The black horse took one step toward her, then another and tossed his head and snorted as if fighting himself. At last, he reached out and took the core gently from her hand while Sapphire very slowly raised her other hand and caught the lead rope.
The horse started to back up, but Sapphire continued to talk quietly to him and he calmed again. As he munched on the core, she walked him around the rock. She couldn’t see Red and the other man now, but she guessed they had disappeared into the grove of elms, probably thinking the horse was still there.
Done with his apple, the horse began to snatch at little sprouts of still-green grass near the rock.
Sapphire looked back to the barns and then at the horse. She was probably half a mile away and she had already lingered here too long. “What do you think?” she asked the horse. She laid her hand on the horse’s neck and he nickered, still a little spooked but much calmer than before.
“I think he likes us,” she told Stowe, who was busy scratching his pink belly. Then she turned back to the horse. “Will you let me ride you back? I promise to be nice and I won’t holler.”
Sapphire could have sworn the horse understood what she said.
Moving cautiously, she led him closer to the rock, then climbed up it. “Here goes,” she said.
She landed as carefully but as quickly as she could. As expected, the horse took off like a shot and she had to grab his mane to keep from flying off his broad back. “Easy there,” she called, patting his neck when she caught her balance.
She looked behind her to see Stowe coming after them at a dead run. Still holding tightly, the black mane wrapped around her fingers, Sapphire faced forward again and gently used pressure with her legs to try to ease him back. “We have to slow down, boy, else poor Stowe will run his little legs off.”
To her surprise, the horse slowed to an easy canter. She was halfway back to the barn when she heard Red calling from behind. Using one leg, she guided the black horse back around and trotted up to Red. “I’m sorry,” she said, breathing hard. “I didn’t ask permission to ride. It was just that I saw him running loose and—”
At that moment she realized that Red and his companion had come to a halt in the field and they were just standing there, staring at her. She couldn’t tell if they were angry or shocked or both, but she knew she was not supposed to be on this horse. “Are you Caribbean Prince?” she whispered to the horse. “Something tells me you are, and I am in big trouble.”
“How the hell you get on him?” the other man asked.
“His name’s Cosco. Head trainer for Mr. Carrington,” Red explained, still staring at her.
Sapphire nodded. “Sir.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” Cosco was a man of average height, in his midthirties, his face lined by wind and sun, with sandy hair and a broad nose.
Sapphire patted the horse’s neck, and when he began to dance nervously and both men stepped back, she urged him around in a circle to give everyone a little space. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I saw he was loose and when I caught him, I thought I might as well ride him as walk him back.”
“New shit shoveler,” Red explained, beginning to grin. “Name’s Sam.”
“Do you know who this horse is?” Cosco scrunched up his wind-burned face. “This horse doesn’t let anyone just jump up and ride him, boy.”
She looked down at the man sheepishly. “You…want me to get down, sir?”
“Hell and shitfire, yes, I want you to get down. Do you know how much this horse is worth? A sight more than you are to your papa, that’s for sure.”
When Sapphire began to dismount, Red put up one hand. “Now wait a minute, Cosco. Use your head, here, eh?”
Sapphire stayed put.
“You were just sayin’ the other day,” the red-haired man continued, “that you didn’t know who was going to ride Mr. Prince here all winter, what with Jimmy laid up with those broken ribs and his hand.”
“This boy doesn’t know anything about riding this kind of horse,” Cosco argued, the nostrils of his huge nose flaring.
The black horse had stopped to nibble a patch of the last clover of the season with the new stable boy seated comfortably on his back.
“Don’t look to me like Mr. Prince knows that, eh?”
Blake stood in front of the fireplace in Manford’s study, listening to the crackle of the fire. He swirled his scotch around in a crystal glass, sipping it and savoring its peaty taste. It was only the second week of October but today Boston had seen its first flurries. Soon the snow would begin to fall in earnest and the long New England winter would begin.
Blake had been cold all day. Since he rose in the morning and saw the snow on the rail of his bedroom balcony, all he’d been able to think about was the fact that Sapphire might be out in this weather, cold, alone.
He told himself it wasn’t his fault. He’d offered her everything he had to give and she was the one who had walked away without even bothering to say goodbye.
“Blake?”
He glanced up and saw Manford standing there looking at him. “Where are you today?” his friend asked. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
“I’m sorry.” Blake turned away from the fireplace and its warmth. He didn’t deserve to be warm. “What were you saying?”
“I was saying that I’ve looked over everything you’ve given me. I’ve talked to your man in Pennsylvania and I think I’m in.”
“In?”
“The rock oil. I think I’m ready to invest.”
Blake perched on the arm of an upholstered chair. “Maybe you should think about this. There won’t be any drilling until spring.”
Manford took the chair across from Blake, drew close to the fire and scrutinized his friend. “You still believe this?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t ask you to risk money if I didn’t think it would be profitable down the road. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Manford sipped his scotch. “You just don’t seem as enthusiastic about this as you were a few months ago.”
Blake shrugged and looked down at his glass. “I still believe in it. I’ve just been preoccupied.”
Manford shifted forward in his chair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Blake sighed, pushing back in his chair, staring out into the room at nothing in particular. “No.”
“Please tell me this is not about Clarice. She swore to me that there would be no more private calls and I truly believe she understands—”
“It’s not Clarice.” Blake looked at the amber liquid in his glass, then up again, but he did not meet Manford’s gaze. “It’s—” He stopped and then started again. “It’s just that I think I might have made a mistake.”
27
“Hey, Sam, wanna go sleddin’?” Paulie called from the stable door.
Sapphire was just finishing watering down the last of the horses and she looked up as she transferred water from one bucket to another, trying not to slosh water onto her overalls. “When you goin’?”
The small freckle-faced boy shrugged. “Dunno. After evenin’ chores. ’Fore supper.”
“Up on Big Hill?” It was one of the favorite sledding hills for everyone in the valley and Sapphire had been there several times with the five other stable hands. She didn’t do a lot with them, like play cards and sit around and talk at night when they built a bonfire in the paddock, but being from Martinique, snow still fascinated her. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t mind the cold too much, although the other stable boys did tease her about always wearing one extra layer more than they wore. Even though it was still early December, there had already been several snowfalls. Sledding was the one activity that allowed Sapphire to be one of the boys.
“I reckon that’s where we’ll go, least if Adam gets his way.” Paulie grinned.
Adam was the oldest and the largest of the stable boys and generally what Adam said went. Sapphire didn’t mind. He seemed nice enough. Not terribly bright, but he was a har
d worker and he didn’t press her about joining the group most of the time. He seemed to understand that “Sam” was a loner, which made it easier for her to hide her identity. He’d even taken up for her when Red had offered to allow her to continue sleeping in the tack room alone rather than joining the other boys who slept dormitory style over the grain shed when several of them had protested.
In the tack room, she could be closer to Caribbean Prince, Sapphire had proposed to Red—and he had agreed. The horse had obviously taken to her and it wasn’t unusual for someone, either a groom or a jockey, to sleep near an expensive horse, especially one of the skittish ones.
“I’ll see you shortly,” Sapphire told Paulie as he heaved the last two buckets of water onto her shoulders, balanced on a pole.
“Want help?” Paulie asked, pulling on the hand-knit mittens his grandmother had just sent him from Pennsylvania.
“Nope. Got it.” Sapphire headed for the farthest stall.
Alone with the horses again, she wiped out the last buckets, filled them with water and then moved from stall to stall saying good-night. She offered a scratch behind the ears to this one, a pat to that one. And to Caribbean Prince, she offered a wrinkled apple from the pocket of her overalls, beneath her canvas coat. Then, with a strong sense of satisfaction at having put in a good day’s work, she retired to her tiny room at the end of the barn to write a letter to Lucia and Angelique and one to Armand. Tomorrow, which was Saturday, she would ride Prince all morning and get the afternoon off, then she’d catch a ride into town on one of the household wagons going that direction and post the letters.
Inside her cozy little room with its cot covered with a plaid wool blanket, wooden crate turned on its side that served as a nightstand and a chest of drawers for her meager possessions, Sapphire lit a kerosene lantern and settled down with paper, pen and ink. She knew her family was worried about her and she knew she had to write, but the question was, what would she tell them?
She sat back on the cot and called to Stowe, who was asleep in a box of straw on the floor near the door. She was happy to see him because he often wandered off to follow Red, whom Sapphire suspected lured the dog away with food.
Stowe leaped onto the cot and curled up beside her. “What do you think, old boy?” she murmured, scratching the dog behind his ears. “What do I tell them about this place? About our life?”
Stowe yawned and rested his head on her knee, closing his eyes.
After several false starts, she began her letter to Lucia and Angelique by telling them again that she was safe and begging them, once more, not to contact Blake Thixton. That was her biggest fear at the moment, even more than being discovered for a girl at Carrington Farm.
The first week she arrived at the stables she sent Lucia a letter explaining that she had left Boston alone, without giving many details, including where she was. All she had said was that she and Blake had parted ways and that if he contacted Lucia, she was to say she hadn’t heard from her niece. Sapphire still felt guilty about not telling her godmother specifically where she was, but she couldn’t risk Lucia sending Blake word of her whereabouts. Lucia would have to trust her until she could return to London, at which point she would tell all, she had explained. If her godmother was angry with her, she would just have to be angry.
Sapphire kept her letter to Lucia and Angelique short. She told them that despite her separation from Blake Thixton, she was still enjoying her adventure in America, which was entirely true. She told them about how much she loved the snow, about how she didn’t mind the cold, but that she wore something called a union suit. She told them about sledding on Big Hill and she even mentioned Caribbean Prince, though not by name. She did not mention her broken heart or the fact that though the wound seemed to be healing over, there were days when it was still quite raw. Of course she didn’t tell them that she was pretending she was boy.
Sapphire ended the letter by saying she didn’t know how often she would have time to write. In truth, she found the letters difficult to compose. But she promised to see them by summer’s end, and sent all her love.
While her salary as a stable hand came only to a few dollars a month, Red had promised her that if she and Prince won the races he was betting she would win, Sapphire would take home a small portion of the winnings each week. Surely by summer’s end, she thought, she would have the one hundred and ten dollars required to book passage back to London.
Sapphire’s letter to Armand was more difficult to write. She had put off contacting him long enough. She knew that if he didn’t hear from her soon, he would be worried. Fortunately, she had not given him Blake’s address in Boston when she had written him on arriving in America. Her letter to Armand was even shorter than her letter to Lucia and Angelique. She told him she was well, that she was spending the winter in New York City and that she would be returning to London in the summer. She told him not to worry about her and that she was enjoying her time in America. She sent all of her love, and with dry eyes, sealed the letter and dressed to go sledding.
“Oh heavens!”
“Jessup? Are you all right?” Lucia called through the open door down the hallway.
They had made love and then Jessup had excused himself to use the necessary. He was a dear man. He refused to use a chamber pot in her presence and always bundled up and traipsed outside, no matter how cold it was or how hard it was snowing. Lucia was far more practical. She just went out into the hall and squatted over the chamber pot there.
“Jessup?” she called.
“Oh dear. Oh my,” he repeated.
“Jessup, what is it?” She slid out of bed, pushed her feet into her boiled-wool slippers and walked to the doorway.
Jessup stood halfway down the hall bundled in his nightshirt, stockings, night robe and a striped green and white stocking cap, his hands clasped as if in fright.
“What’s wrong?” Lucia asked. “Are you ill? Are you injured?”
“I…I’m terribly embarrassed.”
She looked him up and down, wondering if he had had some sort of accident. It happened at their age if something didn’t sit right on their stomachs—a sour bit of cabbage, a bad piece of pork. “Have you need of the washbowl, love? Some clean undergarments?” she asked, not in the least bit offended.
He looked up at her, horrified. “Certainly not!”
“Then come to bed, Jessup! A man could freeze to death out here,” she snapped, watching her breath as it rose in white puffs in the hallway.
“I…I cannot.”
“What do you mean you cannot?” she demanded, lowering her hands to her hips as she stood in the doorway of his bedchamber. She’d just gotten toasty warm in the bed and now her feet were cold again. “Jessup, I’m losing my patience with you. I can very well go home, you know, and sleep in my own bed.”
He still hadn’t moved an inch in the hallway. “I’m very sorry, love.”
“Jessup, what’s wrong?” She took a step toward him.
“Don’t!” he cried, throwing up one hand. The point on his knit cap swayed wildly.
“What’s wrong?” She could see nothing. No hole in the floor. No nail sticking up. She could smell no smoke. “Jessup, you have to tell me,” she implored. “Why is the menace here, my love?”
He glanced away. “I’m mortified.”
“Tell me,” she insisted.
He closed his eyes. “You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t.”
“Emma always laughed.”
“Jessup Stowe, are you comparing me to your dead wife?” She shook her finger at him. “Because if you are, I can tell you right now I’m going to pack up my clothes and my personals and be out of your way for good within the hour.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He opened his eyes, putting out both hands apologetically. “I’m sorry, Lucia.”
“Now stop being ridiculous and tell me what’s wrong.”
He was quiet for a moment and then he pointed to his right. “A mouse.”
She looked and, sure enough, there in the shadows, along the floorboards, was a tiny gray mouse huddling against the molding.
Lucia had to cover her mouth with her hands to keep from laughing. “You’re afraid of mice, Jessup?”
“Since childhood when I was bitten on the toe while in my cradle.”
Lucia walked toward him, putting out her hand. The mouse startled and scampered away. “There, there,” she soothed. “You see, the poor wee thing is more frightened of you than you are of it.” She put her arm around him and ushered him toward the bedchamber.
“I’m sorry, Lucia. It’s no wonder you don’t want to marry me. Who would want to marry a man afraid of mice?”
She smiled in the darkness as she led him to his side of the bed and helped him out of his robe. She lifted the heavy goose-down comforters, eased him onto the bed, and pulled off his slippers and his cap as he lay back. She walked around to her side, kicked off her slippers and climbed in, crawling under the blankets until she was beside him, facing him nose to nose.
“What am I going to do with you, Jessup Stowe?”
“I don’t know?” he whispered.
“A man afraid of mice.”
“I know, I know. An Englishman afraid of mice, no less.”
She slid her arm around him, nuzzling his neck. “You know, there really is only one thing to be done with such a man.”
“And what would that be?”
“Marry him, of course. After all, there’s got to be someone in the household who can chase away the mice!”
Jessup laughed and rolled over, pinning her to the mattress. “I love you, Lucia,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you, too, you old goat. Now roll over and get some sleep. Only one go-round per night for us old folks, you know.” She kissed him and they rolled over onto their sides, snuggling against each other, warding off the winter chill.
Blake stood at the rail of the balcony in his overcoat and let the snow hit him directly in the face. At least the cold, wet sting made him feel like he as alive.
He stared down into the darkness and at the twinkle of the occasion light in the harbor. There wasn’t much moving on the water tonight. Any sensible sailor was snug in his house or beneath battened-down hatches. It was nearly Christmas and Father Winter was bearing down on Boston.
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