Sport of Baronets (8 page)

“It is too much, probably, to hope that you said no because you recalled that Golden Barb was mine.” Bart stood, pacing away to fix his gaze on a portrait on the wall. The Crosby children: Bart and his three older sisters, painted two decades earlier. They had married years ago and had moved to different parts of England, never to return. Not even when Lady Crosby suffered her seizure. Not even when Bart discovered there was almost nothing left of the family legacy.

Hannah wasn't the only one who felt trapped sometimes.

“I said no because he wanted me to say yes.” The voice was as quiet as the raindrops. “And then, when I thought of a way to hurt him…”

“Then you said yes after all, accepting ready cash in place of forgiveness of a much larger debt. You did not think he would become suspicious?” Bart's painted sisters—three look-alike brunettes of varying age—regarded him with pity. He turned away, back to the dowager in red satin. She wore much the same expression.

“No, he wouldn't,” Bart muttered. Lady Crosby would give up a large future gain for ready money in the present. Gambling was an illness with her. He knew that, and evidently Sir William knew that too and was willing to profit from it.

Bart wanted to wash his hands of them both. “So you hired Northrup to carry out your plan. What was it? To hide my horse in Sir William's stable in disguise as Bridget's Brown? Sir William would not race a horse he thought was injured.”

A crooked shrug. “He's dotty about injured horses. Didn't give up on Bridget's Brown. Hid the news about his hoof and kept Sothern caring for the colt all the time.”

The pieces fit together with diabolical sense. “When Northrup substituted Golden Barb in disguise, he also injured Sothern, which kept the groom away from the Chandler stables. So the other stable hands carried on with their work, exercising a horse they thought to be healthy.”

“And Sir William thought his fine care had worked.”

“Then what? You were going to cry fraud and reclaim Golden Barb at the last moment before the race? After betting a great deal on him at long odds, I suppose.”

“I thought
you
would cry fraud,” she said. “I overestimated you.”

“Underestimated me, rather. I've no taste for your gambling. For these bitter tricks.” One last glance up at the boy in the painting. He was dark like his sisters; unlike them, he bore a friendly smile on his young features. The fool, to be so trusting. “Why was it so important to hurt him? Why dispense with family loyalty just to triumph over Sir William when you could ignore him and still win?”

Her head sank back against the pillows, and she stared up at the ceiling. Facing her good side in profile, Bart could almost forget she had been stricken and ill. “I could never hurt him enough. Hurting him
is
family loyalty.”

The anger in her voice was bewildering. Bart had always regarded the Chandlers with an impersonal resentment, but this was deep and bitter. “You would hurt us just to hurt him?”

“You do not have all the answers you thought you did.” She turned her face away, toward the wall.

Our association is at an end…
Bart recalled the short letter Hannah had found. A realization dawned on him, so unexpected that he had to place a hand on the wall to steady himself. “You loved him once, didn't you? You loved him, and he—he broke off the association, and now you hate him.”

Lady Crosby was quiet so long that Bart suspected she was pretending to be asleep. He was just drawing forward to retrieve her vinaigrette when she spoke. Slowly. As clearly as he had heard her speak since the apoplexy struck. “Sir William and I…are more alike… than you know. That's why…we began our…association. And why it ended a short while later.”

“And you cannot forgive him.” With a sigh, he sat on the edge of the bed again. “Are you angry at him for being a better businessman than you? For holding fast to his money instead of gambling it away?”

“I do not think I am a businessman at all.” Her laugh rasped forth.

Bart made an impatient sound. “You know what I mean.”

She turned to face him again. “I don't want to forgive.” Her mouth sagged with more than just paralysis.

For sixteen years, she had been in the habit of hating, with all the power of love turned thwarted and sick.

“Did Father know you had betrayed him? Before he died?”

The small shake of her head was a relief. One fewer heart that had been hurt by the strange, tangled history of the Crosbys and Chandlers.

No one knew anymore how the feud had started decades before. With two ambitious hearts, maybe, each wanting the same thing. Each desperate to get it at any price. There was nothing as everyday or as powerful as simple selfishness.

Well, not
much
that was as powerful.

He should have sent Golden Barb back with Hannah.
You know what he represents to me.
He did know, but he had still ridden away. Angry, so angry. This was how feuds began, and how they continued.

He wondered how they could be stopped. He was determined to find out.

Sifting through the bedside bottles, he retrieved the vinaigrette that would inevitably be required. “I intend to assume all the responsibilities for the family property, as allowed by my title. You are entitled to an income proportional to that of the estate, but you will have no financial authority beyond that.” As he opened the silver lid, the smell of vinegar pinched at him. “I hope your gambling days are behind you.”

Shoving herself over in the bed, she batted the vinaigrette from his hand and it fell to the carpet. “You want to put me in a cage. As though my own body hasn't failed me enough.”

“I don't see any failure before me. I see a woman who could have become helpless, and who taught herself to speak again and use her left arm. I see a mind as sharp as ever, as full of knowledge. You could do much good. We still have horses to train and to race.”

She lifted the claw of her right hand. “Look at me. I can't.”

And Bart played his trump card. “Sir William Chandler spends time in his stables every day. If he can go about his business using a wheelchair, why cannot you?”

“Wheelchair,” she sniffed. “Nonsense. I could walk if something helped me to balance.”

“Perhaps one day you can push him around. Until that day, it would be my honor to help you in a chair of your own.”

“Sooner than you think, Bartlett,” she said. “If you're pitting me against Sir William, maybe I underestimated you after all. We should have all done this a long time ago.”

“Not
pitting against
.” He rolled his eyes. “
Comparing
. To
become stronger
.”

Peace between her and the Chandlers might be a process of years, if it happened at all. But Bart had a different idea of family loyalty than she did, and it was one that bridged rather than broke.

It was one that included apologies and balances. Old letters and new notes. Newmarket and London. Horseback rides and the promise of a waltz.

Chandlers as well as Crosbys.

Eagerness drove him to his feet. Something hard beneath his boot made him check his balance: the silver vinaigrette, now flat as his chronometer. He picked it up, recoiling at the strong odor of vinegar, and replaced it on the bedside table.

“Horrid piece.” The dowager grimaced. “Throw it out the window.”

The silver made it valuable, so Bart left it in place—though diplomatically, he covered it with a handkerchief to mask the sharp scent. “I'll let you rest now. Would you like the window closed, Mother?”

“Not Lady Crosby?” Her half-smile trembled.

“Not anymore.” He crossed to the window, savoring the clean drizzle. “I was angry at you, you know. For your gambling. I lost trust in you, and I don't know if you ever had any trust in me.” Pulling in a rain-cool breath, he added, “I hope you will someday, because I deserve it. I am your son, but I am also the head of this family. I expect you to respect that. No more gambling with our futures, Mother. Our family cannot afford it, for more reasons than the economic.”

“And you want someone else to be Lady Crosby.”

“See there? I knew your mind was as sharp as ever.”

“I shall try not to hate her. For your sake.”

“I'll take that as a starting point. Though I hope one day you will love her for her own.” If he had not broken too much between himself and Hannah.

Even so, there was hope. For if love could turn to hate, surely hate could turn to love.

Left hand picking absently at the trim of her red satin dressing gown, the dowager studied him. “Your waistcoat is a horror.”

“We match,” he replied, and she laughed.

“Leave the window open, please, Bartlett. I like the breeze.”

With a smile, he bowed his way out. She was right: they should have had that conversation a long time ago.

He strode in the direction of the stables, one more conversation on his mind.

Hannah returned home in the early afternoon, tired and cold and hungry and dismal.

After sending Morrow home on foot, she and Sothern had ridden through a chill drizzle to the lands of Sir Jubal Thompson. She knew the knight by reputation, though she had never met him in person, and she was initially relieved to find him both at home and inclined to believe her tale about a misplaced Thoroughbred.

“Now, now. You're not to blame yourself, Miss Chandler, when something like this happens.” Holding a great black umbrella over her head as he led her to the stable holding his equine visitor, he addressed Hannah in the same tone one might speak to a nervous maiden who had put too much sugar in a caller's tea. “Your father's right hand; that's a great honor for you. I'm sure you're doing the best you can. This is a gentleman's sport, and it doesn't come naturally to others.”

“Considering the man who turned loose a valuable animal was no gentleman at all, I shall grant you that.” She smiled sweetly, wishing she hadn't tossed away her elegant plumes. They would have lent her the countenance this elderly knight seemed to think she lacked.

After regarding her with some suspicion, he granted her an appreciative smile that shook his jowls. “Fair enough. The horse is right this way.”

It was Bridget's Brown; she knew him at once, and he gave her a whicker of recognition too.

Damn.
She had hoped it was not him. “My poor Bridget,” she said as she stroked his proud head, then thanked Sir Jubal for the loan of a halter and longe line. “You shan't race again. How will you bear it?”

Horses didn't know anything but the present moment, the fortunate creatures. And so she made that present moment as comfortable as she could, keeping up a stream of calm chatter in the colt's ear as they plodded across a soggy stable yard and met Sothern with the mounts.

After thanking Sir Jubal for his hospitality and promising him a full accounting from her father, they were off, keeping a slow pace for Bridget's tender cracked hoof.

The parade home was one horse richer, yet Hannah felt so much poorer.

Once back at Chandler Hall, she decided against entering the house at once. Following Sothern to the stables, she gave the staff a brief and highly edited account of the past few days. “We shan't have a mount in the Two Thousand Guineas,” she concluded, “but I am confident that with your skill and attention, you can restore our Bridget to health.” She pulled aside a stable boy and quietly asked him to assist Sothern into dry clothes and to a pallet for rest.

And then she was on her own, looking down the generous corridor between equally generous-sized stalls.

She could not help but contrast it with her visit to Bart's stables. Not long ago, according to the calendar, but her heart had grown and altered enough for an age.

Here there was no floor of packed dirt, but of cobbles laid smooth as a marble-tiled floor. Sloped for drainage, swept clean several times a day to keep the pathway smooth for its owner's wheelchair. Chandler Hall's stables were the work of money, luxuriant heaps of it. Now she also recognized the subtle charm in buildings that had grown over time.

I've never done anything like this
, she had said to Bart.

I never do anything like this
, he replied.

At the time, still floating in delight, she had thought their sentences the same. But given time and distance, she found them very different.

She had thought herself on the brink of a new beginning.

He had thought of her as an aberration.

And if she were an aberration—if their time together was—then it meant the truce was only temporary. That they had passion, but no romance. Lust, maybe; never love.

Yet she had thought—had hoped—for something quite the opposite. The promise of a new life set within the familiar bounds of Newmarket. Like a beloved room papered in a new pattern.

Entering the nearest stall, she took up a currycomb and stroked it over the glossy hide of a horse that needed currying no more than Hannah needed to get rained on again. The horse enjoyed the familiar ritual, its head dropping, relaxed. But Hannah had performed this routine too often for her mind to be occupied at all. And if not even care of a horse was left to her, what would soothe her?

Oh, she had certainly fallen into a pattern. A foolish pattern of placing her own desires over the greater benefit of her family. If she had served her family as she ought, she would have left when
Mr. Crosby
refused to turn over the colt. She would have sent the solicitor instead.

But would that have served her well? She already felt she had missed out on so much. Turning over every important matter to someone else—to her father, to a brother, to someone older, someone who had seen more of the world—would make her beloved room smaller and smaller. Nothing but a cell.

Hannah had become as accommodating as the corridors of this stable or of Chandler Hall. So young when she had lost her mother, she could barely remember that lady. Her father had always been there though; so strong-willed that she had let him guide her, trusting that he knew the best way.

He didn't always. Not if he thought the best way was a rivalry with the Crosby family. It had burned years of their lives, and to what purpose? Was there another way?

This was a question for Sir William. And she would, at last, be brave enough to ask it.

As soon as she changed into dry clothing and rang for tea. She might have given up her plumes, but she wouldn't go into battle—if so it was—without fortification.

* * *

With a rap at her father's study door, she entered the grand space.

He looked up from behind his long desk, a racetrack of mahogany. “Hannah? Is it our time?” Puzzled eyes found the clock above the fireplace. “No, you are early.”

He had always been a man of strict routine and efficiency, but particularly so since the attack of palsy a dozen years before that had taken the use of his legs. Disciplining a half-unresponsive body took formidable effort, with careful calculations of everything from the amount of exercise to the amount of food and liquid imbibed at particular times of day.

“I am early,” she confirmed, “because I have much to discuss with you.”

Seating herself across from him in her usual chair, she explained about the switch of Golden Barb and Bridget's Brown arranged by Northrup. She gave him Morrow's evidence and that of Sir Jubal.

The only name she omitted was that of Sir Bartlett Crosby, though she suspected, as her father's gray brows lowered with displeasure, that he noticed its absence.

When she finished her recital, he steepled his hands before him. “The Crosbys are wilier than I knew,” he mused. “To think of ringing in a substitution in our own stable.”

“I saw Bridget's cracked hoof. Have you ever known a horse to recover from such an injury?”

He peered at the clock again, as though the hands might have tricked him. “It's not time for brandy, and yet—just this once.” Drawing the decanter and glasses toward himself, he splashed in a generous amount without bothering to measure it.

And then, to Hannah's surprise, he did the same a second time and scooted the glass to her.

“It would be unlikely”—he took a sip—“if he was able to race again, with a hoof damaged in that way. When he—really Golden Barb—trained well, I should have known it was impossible. But I wanted so badly for him to be all right.” Another long sip. When he set down the glass, his eyes were sad. “I had no more notion than you that someone had turned him loose and put another horse in his place. Poor beast. No one should be treated as though he's worthless when he can no longer run.”

She ignored her own brandy. “Why did you not tell me he was hurt, Father? How can I be your
right hand
”—the echo of Sir Jubal's words fell bitterly from her lips—“if I am to be tied with ignorance?”

“Because I knew you wanted to win the Two Thousand Guineas. I didn't want you disappointed.”

“So you didn't trust me with the truth.”

He frowned. “I had wanted to give Bridget's Brown to you. A gift. Then when his injury made itself known, I wasn't sure what to do. How could I give you any less than a champion?”

“But I didn't want a gift, Father. I wanted to earn it. I wanted a colt of my own, so that any victory he won wouldn't feel like charity from his true owner.”

“Charity?”
Crack
. His glass hit the surface of the desk hard enough to set the crystal ringing. “It cannot be charity. You're my daughter. You have a huge dowry, should you ever care to marry. And if you don't, I wanted you to have a racehorse. I didn't want you to pay for him, because I knew you had saved your money for the same reason I wanted to give you a horse.”

Her fingers spasmed, then closed around her own glass. “What reason?”

“To keep you safe.” Rubbing at his temple, he sighed. “So that after I'm gone, you will be comfortable. Even if you never choose to marry, you will be protected.”

His hands fell to his sides, to the wooden rims of his chair's wheels. He gave them a little push, back and forth, rolling himself away and back to the desk.

The vigor of his upper body, the strength of his arms, contrasted with the lower body that frustrated him so. Could legs be moved by force of will, he would be galloping alongside every horse in the stable.

He ought to know better than most that no one could truly be protected. A robust man traveling far from home could fall ill with a mysterious palsy. Or in the case of Lady Crosby, the vessels within one's brain could fail. A hoof could crack. A groom could toss away decades of loyalty. These things happened.

“It's not up to you to protect me, Father.”

“Then to whom does the task fall? I could have trapped you in the nursery with a governess, or given you a needle and thread instead of a halter.” He spun the glass, watching the brandy slosh and play. “But selfishly, I didn't want to. I didn't know how else to raise you after your mother died, so I raised you as my right hand.” His smile was tired. “Your brothers thought
they
were my right hands, but a man only needs so many hands. And you, Hannah—you are the one who stayed.”

“I wanted to stay.” But she should not have let that make her feel small.

Bart was right: training went both ways. She could have trained herself for a larger sphere. She could have wed young and fled like her sister, Abigail, had.

Or she could simply have said no to errands she found distasteful. To a feud she knew was wrong. To a colt she ought not to buy. She did not have to leave Newmarket to do what she thought right.

“I'm more than just your right hand.” She shoved the glass of brandy back toward him. “I am not sorry you raised me the way you did, but—I think it is time matters changed. You have used me as your emissary to take advantage of the Crosbys. We have lost a racehorse, and I…” His eyes were too sharp, and she looked away, not wanting to reveal more.

Too late; the formidable Sir William Chandler always saw. “You fell for that dandy, didn't you.” It was not a question.

“He is not a dandy.” She didn't know what else she ought to say about her feelings. Her heart was pulled in too many directions for her to put any name to what she felt.

A long silence followed. “Do you blame me, Daughter?”

His tired tone seemed to clear her vision. When she looked at him again, she saw him bowed by loss, frustrated by the limits of his own body.

“No.” The answer came at once.

Along with parceling out her hours, days, life, her father had given her everything good. A home. Brothers and a sister. More responsibility than most women were given.

“I don't blame you,” she continued, “but I do think it best if I am not your right hand anymore. As soon as a replacement can be hired. I would like…” She swallowed. “I would like simply to be your daughter instead.”

“My daughter,” he echoed, “who owns a racehorse.”

“Something like that.” Bart had walked away with Golden Barb, promising to return his purchase price to Hannah. But it wasn't the money she wanted; it was the promise.

Sir William's severe features softened. “I might have called you my right hand, but I would never have wanted you to feel like you were less than a whole person. I have never wanted to feel less than whole myself, even when I needed your help in so many matters.”

“We are both whole,” she agreed. “And there is great dignity in admitting when one needs help.”

“Do you think so?” His stern mouth crooked up at one side.

“Yes, I do.” And she had an idea. “I—I believe I shall need your help, Father.” And she explained what she wanted.

He smiled. “I shall be glad to speak to my solicitor for you.” His hazel eyes looked as familiar as those she saw in the glass each morning. “Now, are you going to drink that brandy? If not, shove the glass a little closer to me.”

* * *

When Bart reached the entrance steps of Chandler Hall that afternoon, he had to smile at the sight. At the time it was completed only a few years before, polite society had giggled over the descriptions that made their way to London, calling it a monstrosity. Dominated by a huge, soaring rotunda, it looked like a giant of stucco-covered brick extending arms in a cradle made of the house's much smaller forward-curving wings.

The entrance hall was still more unusual: a sliver soaring the full three-story height of the rotunda, splitting the giant cylinder in two. Its marble floor, polished perfectly smooth, eschewed the usual sedate checkerboard in favor of the whimsical. At the center of the floor was an elongated black star like a compass rose. Around it, rings of black and white alternated like ripples.

There was no reason to build something so monstrous, so entirely counter to fashion, unless it was exactly the way one wanted it. How could Bart not admire such confidence?