by Joan Wolf
My God, he thought. She really has read Podhajsky. He said as matter-of-factly as he could, “We’ll walk them down this hill and at the bottom there’s a nice open stretch where we can canter.”
“Great.”
He whistled, and they waited for the dogs to join them, which they did with bright eyes, swishing tails, and coats tangled with burrs. Marshal and Millie charged down the hill, and the horses followed more slowly. At the bottom Harry turned right and entered into what appeared to be a long, broad alleyway, enclosed by arching green branches and dappled with sunlight. He heard Tracy’s breath catch. “Oh,” she said. “How beautiful.”
“Are you ready to canter?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
This path was wide enough to accommodate two horses, and Maestro cantered easily next to Pendleton. Out of the side of his eye, Harry could see that Tracy rode beautifully, her hands in contact with Maestro’s mouth, reassuring him that she was there, but never pulling.
A feeling of wild exaltation shot through him. She can ride, he thought. She can really ride.
He pulled up to a walk a short way before he knew the path would end, and Masetro slowed with Pen. Tracy turned around to look back down the long, tree-enclosed ride, and said fervently, “How wonderful to have access to a place like this. A private place where there are none of those ghastly all-terrain vehicles to scare the horses and the wildlife.”
As she finished speaking the horses emerged from the woods onto the shore of a small lake, upon which two majestic swans and their family glided serenely. The dew on the meadow grass around the lake twinkled like diamonds in the sunlight, and a pair of thrushes were calling to each other from the woods on the other side. Tracy let out her breath in a long, satisfied sigh.
He firmly squelched the smile that curved his mouth at her appreciative reaction.
“Does the lake belong to you, too, my lord?”
“Yes.” He deliberately wasn’t looking at her; instead he kept his eyes on the swans.
Her next question made him jerk his head around in surprise. “Is this part of the land that that Mauley person wants to make into a golf course?”
Every time he thought about the golf course, he felt grim. “I don’t know if Mauley wants the lake or not,” he replied. “I haven’t bothered to look that closely at his proposal. I have no plans to sell any part of Silverbridge, and I wish he would get that through his head and leave me alone.” He was sitting straight as a lance in his saddle and gestured to a dirt track that cut a swath through the marsh grass. “That path encircles the entire lake. Would you be up to a gallop?”
“Sure,” she replied.
He whistled to the dogs, and they appeared from the woods and came running to stand by Pen’s legs. “They love to run around the lake,” Harry said, “and it’s good exercise for them.”
Without another word, he asked Pen for a gallop and the seal bay responded with a burst of speed. Maestro followed, and after him, the dogs. They galloped around the entire lake, with the scent of the May morning in their nostrils and the sound of birdsong in their ears. Harry finally pulled up at a place where a different path led off into the woods, turned to Tracy, and said, “This will take us home.”
They walked single file for perhaps five minutes, with the dogs trailing after Tracy, then the path widened. “You can bring him up beside me now,” Harry said over his shoulder.
When she had pulled alongside of him, and both horses were walking on a long rein, he heard himself say in an abrupt voice, “Everyone in my family thinks I’m crazy not to sell to Mauley. He’s offered me an enormous sum of money.”
She was looking between Maestro’s ears, and her profile was one of the loveliest sights he had ever seen. She said, “As the old saying goes, money isn’t everything.”
“In today’s day and age it is,” he returned bitterly. They walked on in silence until at last he could no longer stop himself from asking, “Do you think I’m crazy not to sell?”
“No.” Her reply was immediate and definite. “If I had a place like this that had been in my family for centuries, I’d never sell it. I’d feel as if it was a sacred trust or something.”
That was exactly how he felt himself. To test her he threw out one of the arguments he kept hearing from his family. “People don’t live like this anymore. Well, perhaps they do in Saudi Arabia—or in Beverly Hills—but they don’t here in Britain. We have the welfare state now.”
She lifted a hand to smooth her hair back from her face. “There isn’t anyplace like this in Saudi Arabia or Beverly Hills. What’s so wonderful about Silverbridge is its sense of always having been here. I think it’s something very special, that generation after generation of your family has grown up here and added their own bit of history to the house and the land.”
He was surprised and profoundly moved that she should have such an insight. He said sternly, “That’s what I think, too.”
She shot him a questioning look. “After all, it’s not as if you hoard all this beauty just for yourself. You open the house to the public, don’t you?”
“Yes. It’s part of the deal I made with the Inland Revenue when my father died. I turned over most of our valuable pictures to the National Trust to pay the death duties, and they allowed them to stay here at Silverbridge if I would open the house to the public. So for two months out of the year parties of day-trippers and Germans and Japanese and Americans come trooping through Silverbridge, oohing and aahing at the paintings and the furniture.”
“My, my, my.” She sounded amused. “You are a snob.”
He set his mouth in a hard line. “If it’s snobbish not to want to open a tea shop and a gift shop and sell postcards with pictures of the house, then I plead guilty.” Something rustled in the trees, and Marshal and Millie shot off in pursuit.
“The question is, can you afford to maintain your heritage without commercializing it?”
He opened his mouth to answer, then thought with horror, Good God, was I really going to discuss my finances with this movie actress? “Of course I can,” he answered shortly.
At that moment they emerged from the woods, and in the distance he saw the stone stable, which to him was far more beautiful than any modem dwelling could ever be. His feelings momentarily breaking through his wall of reserve, he said, “My family doesn’t understand. Silverbridge doesn’t belong to them; it belongs to me. And I intend to keep it.”
Four centuries of possessiveness sounded in the steely, unyielding notes of his voice.
When he turned to Tracy she was staring at him. He lifted a brow in inquiry, and she said breathlessly, “Do you know, for a moment there you looked exactly like that picture of Charles you have in your office?”
“Did I?” He took a deep breath and made himself relax. “Well, I’m quite sure that Charles wouldn’t have sold Silverbridge either. Fortunately for him, he lived in a different world, and the issue never came up.”
She returned somberly, “He couldn’t have been that fortunate, my lord, if he died at thirty-four.”
He stood in his stirrups, looking for his spaniels. When he didn’t see them, he whistled. “True. He was killed right near the lake, you know.”
“How did it happen?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
He whistled again, then turned to look at her. “He was out riding, just like we are, when a poacher must have mistaken him for something else.”
She was looking straight ahead, and the line of her mouth looked ineffably sorrowful. “How terrible.”
He found that he couldn’t pull his eyes away from her mouth. “Yes, I’ve always thought so. Ironic, too. He had made it through a war and then, to be picked off in his own woods like that…”
Her head turned and she looked directly at him. “I thought you said that no violent deaths had ever occurred at Silverbridge.” She sounded as if she was accusing him. “Charles’s death was certainly violent.”
He dragged his eyes away from that
tantalizing mouth. “Yes, I suppose it was.”
“But no one has seen his ghost?”
Finally, the dogs came catapulting out of the woods, and he managed a shaky laugh. “You really are keen on ghosts, aren’t you?”
Her chin came up. “There’s a lot of evidence that they do exist.”
“It depends on what you call ‘evidence.’ All I can tell you is that, fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how you look at it, Silverbridge has been remarkably free of ghosts.”
A flock of sparrows rose in the air from the grass on their left and the dogs gave chase.
Tracy asked, “Did they ever find out who shot Charles?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know. But it was a long time ago, and records get lost.”
Tracy turned in her saddle so she could look back at the woods. “Well, I’m on your side about the land, my lord. I think it would be a sin to cut all that natural loveliness down to make a golf course.”
He didn’t like the pleasure he got from hearing her say she was on his side. He made his voice expressionless, and said, “Some people think golf courses are beautiful.”
“They may be pretty, but they’re unnatural. They don’t shelter any wildlife or grow any food or have any viable ecosystem. They’re only a playground for people who ride around in carts trying to hit a little white ball with a stick.”
It amazed him that this American movie star should be the only person he knew who seemed to share his feelings. Christ, he thought with alarm. I’d better watch out. The last thing I need is to get entangled with a movie star!
11
The Honorable Anthony Oliver arrived at Silverbridge early that afternoon. Tracy met him as she and Meg were finishing lunch in the kitchen. Meg, who looked paler and even more fragile than usual after her evening’s foray into the brandy bottle, had eaten exactly one quarter of a bowl of Mrs. Wilson’s excellent vegetable soup. Tracy, on the other hand, had eaten two bowls, as well as some homemade bread. In fact, she was still nibbling on the bread while Meg was ignoring her almost-full bowl, when a flexible tenor voice said liltingly, “Mrs. Wilson! You’ve made soup. Surely this is my lucky day.”
The stout, middle-aged woman at the sink turned around, a smile on her square, no-nonsense face. “Mr. Anthony! How grand to see you again!”
Tracy watched as the slim, athletic figure of Anthony Oliver swooped across the kitchen floor to catch Mrs. Wilson up in a hug.
“La, now, Mr. Anthony. Enough of your shenanigans,” the woman scolded, as he set her back on her feet. But she was smiling.
“Hi, Tony,” Meg said, her face brighter than it had been all day.
“Meggie, darling. How are you doing, sweetheart?”
Tracy watched curiously as Harry’s younger brother crossed the kitchen to bestow a kiss on his sister. When he straightened up it was Tracy’s turn to receive the radiance of his smile. “Miss Collins. How delightful to meet you. And I understand from Meg that we are fortunate enough to have you actually staying with us?”
He had Brad Pitt good looks, with a cap of silver-blond hair, sky-blue eyes, and chiseled features. He kept his hands on Meg’s thin shoulders as he regarded Tracy.
“Yes, I am,” she replied. She was not quite sure how to address him, so she asked, “Do I call you Lord Anthony?”
He laughed, his teeth very white against the golden tan of his skin. His classic features had none of the male toughness or arrogance that characterized Harry’s. Everything about Tony was sunshine and charm.
“Alas, while the daughter of an earl is designated a lady, the son of an earl does not merit the title of lord,” he replied. “I am merely an Honorable, to be addressed as Mr. Oliver.” His blue eyes smiled cloudlessly. “But please do call me Tony.”
“Where’d you get the tan?” Meg asked, twisting her head to look up at him.
“I was in Spain last week on business and I managed to get to the beach for a few hours,” he replied carelessly.
“Would you care for some soup, Mr. Anthony?” the housekeeper asked.
“I should adore some soup.” Tony pulled out the chair next to Meg and sat at the table. He glanced at his sister’s bowl and a faint line marred the perfection of his forehead. “Eat some more, Meggie,” he said.
“I’m not hungry,” she replied sulkily. “I ate a big breakfast.”
“And where was that, Lady Margaret?” Mrs. Wilson asked from her place in front of the stove. “It certainly wasn’t here.”
Meg slammed her hand on the table. “Leave me alone, all of you! Can’t you talk about something other than my eating?” She jumped up and ran out of the kitchen.
In the ensuing silence, Mrs. Wilson brought a bowl of vegetable soup to the table and placed it in front of Tony. He looked at it, then looked up at the housekeeper. “Is she eating at all, Mrs. Wilson?”
The reply was grim. “A bit here and a bit there. His lordship has her going to some therapist over in Warkfield, but it don’t seem to be helping much.”
Tracy said quietly, “Anorexia is very difficult to treat.”
“Are you familiar with the problem, Miss Collins?” Tony asked.
She finished her bread and wiped her fingers on a linen napkin. “We see quite a bit of it in America. Unfortunately.”
He looked interested. “How is it treated in America?”
“The same way you treat it here, I imagine. It’s a mental disease, really, so psychotherapy is definitely called for.”
“I’ll have to talk to Harry.” Tony’s blue eyes were somber. “She’s always been thin, but today her shoulders felt as sharp as blades under my fingers.”
“His Lordship told me to leave food for her in the refrigerator, in case she might want to eat when no one’s watching her. I do that, Mr. Anthony, but it’s never touched,” Mrs. Wilson contributed.
“Something has to be done.” He shook his head. “What the hell is the matter with her? Why won’t she eat?”
His concern for his sister was palpably genuine, and Tracy found herself warming to him. Since he had been so frank, she felt comfortable asking, “Is this a longstanding problem?”
He sighed and dipped a spoon into his soup. “Meg has been a problem ever since my mother died, which was three years ago. My mother never paid very much attention to her, so I don’t really understand why she should have been knocked into such a tizzy. But she was, and she hasn’t come out of it. Harry’s had her in five different schools, and the last one said she couldn’t come back unless she gained some weight.”
“She wants attention is my guess,” Mrs. Wilson said unsympathetically. “Starving herself is the way she’s going about getting it.”
That may well be true, Tracy thought, but such drastic behavior is the sign of a deeply disturbed person. “Your father is also deceased?” she asked Tony.
He nodded. “Papa died when Meg was eight.”
Good grief, Tracy thought. She lost both parents before she was fourteen. No wonder she’s troubled.
Tony said, with a clear desire to change the subject, “Tell me, Miss Collins, how is the movie progressing?”
“Very well, thank you,” she returned briskly. “I believe we are on schedule, which is very important to the producer and director. Time is money, you know, and fortunately the weather has been cooperating.”
The kitchen door opened and, even though Tracy’s head was turned away from the door, she immediately knew who had come in. “Tony,” Harry said. “I didn’t know you’d arrived.”
“I just got here.” Tony had risen and was holding out his hand to his brother. “I’m going to stay for a few weeks. Did Meggie tell you?”
“Yes, she did.” Harry looked as if he wanted to say something else, but then he glanced at Tracy and contented himself with shaking his brother’s hand.
Don’t air family business in front of strangers, Tracy thought cynically.
He said, “I was looking for Meg. I’m driving over to the point-to-point, an
d I wondered if she’d like to come.”
“She was here, but she left in a huff,” Tony said. “I made the mistake of urging her to eat. She’s painfully thin, Harry. It can’t be healthy.”
“I know.” Once again Harry shot Tracy a look. “I’ll see if she’s in her room.”
Then, without speaking a single direct word to her, he left.
Tracy was furious. Not only was it inexcusably rude for him to ignore her in such a way, but they had just spent a delightful morning together. I thought we were becoming friends, she fumed. Then he has the nerve to act as if I wasn't there.
He had known she was there, though. Her presence was what had kept him from discussing family problems with Tony.
She went back upstairs to the morning room, sat in Harry’s usual chair, and wondered what to do with herself for the rest of the afternoon.
I could go shopping, she thought unenthusiastically. Gail had rented a car so she could get back and forth from her B&B, and Tracy knew her secretary would be delighted to pick her up for a shopping expedition.
She was still debating with herself when Tony came into the room accompanied by a large, burly man whom Tracy recognized as Robin Mauley. Both men looked surprised to see her.
She produced her most bewitching smile and watched as their faces relaxed and they smiled back. “Am I in your way?” she asked lightly.
“Not at all, not at all,” Mauley blustered. “You could never be in anyone’s way, Miss Collins.”
“How nice of you to say that,” she returned pleasantly. “Have you gentlemen got together to discuss the golf course?”
Mauley’s thick, bushy brows snapped together.
Tony said sharply, “What do you know about the golf course?”
“Oh dear.” Tracy’s lovely face looked distressed. “Have I said something I shouldn’t? All I know is that Meg told me Mr. Mauley wanted to buy some Silverbridge land to build a golf course. Was it wrong of her to tell me that?”
The two men exchanged a glance, and Tony said, “Of course it wasn’t wrong.” He smiled ruefully. “The problem is that my brother is being stubborn and doesn’t want to sell. Mr. Mauley and I have got together to see if we can come up with a persuasive enough argument to change his mind.”