’ve been watching your session with Dylan.”
He turned to them, and, for the first time, Tracy saw the color of his eyes. They were not blue but brown, wide-set, and intelligent. And at the moment, they looked distinctly annoyed.
Tracy’s stomach dropped the way it did on the first steep hill of a roller coaster.
“Meggie, I thought we agreed that the movie people would stay away from the stables.” His voice was clipped, upper-class. Tracy felt a shiver go up her backbone.
Meg said earnestly, “But Tracy knows horses, Harry. She used to own her own horse, actually.”
The earl turned his good-looking face from his sister to the unwelcome visitor she had brought. For the briefest of moments his dark eyes looked directly into hers, and she thought she saw a look of startled recognition in their depths. Then a veil came down.
“How do you do, Miss Collins,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m sure you understand my feelings in this matter. Horses are easily spooked, and I have some valuable animals stabled here.”
Abruptly the stillness inside Tracy was displaced by a surge of temper. She was not accustomed to being greeted in such a fashion. “You may not mean to be rude, but you most certainly are,” she retorted.
He looked surprised at this comeback, and Tracy thought defiantly, Your aristocratic title doesn’t mean beans to me, chum.
Meg said earnestly, “Tracy won’t spook the horses, Harry. Really, she won’t.”
He dismissed Tracy from his attention and turned to his sister. “How did your appointment go, Meggie?”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Beth wants you to call her.”
He rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
“Please, Harry, can’t I show Tracy around?”
He glanced at Tracy, and said, “Oh, I suppose so.”
Tracy had been a movie star for seven years and a megastar for three of those years. She was outraged and had opened her lips to say something scathing when Meg’s voice intervened. “Did you know that Harry won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Sydney, Tracy?”
Tracy matched Lord Silverbridge’s indifferent manner. “No, I did not have the pleasure of knowing that.” She gave him a condescending look. “Good for you, Lord Silverbridge.”
She was pleased to see that Lord Silverbridge did not appear to appreciate this compliment one bit. Tracy went on, “I would enjoy seeing your Olympic horse. Are you going to ride him today?” She made it sound as if he should give a performance just for her.
The earl scowled at her. He was wearing a well-worn gray sweater, breeches, and high black boots. His thick, silky hair had fallen over his forehead, and he tossed it back with a gesture that looked as if it was habitual. He was quite tall, several inches over six feet He replied in a staccato tone, “No, Pendleton is turned out in one of the paddocks. He is seventeen years old, and I retired him from competition after the Olympics.”
“How lovely.” From her manner she might have been the queen talking to a commoner. “So now all he has to do is eat grass all day.”
Lord Silverbridge turned to face her, and for some reason Tracy once again felt a shiver run down her spine. He said calmly, “I said he was retired from competition, not from all work. He will be an invaluable schoolmaster for me to use with my students. He has never been brilliant, but he is absolutely correct. Anyone who rides him learns more than they could from a thousand books.”
Tracy would adore to ride such a horse, but she would die before she asked this man for anything. She turned her shoulder slightly, and spoke to Meg, “Can we go look at the barn first?”
Lord Silverbridge said, “It is not a barn, Miss Collins, it is a stable. Barns are for cows.”
Tracy turned back to confront him. Their gazes met, and a fleeting, puzzled look flickered in his eyes. Then once more the shutters came down.
For some reason, Tracy’s heart was racing. She managed to say evenly, “In Connecticut, where I come from, barns are also for horses, my lord.”
From behind them there was the sound of car wheels on gravel, and Meg turned to look. “Oh dear. Harry, I’m afraid it’s Mr. Mauley.”
Tracy turned in the direction of Meg’s gaze and saw the burly man she had previously seen at the Wiltshire Arms getting out of a gleaming black Jaguar.
“Shit,” Harry said. “If this continues, I’m going to sue him for harassment.”
They stood in silence as the burly real estate mogul came to the gate of the riding ring. When it became clear to him that Harry wasn’t going to move, he reluctantly stepped into the arena dirt
“Good afternoon, my lord.” He stopped in front of them. “Lady Margaret.” He looked at Tracy and smiled, showing oddly small teeth for so large a man. “It needs no introduction for me to know who you are, Miss Collins.”
“I’m afraid I can’t return the compliment,” Tracy replied.
He held out his hand. “Robin Mauley.”
Tracy looked at his hand for a moment before she finally put her own hand into his.
Harry said in a cold voice, “What are you doing here, Mauley?”
“I am here to up my offer substantially, my lord,” Mauley said genially. “I don’t think you’ll want to say no to this.”
“Screw your offer, Mauley,” Harry returned without heat. “You can offer me the moon, but I am not selling any of my land. That is final. Go look elsewhere for a place to put your golf course.” And he strode away, the black-and-white spaniels trotting at his heels.
Robin Mauley set his jaw as he watched Harry’s retreating figure, then he turned to Meg. “Ambrose Percy has agreed to build a five-star hotel adjacent to the golf course, Lady Margaret. We are determined to build the premier golf resort in Britain, and we are prepared to pay well for the property upon which to do it. I know that your brother has little income outside what he gets from agriculture and tenant rents. He would be able to invest this money, and your family finances would be secure.”
“You’re wasting your time talking to me, Mr. Mauley,” Meg said. Her facial bones were almost visible through her skin in the sunlight. “Harry is the one who owns Silverbridge, and I have to tell you that once he makes up his mind about something, a bomb won’t move him.”
“Once he hears this offer, he’ll change his mind,” Mauley said confidently. “Will you tell him about the hotel, Lady Margaret? Will you tell him we are prepared to double my original offer?”
Meg blinked. “Double it?”
“That is what I said.”
Meg’s sky-blue eyes were wide. “I shall certainly tell him, Mr. Mauley.”
“Thank you. That is all I ask.” He smiled, once more showing those baby-sized teeth. “Lady Margaret. Miss Collins. I wish you good day.”
“Good day,” Tracy returned and stood in silence next to Meg as the real estate mogul got into his expensive car and drove away.
Then Meg said, “Harry will be crazy if he rejects this offer.”
Rather to her surprise, Tracy discovered that her sympathy lay with Harry. “Certainly one can understand that he wouldn’t want to give up all this.” She gestured toward her surroundings.
“Oh, he would keep the house, the stables, and enough of the grounds to make an appropriate setting,” Meg assured her. “It’s the eight thousand acres of woods and farmland that Mauley wants to buy.”
“Eight thousand acres is a lot of land,” Tracy said slowly.
“I know. There aren’t many pieces of property that large left in nice areas like this. That’s why Mauley keeps hounding Harry. He’s never going to find property as good as this for his golf course.”
They had been walking toward the stable while they were speaking, and as they reached it, Tracy asked, “What kind of farming is done on the property?”
A young man wearing low-slung jeans and work boots came out of the stable carrying a bucket of water. He stared at Tracy the whole wh
ile he was dumping the water on the grass that encircled the cobblestoned stable yard.
Meg said, “We have quite a lot of beef cattle, and we also grow wheat and barley and hay. My brother Tony says that in today’s world there’s no way you can keep a big house going on agricultural rents and profits alone. But Harry is a farmer at heart—he went to the Royal Agricultural College—and he won’t give up.”
Very slowly, the young man retreated to the stable, his eyes on Tracy the whole way.
“I can sympathize with him,” she said. “I have a particular dislike of golf courses myself.”
“But why?’ Meg asked in astonishment. “It will be very pretty. Mauley is planning a championship course, with expensive villas close by, and now there will be a Percy hotel as well. Everything will be beautifully landscaped.”
The young man came back out of the stable carrying another bucket of water as Tracy answered, “I’m just not a big fan of golf, I guess.”
“Tony said he would teach me to play,” Meg said. “But the best part of the whole deal would be that Harry wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.”
Tracy was looking at the stable building before her and didn’t reply. The large sliding wood door stood wide open, revealing a wood-paneled interior with a wide aisle and high ceiling. From her position she could see a series of Dutch doors along the outside of the building. Only one equine head was hanging out, however.
“How many horses live here?” Tracy asked, dropping the subject of the golf course.
“Ten at the moment,” Meg said. “Five of the horses belong to Harry and five of them are here for training.”
Slowly Tracy walked into the stable and looked down the aisle. All of the inside stall doors were polished to a rich chestnut gleam and most sported a brass plate with a horse’s name engraved on it. The stalls were big and bedded deeply with straw. The boy with the water buckets was mucking out one of them.
Meg said, “Most of the horses are out at pasture now, but Moses is inside today. He’s my old pony. Would you like to come and meet him?”
“I’d love to.”
“Let’s go around to the outside, then. We can see him better.”
Tracy followed Meg back out of the stable and around the side of the building, where the stalls all had a second door. The roan pony was resting his chin on the bottom part of his Dutch door, and when he saw them coming, he nickered.
“This is Moses,” Meg said, as they stopped in front of the stall. “He taught me to ride. Isn’t he adorable?”
“He’s darling,” Tracy said sincerely as she regarded the fat roan pony who was so obviously looking for treats. “Hi there, cutie.”
As the pony nuzzled her hand, looking for a carrot, Tracy looked at the paned glass window, which was set above the Dutch door for more light, and then at the stone trim that edged the door and window and made an arch above them both.
I suppose I can see why Lord Silverbridge didn’t like having this elegant building called a barn, she thought with a flicker of reluctant amusement.
Meg was holding the pony’s face and looking at his right eye. “It’s still a little runny, but it definitely looks better. Harry put some goop into it yesterday and this morning. It seems to be helping.”
“My mare had a terrible eye infection once,” Tracy said. “I ended up trailering her to Cornell, and if I had waited one more day she would have lost her vision. You have to be careful with eyes. They can blow up all of a sudden.”
“That’s what Harry said.” Meg bestowed one last pat on the pony’s neck.
“What is that other building that looks like the stable?” Tracy asked.
“Oh, that’s the indoor riding school,” Meg replied. “It’s quite famous, actually. My ancestor, the tenth earl, had it built after he returned from fighting against Napoleon. Unlike Europe, there were hardly any indoor schools in England at the time. The English, you know, like to ride outdoors—galloping after hounds and all that. But my ancestor had learned the classical way of riding in Portugal, and that’s why he built the school. Would you like to see it?”
“Very much,” Tracy replied, and they turned their steps in the direction of the elegant stone building that so surprisingly housed a riding arena.
An hour later Tracy walked back to the house alone as Meg elected to stay and help Ned bring horses in for the farrier. Halfway through the lime plantation she passed the path that Meg had told her led to the woodlands that belonged to Silverbridge. “There are bridle paths all throughout the woods,” Meg had said. “I ride there occasionally. Perhaps you’d like to come with me one day?”
“I would love to,” Tracy had answered.
She glanced at her watch, thought that a walk through the woods would be very pleasant, and turned in that direction. Once she was under the canopy of trees, she knew that she had made the right decision. Bluebells carpeted the ground on either side of the bridle path with their intense color, yellow cowslips and paler primroses grew around the trunks of the trees, and patches of cuckoo flowers gathered along a little stream that followed the bridle path. Overhead, a flock of small brown birds flew from tree to tree, calling to each other.
How horrible to cut all this down for a golf course, Tracy thought. She bent to pick one of the bluebells that grew so lushly and when she straightened up, Lord Silverbridge was on the path before her, astride a splendid gray horse.
It was a moment before she realized that this was a different man. He was dressed in Regency costume and his golden hair was cut in the Regency style. But the resemblance to Lord Silverbridge was astonishing.
She stared at the horseman in stunned surprise. He looked back at her, but Tracy had the distinct feeling that he didn’t see her. Then he turned his horse and galloped away. For about twenty seconds, Tracy could hear the footfalls of the horse on the bridle path. Then there was silence.
Tracy stood there, her hands gripped together tightly, her heart hammering so hard she thought it would burst.
Who was that?
But no matter how often she asked herself that question, she could not come up with a reply.
6
At two o’clock Friday morning, Tracy was awakened by banging on her door. She got out of bed, thrust her feet into slippers, and ran into the sitting room. From outside the door came the sound of voices yelling, “Fire! Fire!” She pushed open the door and the hotel manager was standing outside, a towel pressed to his face. The hallway was filled with smoke. “Miss Collins!” he said. “Thank God. I’ll show you to the stairs.”
“I know where they are,” Tracy replied, coughing and waving her hand in front of her face as if she could push away the smoke. “You had better continue waking people up.”
She ran down the corridor in her slippers, her eyes half-closed, trying not to breathe in the smoky air. She reached the stairs at the same time as Jon, who was coming from the opposite direction. The enclosed stairwell was still relatively free from smoke and they both ran down the stairs, Tracy right behind Jon. Tracy asked, “What happened, do you know?”
“No,” he flung over his shoulder, “but considering the amount of smoke, it must be serious.”
They reached the ground floor, and Jon said, “Step back,” as he cautiously opened the stairwell door and peered out. “It’s smoky, but I don’t see any flames. Let’s go.”
They ran the twenty feet to a side exit and were safely out into the chill of the night.
Fire engines were pulling up in front of the hotel, their sirens blasting, as Tracy and Jon moved to join the huddle of pajama-clad people gathered together on the front lawn. “Gail?” Tracy called, anxiously scanning the group. “Are you here?”
A small figure wrapped in a fleecy red robe and carrying a computer case and her purse separated from the crowd. “Tracy! Thank God.”
Tracy gave a shaky laugh. “Am I glad to see you.” The two women shared a convulsive embrace.
Most of the people on the lawn had been sleeping in th
e single rooms on the first floor and consequently had been evacuated first. As Tracy and Jon turned to look at the house, several more pajama-clad guests came around the side of the building. Among them was Dave Michaels, who was pushing his glasses up on his nose and blinking furiously as he hurried across the lawn.
“Thank God!” he said as he spotted Tracy and Jon. He came up to join them, looking very thin and bony in his T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, and hugged both of his stars in extravagant relief that his movie was safe.
“What happened?” he asked after he had collected himself. “Does anybody know?”
“I think the fire started in the kitchen,” Gail volunteered.
“That’s what I heard,” another voice said.
“Look!” said someone else, and the group on the lawn turned fascinated and horrified eyes toward the flames that had suddenly leaped out two of the first-floor windows.
“I think that’s my room,” Gail said hollowly.
Tracy reached out an arm and once more hugged her secretary. “You’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”
A few more escapees came trailing across the lawn, and Tracy was relieved to see that the rest of the movie crew had made it out.
By this time, the fire personnel had trained hoses on the building. The manager was talking to the fire chief and when the manager came to join the gathering of his restless guests, the first thing he did was announce, “Everyone is out.”
A sigh of relief swept through the crowd.
Then a woman’s voice demanded shrilly, “It’s two in the morning. Where are we supposed to go for the rest of the night?”
“There’s a shelter in Warminster,” the manager said. “The Warminster Rescue is opening it up for us and providing tea and coffee. We’ll soon have you warm and comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” The voice sounded even shriller than before. “In a shelter? Surely you can’t be serious?” Tracy was not thrilled about the idea of a shelter either, and asked the manager if there were any area hotel rooms open.