Silverbridge (24 page)

Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you who I am. I am Tracy Collins, and I do not like to be kept waiting while one of the cast members is screwing the caterers. So— this is the last time this will happen, Liza, or you will never work on one of my pictures, or my friends’ pictures, again.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction more. “And I mean never.”

Liza looked furious, but she was afraid of Tracy’s power and tried to be conciliatory. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize what time it was.”

“In the future make sure that you do,” Tracy said grimly. “Now, go over to makeup, get fixed up, and report to the set.” She turned her back on the seething Liza and went out of the trailer.

When Liza finally arrived on the set, she was looking subdued. “I’m sorry,” she said to Dave. “I didn’t have my watch on. It won’t happen again.”

They started filming and, for the first time since the movie had started, Jon was distracted. He missed his lines in all of the first seven takes, almost, but not quite, causing Dave to blow up in a rage. Finally, Jon got them right, and Dave called,
“Print,
”
but Tracy knew, and Dave knew, and Jon had to know as well, that it was not
his best work. It was good. Jon could sleepwalk through a role, and it would still be good. But his performance lacked the intensity of his earlier work.

At lunch break, Tracy called Gail, who put her in touch with Mark Sanderson, the private detective she had hired. “As far as I can see, Miss Collins, the Honorable Anthony Oliver is clean," the detective reported over the phone. “His lifestyle is certainly above his income, and he has a big credit-card debt, but nobody is after him to pay up. There’s no doubt that additional money would be welcome, but he’s not pushed to the wall, if that’s what you wanted to know.”

“Yes,” Tracy said. “That was what I was wondering, Mr. Sanderson. Did my secretary speak to you about possibly tracing a bribe?”

“She did. It’s rather a delicate operation, and I’m not sure if I can do it. Mauley is a big name.”

“I will be willing to pay extra if you can manage it,” Tracy said.

“All right, I’ll get on it immediately then.”

As Tracy hung up, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, she didn’t want to have to face Harry with the news that his own brother was scheming against him, but on the other hand, it would be an enormous relief to have a culprit so she could stop being terrified for Harry’s safety.

She was free after lunch. They had finished with the scenes in the drawing room and were moving into the magnificent bedchamber that had once belonged to the resident Earl of Silverbridge. It would take at least the
afternoon to light the set, and her stand-in
would substitute for her when they needed a body to pose for the technicians.

Tracy was hungry and was trying to decide if she wanted to eat first or get her makeup and costume off first, when Jon came up to her, and said, “Finally, we’re both free at the same time! Will you have dinner with me tonight, Tracy? I understand there’s an excellent restaurant in the village.”

She looked into his face and saw that he was trying to disguise his hopefulness. “I don’t think so, Jon,” she said gently. “I rather promised Meg that I would go shopping with her this afternoon, and I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

His hazel eyes looked very green against the lawn that stretched out behind him. “I’ll wait for you. We won’t need a reservation in the middle of the week.”

“I’d rather not. If I can get Meg to eat out, I will. It’s good for her to be forced to eat from a menu.” To soften her rejection she reached out and touched him on the arm. “I’m sure you understand.”

An emotion that might have been anger flickered behind Jon’s eyes. “You really have fallen for him, haven’t you?”

Tracy waited a moment before replying in an expressionless voice, “What do you mean?”

He shook his dark head impatiently. “Don’t play games, Tracy, you know what I mean. You’ve fallen for Silverbridge.”

Tracy let another pause develop while she thought about the best way to respond to this comment. At last she decided on honesty. “Yes,
I’
m afraid I have, Jon. I’ve fallen rather hard, as a matter of fact. So you see,
I’m just not interested in spending time with other men right now.”

He crossed his arms over his burly chest. “I suppose I can’t blame you. He has everything going for him: an ancient ti
tl
e, a fabulous house, money, looks, charm. Why wouldn’t you fall for him?”

He was making her attraction to Harry sound so superficial, but she shut her mouth on her initial impulse, which was to inform Jon that Harry was a farmer with much less money than Jon himself, and said instead, “Neatly put.”

The tautness of his facial muscles relaxed at this forthright reply, and he forced a smile. “Well, you know I don’t approve, but I most certainly do understand. However, if something should ever happen, and you need a friend, please know that I will be here for you.”

Tracy tilted her head fractionally. “What could possibly happen?”

“He could dump you, my dear.” Jon’s tone was dry. “Shocking as that thought may be, it’s happened to other beautiful young women who became involved with Silverbridge.”

Tracy forced herself to maintain a pleasant expression. “That is kind of you, Jon, but I don’t think I need to worry.”

He patted her shoulder. “That’s what they all say, my dear. But I promise faithfully that I won’t say
I told you so.
”
And on that less-than-encouraging note, he walked away.

24

H
arry sat in the morning room waiting for the six o’clock news to start. Ebony was draped across his lap, purring with pleasure as he petted her, and he was staring at the empty screen going over in his mind his afternoon interview with the local English Heritage officer.

“English Heritage believes that it is the
tout ensemble
of the English country house that defines its contribution to art history,” the obnoxious young man with the Midlands accent and dreadful tie had said. “This includes the furnished house with its collections as well as its garden, green park, woods and, in the case of Silverbridge, stables.”

“I can rebuild the stables to
look
authentic,” Harry had said. “But surely you must see that the cost of the original materials is prohibitive—not to mention the exorbitant fees I would have to pay to the skilled craftsmen who know how to work with those materials.”

“I understand and sympathize with your predicame
nt, Lord Silverbridge.” The Howl
es fellow had actually made an attempt to look down his nose at Harry. “But you should have had the stables insured for the correct amount of money to allow you to rebuild in the original style. Unfortunately, you did not do that, and now you must deal with the consequences.”

Harry had made a heroic effort to hold on to his temper. “I’ve got the house insured for four times its market value. Do you know the cost of that kind of insurance?”

“The cost of insurance is not my concern, my lord. My concern is the preservation of England’s great heritage.” The young man had fingered his dreadful tie. “The fact that you underinsured your stable cannot be allowed to figure into my decision on this matter. My mission is to protect our heritage.”

“Silverbride is
my
heritage, not yours,” Harry had replied grimly. “And this is not the tune you were singing the last time I spoke to you. In fact, you led me to believe that there would be no problem with my rebuilding the stable with mode
rn
materials as long as I kept the appearance correct.”

Howl
es’s superior expression disappeared. “I have since changed my mind.”

“And may I ask what caused you to change it?”

The young man gave an elaborate shrug. “You are a very persuasive man, my lord. When I was out from under the influence of your charismatic personality, I realized that I had made a mistake.”

Suddenly Harry had had enough. “That’s not the
only mistake you have made, Howl
es.” He stood up. “That
tie of yours is an affront to good taste everywhere. How the devil the government could put a man like you in charge of ‘England’s Heritage’ will always remain a mystery to me.”

He had exited upon that note, and now he wondered if he should have remained to further exercise his “charismatic pers
onality” upon the obnoxious Howl
es.

It would have been a waste of time,
he decided.
I’m beginning to think that Tracy might be right and th
ere was a bribe involved in Howl
es’s change of mind.

“This whole thing stinks, Eb,” he said out loud, one long finger caressing his cat’s small skull.

Ebony purred louder.

Harry glanced at his watch, saw that it was time for the news to begin and shooed Ebony off his lap so he could turn on the television. As soon as he stood up the telephone rang. He let it ring twice, hoping that Mrs. Wilson would pick it up, then when it rang a third time he went to answer it himself.

A man’s voice with a thick Scots accent said in his ear, “Is this Lord Silverbridge?”

Harry frowned. “Yes. Who is this?”

“Tracy Collins asked me to call you, my lord, and ask you to meet her by the lake on your property as soon as possible. She said she had something important to show you.”

“Who is this?” Harry demanded again.

“Just a local shopkeeper, my lord, doing as Miss Collins asked. Good-bye.”

Harry stared at the phone, which had been disconnected.

A local shopkeeper.
He knew that Tracy had taken
Meg shopping for new clothes, but why hadn’t she called him herself? This phone call suggested that she had been in a great hurry.

What can she want to show me? And who the hell is this Scottish shopkeeper?

He ran down two flights of stairs to collect the dogs. Neither Mrs. Wilson nor Marshal and Millie were in the kitchen, however. The housekeeper had probably taken the spaniels out for a walk. He made a quick decision not to search for them, but went into his office, grabbed a rifle from its glass cabinet, loaded it, and headed in the direction of the lake.

Clouds had come in during the course of the afternoon, bringing an early twilight. Harry jogged steadily along the garden path, the rifle grasped firmly in his hand, feeling a sense of inexplicable urgency. He turned onto the path that would bring him to the woods, ignoring the headache that the exertion of jogging was bringing on.

He didn’t use the bridle path but took the deer trails, and even so, it was half an hour before he reached the lake. A flock of blackbirds rose from the grass and flew away as he burst out of the tree cover, but, aside from the birds and the swans floating downstream, the lakeshore was empty of life.

“Tracy,” he called. “Are you here?”

A distant birdcall was his only reply.

The skin on the back of Harry’s neck prickled, and a thought flashed through his brain,
I’d better get under cover.

Before he could translate this thought into action, however, two things occurred simultaneously. Someone
shoved him from behind, causing him to fall sprawling to the ground, and a rifle bullet blasted over his head as he fell.

Shit,
Harry thought as he lifted his face out of the prickly grass. Another rifle shot rang out, and this bullet whistled close to his ear. “Get out of here,” he shouted to whoever had pushed him, got to his feet and dived into the woods.

A third bullet exploded, then everything was quiet except for the hammering of Harry’s heart.
I should have brought the dogs,
he thought.

“I have a gun, too!” he shouted in the direction of the shot. He fired his own rifle into the air. “Come and get me, you cowardly bastard.”

He heard a faint rustling in the distance, but it could have been deer spooked by the sound of shooting. Adrenaline was pumping through his bloodstream, and he scarcely noticed the pain in his head. His eyes searched the woods he knew so well, the woods he had hunted since he was a boy, but all was quiet. He picked up a rock and threw it, waiting to see if the noise and motion would draw another rifle shot. Nothing.

Bastard,
Harry thought disgustedly.
He’s not going to show himself. He’s going to run away.
His finger curved around the trigger of his rifle.
Damn!

He waited for half an hour and during that time saw no sign of either the shooter or the person who had pushed him. It was as if both of them had dissolved into the English twilight. Finally, he decided to return to the house.

By the time he let himself in the side door, his adrenaline rush had subsided and his head was pounding. He
went downstairs to his office to return his rifle to its cabinet and found Tracy and Meg sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner.

“Harr
y! Where have you been?” Meg demanded. Her eyes focused on the gun that was still in his hand. “Were you out shooting?”

“Actually, I was the one being shot at,” he returned.

Tracy went perfectly white.

Meg’s blue eyes seemed to engulf her face.

Damn,
Harry thought.
It’s this bloody headache. I’m not thinking straight. Why the hell did I blurt that out?

“Someone tried to shoot you?” Tracy said.

Her eyes were midnight blue in her pale face. Meg looked petrified.

“Hell,” Harry said. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
All he wanted to do at the moment was go upstairs, take some painkillers, and get into bed. But he couldn’t walk out and leave them looking like this. “I’m fine,” he said. “It was probably just a poacher.”

“Then why do you have a gun?” Tracy asked.

“Like Meg said, I was out shooting.” He rubbed his forehead and avoided meeting those too-knowing blue eyes.

“And you gave yourself a headache,” she said flatly.

“I’m afraid I did. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll put this gun away and go upstairs to rest.”

“Don’t you want some dinner, Harry?” Meg asked.

“No, thank you, Meggie,” Harry replied.

He put the gun away, but when he returned to the bottom of the staircase, Tracy was waiting for him. “You
can tell me what happened while you take some medication and get into bed.”

“I’ve already told you what happened, and I don’t need you to put me to bed,” he responded.

She didn’t answer, just turned and went up the stairs. He sighed and followed.

Ebony was parked in the middle of his bed, and when she saw Tracy, she arose, tail standing straight up, and glared at the intruder.

“Go take a pill,” Tracy told him.

He went into his bathroom, shook two prescription pills from a plastic bottle, and washed them down with water. When he returned to the bedroom, Tracy was sitting in one of his fireside chairs, and she and Ebony were regarding each other warily. He went to take the other chair, and Ebony immediately came to claim her spot on his lap. He automatically began to pet her.

“Tell me everything,” Tracy said.

He told her about the phone call and his trip to the woods and the shots. “Someone set me up, obviously. Good thing I had the forethought to bring a gun with me; otherwise, I would have been a sitting duck.”

“You shouldn’t have gone in the first place.”

“Obviously I had to go. The call might have been authentic.”

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and he thought, watching the movement of her wrist and forearm, that she was the most graceful woman he had ever seen. She said, “Was it just luck that caused that first shot to miss you? Or did something else happen?”
Thud, thud, thud,
went the pain in his head.

“What else could have happened?” he asked.

“I’m asking you. It just seems to me that if someone went to such trouble to set you up, he would have been certain he could make his shot.”

His hand stilled on Ebony’s fur. He looked at Tracy, and for the first time he fully understood that he was incapable of lying to Tracy. There was some link between them that made it impossible.

Moaw!

His hand began to stroke Ebony again, and he said to Tracy, “A very odd thing happened, so odd that I can scarcely believe it myself.”

She nodded, as if this was the reply she had expected. “Someone pushed me. It happened a split second before I heard the shot. I fell flat on my face, and the bullet went over my head.”

Silence fell as she reflected on this disclosure. Then she said quietly, “Do' you know who pushed you, Harry?”

He shook his head. “That’s what is so weird. Whoever it was disappeared. I never saw him, and I never heard him. There was only the push.”

“Do you think it was a man who pushed you?”

“From the strength of that push? Yes, I’m sure it was a man.”

He had not switched on a lamp, but her skin glowed like pure porcelain in the dimness. She said, a little tentatively,
“Harry
…
I can’t help thinking that Charles was shot to death in those very same woods.”

For some reason, his heart began to race. He said between his teeth, “What does that have to do with anything?”

She leaned toward him, hands loosely clasped on her
lap. “I know you’ve said there are no ghosts at Silverbridge, but maybe you’re wrong, Harry. Maybe there is a ghost here, a benign ghost, and he saved you from the same tragedy that happened to him.”

His heart beat faster, and the pounding of the headache beat with it. “Are you saying that the
ghost of Charles
saved my life?”

Her white teeth sank into her lower lip. “I suppose it sounds silly.”

Ghost of Charles, ghost of Charles,
the words thudded in his brain to the rhythm of his heartbeat and his headache. “It sounds more than silly,” he said. “It sounds insane.”

She smoothed a crease from her camel-colored slacks. “It may sound that way, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Unwillingly his mind returned to the afternoon when he had been watching the filming and a scene from the past had interposed itself upon the present. He saw again Charles’s golden head as he bent to
say something to the auburn-hair
ed girl in the white dress he was dancing with.

He looked into Tracy’s eyes, and demanded, “Have you seen something?”