Calhoun Chronicles Bundle (63 page)

He studied her hard. “You’re right. You’d have to become someone else entirely.”

“Either that, or we’d have to refashion society. Though somehow I can’t imagine Eudora Bondurant dancing barefoot.”

Their laughter was tinged with wistfulness. Charles glanced at Blue, who lingered in the yard. “Goodbye, sugar pie. Send us a letter from California.”

“I will.”

He joined Blue, taking the boy’s hand. She watched them growing smaller and smaller on the lawn as they walked away from her. Just before they turned on the path to the barn, Blue wrenched away from Charles and came racing back to her.

“Eliza,” he called. “Eliza, wait!”

He slammed into her and hugged her hard, harder even than before. “I thought if I didn’t say goodbye then it wouldn’t be real,” he sobbed into her skirts.

“Shush, darling,” she said, stroking his bright sun-warmed hair. “Shush now. You’ve said the sweetest goodbye of all, and now I can go and know you’ll be fine.”

He stepped back. “Eliza.”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She looked one last time at his dear, adorable face, into the eyes that had locked in so many secrets for so long. “I love you too, my sweetest boy. I always, always will, no matter where I go.”

He turned and ran then, and she was glad, for it hurt too much to linger over this. She went out to the landing, where the mail packet was moored, the smell of steam and hot oil wafting up from the fiddley. The decks of the steamer were laden with bales of tobacco from the tidewater plantations along its route to the port of Norfolk. The crew took on firewood from the stack at the end of the dock. Eliza put two fingers in her mouth and whistled for Caliban, who came bounding across the yard, his jaw low and his tongue flapping. She shooed the dog onto the boat, assuring the crewmen he was friendly.

Then she walked down the dock, aware of every detail. The tread of her footsteps on the wooden planks. The liquid lapping of the water against the pilings. The sound of a herring gull wheeling overhead. The rise of a rockfish in a ring of sunlit water.

It was a moment that would forever be frozen in time for her. She knew that, for as long as she lived, she would remember this. It was like a dream, vivid and clinging past dawn. The day she embarked on her new life. The day she would fulfill her father’s destiny.

“Eliza, wait.”

Hunter’s voice stopped her cold. She stood facing the end of the dock, hearing his approach. He was hurrying.

“Eliza, look at me,” he said. Then, without waiting for her to respond, he took her by the shoulders and turned her so she couldn’t avoid looking at him.

He still wore his evening clothes.

“Hunter—”

“No, let me say this. What Lacey did has nothing to do with you. The idea that Blue stayed mute for two years because she told him not to say a word was so appalling that I couldn’t think straight. The fact that you didn’t tell me about the letters Blue kept hidden all this time—I realize you did that because you didn’t want me to be hurt.” His grip on her upper arms tightened. “Forgive me,” he said. “Forgive all the things I said.”

“Ah, Hunter.” She drew strength from the love in her heart. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Then stay, Eliza. Stay with me.”

She bit her lip to keep from flinging herself at him and shouting yes. Instead, she forced herself to cling to cold reason. She stared at him, this weary gentleman in his rumpled finery, his haggard face stubbled with whiskers, his eyes old and tired and desperate, red from drinking.

“I wasn’t myself yesterday,” he said.

Her throat hurt unbearably as she swallowed. She thought of the bleary accusations, the darkness that emerged from his soul, lit by the whiskey. Drinking created a place within him that she could not touch. The whiskey put up a wall and kept his heart from its full commitment.

“You were,” she said, forcing the words past her aching throat. “You were yourself, Hunter. You belong here, on the farm you built, among the people who know and accept you as you are. That’s why I have to leave. I have to find a place where it doesn’t matter who my mother was.”

“Don’t you get it?” he said. “I don’t care. You’re still Eliza. The woman I made love to under the stars—”

“Stop,” she said. “This isn’t helping.”

He made a hissing sound of pain. “You don’t love me enough to stay.”

“I love you—and the children—enough to leave.” She paused, taking his hands away from her arms. His touch was too sweet, reminding her of moments when they had been so close that nothing else mattered—not the drinking, not who her parents were, not the way the world worked.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “Don’t tell me—”

“Listen,” she said. “We both know this can’t work. Hunter, we live in a world that can’t accept our love. You know what would happen if I stayed. The mere fact of my existence is a disgrace in people’s eyes. These are the people we have to live among. Your children have to grow up with their children. I won’t burden them with my presence.”

“If people find you objectionable, then they’re the ones who are wrong, not you.”

“That may well be, but we can’t change their thinking.” She clenched her hands into fists at her sides to keep from reaching for him, to keep from begging for one last touch, one last kiss. “You can’t take your children away from their home or leave this place you’ve worked so hard to build,” she said softly. “And I…I can’t stay.”

“You can, goddamn it, but you won’t,” he snapped. “Your father taught you a lot of things, Eliza. He made a unique and brilliant woman out of you. But there’s one thing he forgot to teach you.”

“What?” she asked, flayed by his contemptuous tone. “What are you saying?”

“He forgot to teach you that some things last.”

“What?”

Furious, he paced the dock. From the corner of her eye, she could see the crewmen finishing up with the wood.

“Oh, he taught you all about change. Everything changes—the seasons, the shore, the cycle of life and death. You learned those lessons well, Eliza. Too damn well. So well that you can’t even conceive of a love that lasts forever, a love strong enough to endure people’s gossip. The first thought of a snub, and you’re running away like—like a wild thing.”

Like one of the wild ponies, she thought. The creatures that lived out at the edge of the world. She was one of them—a flight animal.

“There’s another thing my father taught me, ‘What strength I have’s mine own,”’ she quoted from
The Tempest.
“He trained me to respect myself. Enough to walk away when it’s the only option I have.”

The steamer whistle blew three loud blasts.

Hunter’s body jerked as if he had been shot. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her against him.

And then he kissed her. He had done so many times before, but never with this fury and this fire. She felt it seething from him as his mouth claimed hers. His tongue plundered her, moving smoothly in and out of her in an echo of the passion they had shared. The fierce possession of his embrace made a mockery of her objections. She felt herself bending back, overwhelmed as the banked fires of her own desire sparked to life.

She pushed at him, trying to resist, but suddenly the pushing fists opened of their own accord, and she buried her fingers into the fine fabric of his dress shirt. His whisker stubble burned her face. She knew she would bear the marks of it for days to come. She didn’t care. She knew only that she loved this man with all that she was. But it wasn’t enough.

Perhaps he was right about her father. Like Prospero, he had conjured a life out of thin air, and though it was idyllic, it was contrived, artificial. It had left a hole in her; he simply didn’t know how to make something last.

Hunter’s brutal kiss went on and on, a sensual assault that made her whimper with wanting and frustration.

The steamboat whistled again, its shrill impatience screaming across the bay.

She managed to wrench away finally. One last look at his weary, red-rimmed eyes. One last look at his moist, love-bruised mouth. One last look at the big hands that knew how to touch her with such fierce tenderness.

She tried to speak, but had no idea what to say.
Goodbye.
She pressed her fist to her mouth to keep in the sobs.

“Stay,” he said. “It’s not too late to change your mind. Stay.”

“I…can’t.” The tears spilled freely now, and she didn’t bother stopping them. “You know I can’t.”

With that, she picked up her skirts and ran to the end of the dock, boarded the steamer—and did not allow herself to look back.

H
unter Calhoun quit drinking early that next day, and he held to this state of temperance for all the weeks that followed. He went about his business, and business was good. Better than good, it was extraordinary. Finn won the Fairmont Stakes and the Dominion Derby. He proved so prolific that he was booked to stand stud for the next three years.

At least one of us is finding satisfaction, Hunter thought as he watched the stallion trotting up and down in the breeding yard, awaiting a mare in season.

Hunter had plenty of opportunities with women lately. Young ladies of all shapes, sizes and stations came to him. Some tendered extraordinary offers. A widowed English countess vowed she would buy him a noble title if he married her. A French courtesan offered sexual favors he thought existed only in the imagination. A New York railroad heiress devised an entire racing syndicate to entice him into marriage.

Most of the women were beautiful. Many were kind and sincere. Several even genuinely liked his children. He could have taken his pick of any of them.

But he didn’t. Because none of them was Eliza.

Each time he danced with a woman, he remembered what it was like to hold Eliza, to love Eliza, and he couldn’t imagine the point of holding anyone else. So Hunter Calhoun, once a notorious rake, had reluctantly become the picture of temperance and abstinence. His cronies gave him no end of trouble about it, but he didn’t care.

He would never care what people said.

“Papa, come look,” Blue yelled from the barn. “Trinculo caught a mouse!”

Hunter went inside to admire the catch. The little cat, born the day Eliza had left, had become Blue’s special pet, and quite the fierce hunter. One of its littermates, a gray tabby, had been adopted by Belinda.

“Eeuw,” she said, coming over to see. “A dead mouse.” She stroked the tabby, which wore an absurd lace collar and doll bonnet. “Sugar Pie would never kill a mouse.” She held the cat out to her father. “Her bonnet’s come undone, Papa. Can you tie it for her?”

He took the chagrined cat in his lap and carefully made a bow beneath its chin, then handed it back to Belinda. She leaned over and gave him a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. Laughing, Blue did the same. Both children played at his feet, giggling.

You should see me now, Eliza, he thought. You’d be proud of me.

He spent hours each day with his children, who were growing more fearless and smarter and stronger with the passing of the season. He hadn’t touched a drop of whiskey since the day she’d left.

Over the summer, people had flocked to Albion, a name now famous in horse-racing circles. Everyone wanted to meet the man whose horse was the reigning champion. At one time, this prosperity and acclaim would have meant everything to Hunter. It would have meant a dream fulfilled. But lately…it didn’t matter. Not nearly as much as sitting in the barn and watching his children play, or reading them a bedtime story each night. Not nearly as much as remembering Eliza, and the way he used to feel when he was buried so deep inside her that he was no longer himself, but a creature that existed only for the purpose of loving her.

He wondered how long it would be before he stopped thinking about her. As it was, he awoke each morning with her image in his mind, and fell asleep each night with that same image clasped to his heart. He spent practically every waking moment thinking about where she might be just now, what she might be doing.

Was California the fulfillment of her dream?

Was it as beautiful and as fertile as she had wished?

Had she found what she was looking for there?

Did she think of him as often as he thought of her?

Hearing a whistle from the coach yard, he went to see who had arrived. A fancy closed carriage, gleaming black and pulled by a pair of matched black geldings stood in the yard.

Charles leaped out, sporting a fancy new hat and a big grin. “The north parcel’s ours, cousin,” he said. “The bank approved the loan. By this time next year, the farm will double in size.”

“Good work.” The development would have meant the world to Hunter at one time, but now the enthusiasm came from Charles.

It was strange, but no animosity festered between Hunter and Charles. After the first confrontation about Lacey—the encounter had entailed a fistfight and some harsh words—they rarely spoke of her. Hunter had his pride, but he also understood Lacey. She had thrived on attention, and when Hunter’s attention turned to the horse farm, she had felt utterly abandoned. If she hadn’t fled to Charles it would have been someone else.

Hunter supposed the thing to do was to challenge his cousin to a duel, possibly gun him down in defense of Lacey’s honor. But he had learned that honor was only worth fighting for if you knew what was at stake, and in the case of Lacey, he had never known. He and Charles settled into a cautious but cordial arrangement.

He had seen real growth and compassion in his young cousin, particularly with regard to Noah. The boy needed a father; finally Charles could fill that role. The two of them had taken over the day-to-day operation of the farm, giving Hunter more time with his children.

Belinda and Blue came racing out to greet Charles. “You’re back!” they cried. “What did you bring us?”

“I have something special for you,” he said in a conspiratorial voice.

“What is it?” Belinda asked. “What?”

He handed each child a parcel wrapped in oilcloth. “It’s chocolate from Switzerland. Have you ever tasted chocolate before?”

They shook their heads. He opened one parcel and gave them each a bite. Brother and sister swooned comically in ecstasy. “More!” Blue exclaimed. “Can we please have some more?”

“Save some for Noah, you greedy creatures,” Charles said, going off in search of his son.

They finished half the chocolate, and started a game of tag in the yard, laughing with joy. Each time Hunter thought of Blue’s two years of silence, he thanked God for Eliza, who had found a way to set him free.

He turned and looked out at the green, rolling, fertile acres of Albion. In the patrician world of Old Virginia, the land was everything, perhaps the only thing. Men lived for it. Some died for it. Hunter had labored over it for years, and at last he could claim success. He had it all. The paddock of champion horses. The jockeys and grooms busy at their training. The foals and mares in the high meadows. The children laughing lustily as they played on the lawn.

All this had happened thanks to his hard work—and just a touch of magic from the horsemaster’s daughter.

He had chased this dream for so long that seeing it fulfilled seemed anticlimactic. But it wasn’t even that. Sometimes he questioned whether it was the right dream, after all.

He walked across the dusty track to Charles and Noah. Father and son were deep in conversation in the shade of a live oak. They made a fine picture, the two of them, and it struck Hunter that they looked to be more a part of this place than he had ever been.

Odd.

Charles clapped Noah on the shoulder. “Finish eating that Swiss chocolate. We’ve got work to do,” he said.

Noah’s face darkened a shade, but he grinned in pure pleasure. Being at the top of his sport made things like the color of his skin and which side of the blanket he was born on cease to matter. He had attracted the notice of the racing circuit, and inspired pride in the man who had sired him. And through it all, he managed to maintain the joy in riding a fast horse, and that, more than anything, made him a true champion.

“Wait a minute,” Hunter said, a sudden decision seizing hold of his heart. “I want to talk to you both.” He hunkered down in the shade and looked at his cousin and Noah. “I have a proposition to make.”