Rhapsody for Two
Page 13
As she squeezed by him, holding up the long skirts of her habit, she brushed against his body. Solid as the door itself, and pleasantly straw-scented. “I beg your pardon.” She ducked her head, grateful for the brim of her modish little hat, which shadowed her rosy features.
“Not at all.” He sounded distracted. As soon as the door closed behind him, he asked, “Why are you here, Miss Chandler?”
He swiped at one chair seat with a handkerchief, then motioned for Hannah to sit.
She did so warily, taking in the rough surroundings with quick, curious glances. While her father’s stable office was smooth of floor and wide of doorway to accommodate his wheelchair, Crosby’s was a walled-in loose box set at one corner of the stable. The chairs and table were as plain as though they’d been pilfered from a tack room. A broken bridle lay across the table, weighting a haphazard stack of papers. The stall floor was the same packed dirt the horses’ hooves knew so well, though without cushioning straw, and Hannah’s sturdy black boots quickly picked up dust.
She drew back her feet and squared her shoulders. “I am here to claim ownership of Golden Barb.”
“You mistake my meaning, Miss Chandler.” He eased into a chair facing hers across the rough table. “Why are you here, rather than...”
Someone better. She narrowed her eyes, daring him to finish the sentence, but he simply watched her with an unflinching mahogany-dark gaze.
He was not aware, then, that there was no one else. Sir William had not conducted business in the field since falling ill with palsy more than a decade before.
Following the disappearance of his bride several years before, Hannah’s eldest brother, Jonah, had abandoned human interaction in favor of overseeing the Chandler stud farm several miles north of Newmarket.
Jonah’s widowed twin, Abigail, lived in Ireland with her children.
Brother Nathaniel, roguish and charming, was frequently in London to keep an eye on Tattersalls—and probably a few lusty widows as well.
“There is no one better than me, Crosby,” Hannah replied into the weighty silence. “In my brother Nathaniel’s temporary absence, you may consider me to be my father’s right hand.”
His brows drew together. “I will not consider any communication in which your father has a hand. Not right, nor left. Nor even underhanded, which it is likely to be.”
So it was to be a battle? Very well. “Is this how you speak to ladies in London? If so, I do not wonder that you are still a bachelor.”
“I might not always know how to speak elegantly to ladies. But you? First and foremost, you’re a Chandler. And I know exactly how Chandlers ought to be treated.”
There was neither sneer nor frown in his voice. Just a firm chill, as when one laid one’s hand against untouched stone.
Hannah clasped her hands tightly in her lap. They were protected by gloves of York tan, smooth and elegant, their stitching almost invisible from the outside. “I hope,” she replied, “that you are able to set aside your irrelevant personal feelings long enough to transact a matter of business. Will you do me the simple courtesy of reading the bill of sale in its entirety?”
Something closed in his expression, though he did not shift his proud posture by a whit. He unfolded the paper, smoothing it. “Golden Barb is my colt,” he stated as his eyes skimmed the densely written lines. “But I will do you the courtesy of admitting that this reference to his sire’s sale in 1801 indicates some shared obligation between our parents.”
“You want to add, ‘I cannot imagine why,’ do you not? Only you are wondering if you have already been impolite enough for one conversation.”
He fumbled the paper, a flush staining his high cheekbones. “Would it be more impolite for me to contradict or to agree with you?”
Aha, a crack in his stony reception. “Both responses would be more impolite.”
This nonsensical reply, spoken with a haughty lift of the chin, caused his gaze to flick upward from the paper and catch hers. “You allow me no chance to win, Miss Chandler?”
“Did you expect that I would? Surely not. If you know how to treat Chandlers, I know how to treat Crosbys.”
He examined her with the same close scrutiny he had granted to his colt’s foreleg: jaw set, eyes searching, searching.
He would find the sore and tender places if she let him study her much longer. He would notice how green she was, how untried, how unsure of her footing.
She must remember that she had nothing to prove to this man, and everything to gain through success in this matter. “You appear to be staring, sir. Are you confused by some point in the bill of sale? Do you wish me to offer clarification?”
“Yes.” Those expressive brows furrowed. “But not only about the bill of sale. This whole situation is terribly improper. When did someone from your household—that is, your father’s household—meet with my mother? She has received no callers since—” Frowning, he cut himself off. “She has not received callers for some time.”
Hannah knew that Lady Crosby had lost her mind. All of Newmarket knew it. But if Sir Bartlett wanted to pretend that wasn’t the case, she would allow him his fiction.
She certainly allowed herself fictions enough. Most recently, the fiction that this transaction would be carried out smoothly.
The young baronet was staring again, and she kicked out. Figuratively. “See anything you like?”
“Not particularly,” said the young baronet. “To maintain the rules of polite discourse, I ought to ask you the same, but I already know your answer. Tell me, Miss Chandler, what did you expect me to do about this? Surely you did not think I would transfer a prize colt into your keeping.”
“If you are a man of honor, I expect exactly that. Is your hesitation because I am a woman, or because I am a Chandler?”
He looked down at the bill of sale. “It’s because I did not agree to sell my damned colt.” His face flushed, highlighting the strong lines of his cheekbones. “I beg your pardon, Miss Chandler. I should not have used such language in your presence.”
An indignant reply was ready to trip from Hannah’s tongue—but when her gaze caught his, it fell back. Because his apology meant he had recalled she was a woman. And his consciousness of her femininity made her suddenly aware of it too. Of her stays molding the curves of her figure. The wool of her habit seemed far too warm, the collar too scratchy on the sensitive skin of her throat.
They were alone, male and female, and the door was latched.
“This whole situation is terribly improper.” She tried to offer a cool, flippant echo of his statement, but her tone sounded more like a croak.
He seemed to follow the line of her thoughts, because he shook his head. “It can’t be improper for a Chandler and a Crosby to speak in private, can it? Nothing more scandalous could occur than—oh, I don’t know. The annihilation of the world.”
“Or, what is worse, of my reputation.”
“How you do threaten a fellow,” he said mildly. Drawing the document toward him, he muttered, “I shall need some time to review this.”
She was dismissed then, with the blush still lingering on her cheeks.
She could not permit a failure. Even a delay was too much to risk, with the race only a week away.
Shoving back the chair, she sprang to her feet. “You are welcome to take all the time you like to review the bill. In the meantime, my groom will take the colt back to Chandler Hall.”
Manners dictated that Crosby follow her movement, and he too stood. “The time to address concerns, Miss Chandler, is before one stoops to horse theft.”
His voice had become low and soothing, just as it had been in the stable yard. How did he change its timbre so easily from sandpaper to satin? Its calm resonance made Hannah want to sway toward him, to set one foot before the other.
No. To shrug it away. That was what she wanted to do. “If you can find the papers related to Nottingham’s purchase, that might settle the matter.” She looked scornfully at the tu
mbled stack of papers atop Crosby’s table.
“That is a reasonable suggestion.” He eased around the table and faced her before the door of the stall-turned-office. “For a Chandler, you impress me.”
“I would say the same if I could,” she replied, and his mouth crimped into an unwilling smile.
That small curve of lips felt like more of a victory than any of her spiked words, and she let herself look up at him, wondering for just a moment.
What was it like to own things outright and not just serve as an emissary?
What was it like to travel where one wished? To attend a ball, to spin through a waltz and steal a kiss?
Had Bart Crosby always been free to leave and return as he chose? And what had hardened his features and dusted gray through his night-colored hair? Surely not the foreign pleasures of London, which Hannah had neither sipped nor tasted.
Perhaps he had always looked thus, and time had smoothed her recollections of the neighbor boy to whom she was never allowed to speak.
Her throat caught on so many questions. Crosby spoke instead. “Any document dating to 1801 would more likely be in the house than in this office. I shall search at my first opportunity, Miss Chandler. You have my word.” He held up his hand, bare-skinned and strong-fingered. “I realize that means less than nothing to you, but that is your misfortune.”
“I will accept your word,” she decided, “if I may look along with you to ensure the worth of the search.”
“That is remarkably presumptuous, but I’ll consider the matter.” Again, the tiny curve of a smile, and Hannah had to bite her lip not to return it. He reached over her shoulder—to touch her? No, only to fiddle with the latch and let the door swing open behind her. “After you,” he said.
She took one step into the open air—then froze. Stunned by the scene before her. Heedless of Crosby’s muffled curse as he collided with her back.
Sothern, her groom, lay prone and still at the center of the stable yard, his forehead bleeding from an ugly cut. Crosby’s stable boy had been gagged, tied hand and foot, and tossed beside him.
And Golden Barb—the colt who was to carry her future—was nowhere in sight.
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