She was running, moving across the ground swiftly and yet it was like that horrible dream where you ran and ran and yet stayed firmly in place. She would never make it in time.
Jamie ran past her, so fast he almost didn’t seem human. He was running for the wall, and she saw what he meant to do. If he could catch Conor before Phouka attempted the jump, he might be able to save him from a deathly tumble. He might just break his own neck in the attempt. She ran, half-stumbling, because even though she wasn’t going to get there in time, she had to try. She glanced back remembering the babies and saw Vanya running down toward them.
Jamie jumped, grasping the edge of the wall and pulling himself up. She stood frozen in horror, if Phouka so much as glanced against his leg, he could kill Jamie. Jamie crouched and then vaulted onto Phouka as the horse sailed over the wall, wrenching Conor up into his arms on his way. It seemed that the entire universe stilled, the horse beginning his long arc up to clear the wall, the panic clear in his frothing mouth and lathered coat. Jamie and Conor flew off his back and into the hedge near the wall, landing with an audible thump. And then it was just Phouka, dappled silver in the sunlight, arcing up and still panicked. She could not bear to watch and yet she could not look away.
He twisted just before he dropped, the great muscled body gleaming like quicksilver and then there was the sound of his landing and the long, piercing scream that tore the air apart.
She ran to Conor and Jamie, though she could not see her son at once, Jamie had taken the brunt of the impact and then rolled swiftly over so that Conor would not see the great horse fall.
Pamela dropped to her knees and took her son into her arms, careful to put his head to her shoulder as Jamie jumped up and ran to where Phouka lay, his screams vibrating all around them. Vanya ran toward them, his face ashen. Maggie had the babies, one on each hip and was moving up toward the house with them.
“Vanya, take Conor to the house now,” Jamie said, his voice quiet.
Vanya nodded and grabbed up Conor, putting his hand protectively around the boy’s head and half-running back to the house.
“Should I run and call the vet?” Pamela asked out of a sort of hopeless futility for she knew too well what Jamie would say.
“We can’t wait for the vet, he’s suffering too much. I have to shoot him, Pamela. I’m sorry, but it’s the right thing to do. I’m going to get the rifle, say goodbye to him.”
She nodded, face white and set as stone. She couldn’t speak to agree with him, it was moot anyway because Jamie had no choice here and neither did she.
She knelt by the horse’s head, so that his gaze could rest on her. He had quieted a little, as if he sensed the inevitable and knew that soon there would be no pain. She put her hand carefully between his ears where the beautiful silver blaze crowned his forehead.
“I love you, boy,” she said, trying hard not to cry. She didn’t want her agitation to upset Phouka. The great brown eyes blinked slowly at her as if he were acknowledging what she’d said. “Thank you for being my friend.”
He let out a short sigh, and then a small whinny of distress. She stroked his head—the delicate muzzle, the silken ears which had always been alert and high with pride. A part of her heart would go with him and be forever lost. A breeze stirred his mane, and the sun caught in the hairs so that they blazed to life and made it seem as if he were moving.
Jamie returned with a rifle under his arm. She knew he kept one in a locked cabinet in the byre.
“Pamela, go. Go now.”
For Jamie’s sake she went, Phouka was beyond her comfort. She heard the shot when she was halfway up the long sloping trail to the house and felt like it had gone through her own heart. She took another two steps and then she stopped and crumpled slowly to the ground. She thought she might faint; her vision filled with dancing black spots. She needed to get up and go to Conor, but she had to pull herself together first.
There was a terrible silence behind her, no more horse screaming, just the strange echo that gunshot always left on the air. She bent over, her forehead almost touching the ground, unable to get a proper breath. And then there were hands, strong and capable, lifting her to her feet and arms that took her within their circle of grace.
“Oh, Jamie,” she said, burying her face in his chest. His shirt smelled of blood and dirt and exertion, but it also smelled comfortingly of him—lime and leather and the scent that was simply Jamie.
“I’m sorry, Pamela, I’m so sorry.” He held her tightly and she wished that she could just stay here, within his arms and not have to face Conor and tell him Phouka was dead. She took a shaky breath and let go of Jamie’s arms and stepped back.
“I…I have to go to Conor.”
“I know, I’ll come with you.”
She stumbled on the way up and would have fallen if it wasn’t for Jamie’s hand which shot out to catch her. She held on to his hand to make the rest of the walk. The warmth of his skin against hers was the one thing which felt real right now, a locus point in a universe gone awry.
Conor was standing in the kitchen, his small face stricken. He went to Jamie immediately. “Did you have to shoot him?”
Jamie hunkered down so he was eye-to-eye with Conor. “I’m sorry Conor, I did have to. His back was broken and he was in a great deal of pain. It was my duty to end that pain for him.”
Conor nodded, small face set, but Pamela could feel the tears building in him. Jamie must have too, for he gathered Conor in gently and put the boy’s head to his shoulder. “It’s all right, laddie, he deserves your tears.”
Conor threw his arms around Jamie’s neck as the first sob broke out of him. Pamela knew he wasn’t crying only for Phouka but also for the loss of his father, which he could not understand entirely but felt all the same.
Jamie patted his back. “Conor, it’s not your fault, don’t you think that for a minute. We’re just glad you’re safe, laddie.”
“Mama,” Conor turned his face up to hers, “I…I’m sorry about Phouka, I knew it was wrong to ride him but that man said…” Fresh tears brimmed up and spilled down his cheeks.
“What man?” Jamie’s voice was low and steady. Conor still looked at him in alarm.
“That man,” Conor repeated. “Not Mr. Jake. He said it was all right to ride him, that he wasn’t as wild as he used to be. He said you told him it was okay.”
Pamela took a breath, knowing Conor did not need to see her fury right now even though it was not directed at him. “Conor, I have always told you that Phouka is too dangerous for you to ride.”
“I know,” he said miserably, dragging his filthy sleeve across his eyes. “I’s so sorry, Mama.”
“I know you are, sweetheart. We will talk about this later, but for now I think maybe you need a bath and something to eat. Maybe a drink of tea, too.”
Conor snuffled into his sleeve and then peered over the edge of his arm at her; tea was a rare treat and he knew it was a serious matter at hand when he was allowed to have it.
“Can I have it with two sugars?”
“Three if you like,” she said and bent down to kiss him. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go run you a bath.”
He looked to Jamie, as he sometimes did in moments of crisis, wanting a man’s opinion on what was all right to do.
“Your mama is right, Conor—bath and food and tea.”
She gave Conor a bath in the tub off her old room. He was quiet and didn’t play in the water the way he normally would. His eyes were the deep grey they turned in moments of great upset—whether that of sorrow or fury.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“It’s my fault Phouka died, isn’t it?”
“Oh, sweetheart, no it’s not. It was the man’s fault. He is the grown-up and he knew better than to put someone as small as you on a horse like Phouka.”
“Did it hurt him? When Jamie shot him?” Conor asked, tears now rolling freely down his face.
“No, he wouldn’t have felt a
nything. It stopped his pain, Conor. Jamie did what was best for him.”
She took him out of the tub and dried him down. There were pajamas left here from their long stay in the spring and he let her help him dress, despite the fact that he normally did all these things for himself now.
“Is Jamie mad at me?” he asked, voice trembling with worry.
“No, Conor. Jamie isn’t mad at you. He was very scared you were going to get hurt and he’s just happy that you’re okay. He’s mad at the man, not you.”
She took him downstairs for his tea. Maggie had fried him up a sausage with some potatoes. He ate very little, though he did drink the tea she had promised him. He refused a story when she tucked him into the bed. She lay down with him, and held him, stroking his damp curls. He was still now, having cried himself out. Exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the afternoon, it wasn’t long before his breathing became even and deep and she knew he’d slipped off to sleep. She longed to sleep herself. She felt hollowed out, the echo of Phouka’s screams still in her head. Her horse, her beautiful high-stepping cantankerous bastard of a horse. He had been a beast for most people, but he had always been a perfect lamb for her and he had gotten her through some very bad spots in these last years. He had been a high-spirited boy from the get-go and she had always loved that about him. She left Conor deeply asleep, tear trails still visible on his small face, and made her way down to the kitchen.
The room was steeped in the sun as it climbed down the sky, rung by rung, changing color with each descent. Isabelle and Kolya were playing quietly together with a set of blocks, as if they sensed something was wrong and didn’t want to add to the fuss and worry.
“Where is Jamie?” she asked Maggie, though she feared she knew the answer.
“He went to find the bastard responsible for killin’ yer horse an’ almost killin’ our wee man,” Maggie said, as she slotted plates into the sideboard, the china gleaming in the evening sun like it had been glazed with blood.
She started for the door, but it occurred to her that she had no clue where Jamie might have gone to find the man.
“Leave them to it,” Maggie said. “Should Jamie find him he deserves everythin’ comin’ to him for what he’s done this day.”
Pamela waited an hour, spending the time readying both Isabelle and Kolya for their respective beds. They ended up sleeping together, head to toe, Kolya with one chubby hand clutched fast to Isabelle’s wee nightie. She sighed; prying them apart when it was time to take her children home wasn’t going to be easy. She hadn’t spent the night here in Jamie’s house since she’d left in the spring.
She made her way down to the byre. The old estate basked in the setting sun and the last of the light set fire to the land so that all the colors burned deep and rich, flaring here and there into tongues of flame which hovered in the trees and streaked in over the horizon in shimmering bands of crimson and amethyst and a pure and depthless blue. For so long now she had been numb to beauty but she suddenly felt like Phouka’s death had punched a hole in the cocoon of that numbness. Feeling would enter now whether she wanted it or not. It frightened her.
Jamie was in the stable seated on a bale of hay, cradling his left hand in his right. There was blood leaking from his knuckles and dripping slowly through the fingers of his right hand. He looked up at her approach, his eyes a hard and brilliant green even in the low light of the stable.
“Jamie?”
“I’m all right,” he said, knowing what her question would be.
She dragged a bale of hay across the stable so that she could sit near him.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“No, more’s the pity. I think he must have left the minute he got Conor on that horse.”
“What happened to your hands, Jamie?” she asked, afraid of what the answer might be.
“I hit someone rather hard; I wanted to know who hired that bastard.”
“Did you get an answer?” she asked, heart thumping painfully.
“I did, of a sort. After much persuasion, Niall admitted he’d been offered money by Julian to hire this man. Julian told him it had my express approval, that he’d had dinner with me in London, which was true enough, but I certainly didn’t give him permission to recommend anyone for hire. I’ve only been back for two days, I had yet to notice a strange face in the yard.”
“Oh God, I hired Niall while you were in Russia,” she said, horrified.
“Yes, and who do you think put him under your nose just at the point when you needed someone on short notice?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He just showed up one day looking for work. Stephen had retired and we needed an odd jobs man. Looking back, I guess he was a little too Johnny-on-the-spot.
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him; it was a near thing. He swears he didn’t know what the other man planned to do and I tend to believe him because he was inclined to tell all at that point. Still, he had to know it wasn’t anything good. Not when there was bribery involved.”
Pamela shivered a little, understanding just what Jamie meant by ‘inclined,’ but she could not find any sympathy in her heart for the man—his greed and willingness to turn a blind eye had almost cost her son his life and it had cost Phouka his.
“Are you sure it was Julian?”
“No, I’m not. Being that it was done over the phone, it could be anyone. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.”
“I still don’t understand what upset Phouka so badly. He’s always been a little high-strung, but he usually doesn’t get spooked like that.”
“There was a spur under the saddle,” Jamie said wearily. “A small one, but it would have shocked the hell out of him as soon as there was any weight on it.”
“Oh God—oh my poor boy,” she said. Phouka had never known anything but love and kindness his whole life, pain like that would have shocked him and sent him into the terrible panic which had killed him.
She looked then at Jamie and saw the defeat in his face. His expression was generally so guarded that it surprised her. It was an indication of just how much this had upset him.
“I don’t think Julian can be redeemed, Pamela. His mother has turned him in upon himself with hatred and lies. I can’t undo twenty-one years of damage. I don’t have that sort of power with him. After this…” he trailed off and put his head in his good hand, his left hand still lying palm up on his leg.
Her heart ached for him. It was his chance to be a father to a child of his own blood, and as fate and Diane would have it he would never be able to love this son and nor would the son be able to love the father. It was an irony so bitter that there were no words to comfort him.
“Jamie, I’m sorry,” she said. She leaned forward and touched his hand lightly. He flinched and she knew she would have to call the doctor when they got back to the house. Like most males, Jamie was supremely stubborn when it came to seeking medical help for himself. His tolerance for pain was very high, and the flinch had told her he must have a broken bone in his left hand. She leaned down further to kiss his hand lightly, her lips barely brushing the bruised and bloodied skin.
He looked up at her, clearly startled.
“It’s what I do for the children when they get hurt,” she said in answer to his look.
“I know,” he said, with a crooked smile, “but it’s not quite the same when you do it for me.”
She shrugged, feeling foolish. “I just wish I could take some of the pain away for you.”
With his good hand he touched the side of her face. “You do, Pamela. It’s because of who and what you are to me that I cannot let this pass with Julian. It’s because of Conor too, an innocent wee child who I think my own son may have planned to kill.”
“I don’t understand why he would want to hurt Conor.”
“Because to hurt you is to hurt me, that’s why,” Jamie said. “If Julian is at the bottom of this, then it makes sense. A twisted sense, but sense nevertheless.”
; “That goes both ways—the hurt,” she said softly. “Which puts both of us right where he wants us.”
Jamie smiled wearily. “It does but I don’t see how we can change that.”
“I wouldn’t want to Jamie, even if we could.”
“Nor me.” He took her hand with his uninjured one and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go up to the house, I think we could both use a drink.”
Two hours later the doctor had been and gone and Jamie had splints on two fingers. Pamela had lit a fire in the study as the room tended to get chilly once the sun went down, even on fine evenings. She had poured them each a stiff drink, trying not to think of her beautiful fiery-tempered horse. Jamie had already made the arrangements to have him buried on the estate as soon as the sun rose. She hoped Conor would not be damaged by this; it was a horribly traumatic event for a child who was still so young.
“I’d like to take you and the children to Maine for the summer,” Jamie said, startling her out of her thoughts.
“What?” she put her drink down with exaggerated care, realizing the two swallows she’d had, had gone straight to her head.
“I have a house in Maine, as you know. I haven’t been there in several summers. I would love it if you and Conor and Isabelle came along with us.”
That was all he said, but she understood the subtext. She felt shocked that he would suggest she leave the country and yet she understood the sense of it too. She understood what he was offering to her and why. To go home for a bit, to wander the same shores she had walked as a young girl and not be in the space where she was waiting for a man to come home to her who might well never arrive. It would be good for the children too, to be away from this place in which their mother never truly relaxed and to live by the sea for a month or two. Far too much had happened in these last few months—someone trying to kill her neighbor, someone trying to kill her, and now her horse dying and her son having narrowly escaped the same fate. She was exhausted and nearing the edge of something she thought she might not be able to back away from.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 62
