Scarlett (99 page)

She liked the looks of a pair of roans that the dealer shouted were perfectly matched three-year-olds and only seventy pounds the pair. Scarlett put her hands behind her back. “Walk them out in the light where I can see them,” she said.

Owner and dealer and people nearby all protested furiously. “Takes all the sport out,” said a small man in riding breeches and a sweater.

Scarlett insisted, but very sweetly. Catch more flies with honey, she reminded herself. She looked at the horses’ gleaming coats, rubbed her hand over them and looked at the pomade on her palm. Then she caught expert hold of one horse’s head and examined his teeth. She burst out laughing. Three-year-old, my maiden aunt! “Take ’em in,” she said, with a wink at the dealer. “I’ve got a grandfather younger than them.” She was enjoying herself very much.

After an hour, though, she’d only found three horses that she liked both as animal and as a good buy. Every single time she had to coax and charm the owner into letting her examine the horse in the light. She looked enviously at the people buying hunters. There were jumps set up in the open, and they could get a good look at what they were buying, doing what they were buying it to do. They were such beautiful horses, too. For a plow horse, looks weren’t important. She turned away from the view of the jumping. She needed three more plow horses. While her eyes accustomed themselves to the shaded interior of the tent, Scarlett leaned against one of the thick tent supports. She was starting to get tired. And she was only half done.

“Where is this Pegasus of yours, Bart? I don’t see anything flying over the jumps.”

Scarlett’s hands reached for the thick support. I’m losing my mind. That sounded like Rhett’s voice.

“If you brought me on a wild goose chase—”

It is! It is! I can’t be mistaken. No one else in the world sounds like Rhett. She turned quickly, looking into the sunlit square, blinking.

That’s his back. Isn’t it? It is, I’m sure it is. If only he’d say something else, turn his head. It can’t be Rhett. He’s got no reason to be in Ireland. But I couldn’t be wrong about that voice.

He turned to speak to the slightly built fair-haired man beside him. It was Rhett. Her knuckles were white against her hands, so tightly was she holding on to the post. She was trembling.

The other man said something, pointed with his crop, and Rhett nodded. Then the fair-haired man walked away, out of her sight, and Rhett was there alone. Scarlett stood in the shadow, looking out to the light.

Don’t move, she ordered herself when he started to walk away. But she couldn’t obey. She burst from the shadows and ran after him. “Rhett!”

He stopped awkwardly, Rhett who was never clumsy, and he spun around. An expression she couldn’t recognize flickered on his face, and his dark eyes seemed very bright beneath the shading bill of his cap. Then he smiled the mocking smile she knew so well. “You do turn up in the most unexpected places, Scarlett,” he said.

He’s laughing at me, and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything as long as he’ll say my name and stand near me. She could hear her own heart beating.

“Hello, Rhett,” she said, “how are you?” She knew it was a foolish, inadequate thing to say, but she had to say something.

Rhett’s mouth twitched. “I’m remarkably well for a dead man,” he drawled, “or was I mistaken? I thought I glimpsed a widow at the dock in Charleston.”

“Well, yes. I had to say something. I wasn’t married, I mean I didn’t have a husband—”

“Don’t try to explain, Scarlett. It’s not your forte.”

“Forty? What are you talking about?” Was he being mean? Please don’t be mean, Rhett.

“It’s not important. What brings you to Ireland? I thought you were in England.”

“What made you think that?” Why are we standing here making conversation about nothing at all? Why can’t I think? Why am I saying these stupid things?

“You didn’t get off the ship in Boston.”

Scarlett’s heart leapt to the meaning of what he’d said. He’d taken the trouble to find out where she was going, he cared about her, he wanted to keep her from disappearing. Happiness flooded her heart.

“May I assume from your cheerful attire that you’re no longer mourning my death?” said Rhett. “Shame on you, Scarlett, I’m not yet cold in my grave.”

She looked down in horror at her peasant clothes, then up at his impeccably tailored hacking jacket and perfectly tied white stock. Why did he always have to make her feel like a fool? Why couldn’t she at least feel angry?

Because she loved him. Whether he believed it or didn’t, it was the truth.

Without planning or thought of consequences, Scarlett looked at the man who had been her husband for so many years of lies. “I love you, Rhett,” she said with simple dignity.

“How unfortunate for you, Scarlett. You always seem to be in love with another woman’s husband.” He lifted his cap politely. “I have another commitment, please excuse me if I leave you now. Goodbye.” He turned his back on her and walked away. Scarlett looked after him. She felt as if he had slapped her face.

For no reason. She’d made no demands on him, she’d made a gift of the greatest thing she’d learned to give. And he’d trampled it into the muck. He’d made a fool of her.

No, she’d made a fool of herself.

Scarlett stood there, a brightly colored, small isolated figure amid the noise and movement of the horse fair, for a measureless time. Then the world came back into focus, and she saw Rhett and his friend near another tent, in a circle of intent spectators. A different tweed-clad man was holding a restless bay by the bridle, and a red-faced man wearing a plaid vest was swooping his right arm down, in the familiar motions of the horse trade. Scarlett imagined she could hear the slapping palms as he exhorted Rhett’s friend, and the horse’s owner, to come to a deal.

Her feet moved by themselves, marching across the space separating her from them. There must have been people in her way, but she was unconscious of them, and somehow they melted away.

The dealer’s voice was like some ritual chant, cadenced and hypnotic: “… a hundred and twenty, sir, you know that’s a handsome price, even for a beast as grand as this one… and you, sir, you can go twenty-five, isn’t that the fact of it, to add a noble animal like this to your stables… one-forty? Sure, you must add a little reasonableness to your thinking, the gentleman’s come up to one twenty-five, it’s only the way of the world for you to take a small step to meet him; say one-forty’s your price down from forty-two and we’ll be making a deal before the day’s out… One-forty it is, now see the generous nature of the man, you’ll prove you can match him, won’t you now? Say one-thirty instead of one twenty-five and there’s only a breath between you, no more than can be managed for the cost of a pint or two…”

Scarlett stepped into the triangle of seller, buyer, and dealer. Her face was shockingly white above her green shirt, her eyes greener than emeralds. “One-forty,” she said clearly. The dealer stared confused, his rhythm broken. Scarlett spit into her right hand and slapped it loudly against his. Then she spit again, looking at the seller. He lifted his hand and spat into the palm, then slapped once, twice against hers in the age-old seal of deal made. The dealer could only spit and seal in acquiescence.

Scarlett looked at Rhett’s friend. “I hope you’re not too disappointed,” she said in a honeyed tone.

“Why, of course not, that is to say—”

Rhett broke in. “Bart, I’d like you to meet…” he paused.

Scarlett did not look at him. “Mrs. O’Hara,” she said to Rhett’s bewildered companion. She held out her spit-wet right hand. “I’m a widow.”

“John Morland,” he said, and took her grimy hand. He bowed, kissed it, then smiled ruefully into her blazing eyes. “You must be something to see taking a fence, Mrs. O’Hara. Talk about leaving the field behind! Do you hunt around here?”

“I… um…” Dear heaven, what had she done? What could she say? What was she going to do with a thoroughbred hunter in Ballyhara’s stable? “I confess, Mr. Morland, I just gave in to a woman’s impulse. I had to have this horse.”

“I felt the same way. But not quickly enough, it seems,” said the cultivated English voice. “I’d be honored if you’d join me some time, join the hunt from my place, that is. It’s near Dunsany, if you’re familiar with that part of the County.”

Scarlett smiled. She’d been in that part of the County not so long ago, at Kathleen’s wedding. No wonder the name John Morland was familiar. She’d heard all about “Sir John Morland” from Kathleen’s husband. “He’s a grand man, for all that he’s a landlord,” said Kevin O’Connor a dozen times. “Didn’t he tell me himself to drop five pounds from the rent as a gift for my wedding?”

Five pounds, she thought. How very generous. From a man who’ll pay thirty times that for a horse. “I’m familiar with Dunsany,” Scarlett said. “It’s not far from the friends I’m visiting. I’d dearly love to hunt with you sometime. I can hack over any day you name.”

“Saturday next?”

Scarlett smiled wickedly. She spit in her palm and lifted her hand. “Done!”

John Morland laughed. He spit in his, slapped hers once, twice. “Done! Stirrup cup at seven and breakfast after.”

For the first time since she’d pushed in on them, Scarlett looked at Rhett. He was looking at her as if he’d been looking for a long time. There was amusement in his eyes and something else that she couldn’t define. Great balls of fire, you’d think he’d never met me before or something. “Mr. Butler, a pleasure to see you,” she said graciously. She dangled her dirty hand elegantly in front of him.

Rhett removed his glove to take it. “Mrs. O’Hara,” he said with a bow.

Scarlett nodded to the staring dealer and the grinning former owner of her horse. “My groom will be here shortly to make the necessary arrangements,” she said airily, and she hiked up her skirts to take a bundle of banknotes from the garter above her red-and-green striped knee. “Guineas, is that right?” She counted the money into the seller’s hand.

Her skirts swirled when she turned and walked away.

“What a remarkable woman,” said John Morland.

Rhett smiled with his lips. “Astonishing,” he said in agreement.

“Colum! I was afraid you’d got lost,” said Scarlett when her cousin emerged from the crowds near the tents.

“Not a bit of it, Scarlett. I got hungry. Have you eaten?”

“No, I forgot.”

“Are you pleased with your horses?”

Scarlett looked down at him from her perch on the rail of the jumping ring. She began to laugh. “I think I bought an elephant. You’ve never seen such a big horse in your life. I had to, but I don’t know why.” Colum put a steadying hand on her arm. Her laughter was ragged and her eyes were bright with pain.

C
at will go out,” said the little voice.

“No, sweetheart, not today. Soon, but not today.” Scarlett felt a terrifying vulnerability. How could she have been so reckless? How could she have ignored the danger to Cat? Dunsany was not that far away, not nearly far enough to be sure that people wouldn’t know about The O’Hara and her dark-skinned child. She kept Cat with her day and night, upstairs in their two rooms while she looked worriedly out the window above the drive.

Mrs. Fitz was her go-between for the things that had to be done, and done faster than fast. The dressmaker raced back and forth for fittings of Scarlett’s riding habit, the cobbler worked like a leprechaun far into the night on her boots, the stableman labored with rags and oil over the cracked and dry sidesaddle that had been left in the tack room thirty years before Scarlett arrived, and one of the boys from the hiring fair who had quiet hands and an easy seat exercised the powerful big bay hunter. When Saturday dawned, Scarlett was as ready as she’d ever be.

Her horse was a bay gelding named Half Moon. He was, as she’d told Colum, very big, nearly seventeen hands, with a deep chest and long back and powerfully muscled thighs. He was a horse for a big man; Scarlett looked tiny and fragile and very feminine on him. She was afraid she looked ridiculous.

And she was quite certain that she’d make a fool of herself. She didn’t know Half Moon’s temperament or peculiarities, and there was no chance to get to know them because she was riding sidesaddle, as all ladies did. When she was a girl, Scarlett had loved riding sidesaddle. It produced a graceful fall of skirts that emphasized her tiny waist. Also, in those days she seldom went faster than a walk, the better to flirt with men riding alongside.

But now the sidesaddle was a serious handicap. She couldn’t communicate with the horse through pressure of her knees because one knee was hooked around the sidesaddle’s pommel, the other one rigid because only by pressing on the one stirrup could a lady counterbalance her unbalanced position. I’ll probably fall off before I even get to Dunsany, she thought with despair, and I’ll certainly break my neck if I get as far as the first fence. She knew from her father that jumping fences and ditches and hedges and stiles and walls was the thrilling part of hunting. Colum had made things no better when he told her that ladies frequently avoided active hunting altogether. The breakfast was the social part and riding clothes were very becoming. Serious accidents were much more likely when riding sidesaddle and no one blamed the ladies for being sensible.