Amanda (6 page)

Amanda found herself lightly touching the first page of the third journal, her index finger tracing the letters forming the name of this house. Interesting, how Christine had set apart the time spent here. They had spent every summer here after their marriage, from late May to early September. As a world-class horseman, Brian had enjoyed riding in the shows and hunts common in this area, and it was clear from her writings that Christine had loved this place.

Amanda had read the journals. What she hoped was that, now that she was here at Glory, some of the enigmatic and ambiguous entries might make more sense. Probably because these were journals rather than diaries, with no locks meant to keep the contents secret, Christine’s entries were sometimes vague or oblique. She often wrote, Amanda thought, as if guardedly aware that other eyes would read what she wrote.

Whose eyes? Her husband’s? Had Brian Daulton been the kind of man who believed there should be no privacy between husband and wife?

Amanda found that speculation unsettling. As adults, children often found their parents to be relative strangers with unsuspected secrets and undisclosed pasts, but Amanda felt herself even further removed than that. Brian Daulton had been dead for twenty years, and Christine Daulton’s journals revealed only snippets of feelings and the occasional noting of a problem or argument between them; there was no journal for the years after Brian’s death, and not so much as a hint in any of the personal papers she’d left behind of her thoughts and feelings about him.

What, if anything, did it mean?

Amanda shook off the thoughts and looked around her room. There was a shelf holding a number of books near the door, and she contemplated it for a few moments before electing to return the journals to the suitcase’s hidden compartment. The journals might have fit in anonymously with the several hardback and paperback novels provided for a guest’s bedtime reading, but Amanda preferred not to chance it.

She closed the bag and set both her cases inside the closet. Her makeup case was on the dresser; she opened it and lifted out the tray holding various brushes and compacts to reveal the small niche designed
to hold jewelry. Amanda had very little good jewelry: a small diamond cluster ring and one emerald band with very small stones, a couple of bracelets and chains of fine gold, some delicate earrings.

She ignored those pieces, drawing out a small velvet pouch, which contained a small pendant on a delicate chain. The pendant, hardly more than an inch from top to bottom, was the outline of a heart done in tiny diamonds. It was not an expensive piece or an impressive one, but when she put it on and looked in the mirror above the dresser to study the heart as it lay in the V opening of her blouse, it felt to Amanda as if she had fastened something very heavy around her neck.

Pushing her luck, there was no question about it. The smart thing would be to say very little and listen to everything during these first days, especially while she was trying to get the feel of this place and these people. Why ask for trouble so soon? She touched the little heart with a fingertip, hesitating, then sighed and left it.

She fingered a few other items in the jewelry niche thoughtfully. A man’s gold seal ring, a pair of very old pearl earrings, an ivory bracelet—all pieces much older than the others in the niche.

Tucked into a corner and wrapped in tissue was a small crystal trinket box, which Amanda carefully unwrapped and placed upon the dresser. She took off the lid and removed another bit of tissue paper, this wrapped around an opaque dark green stone.

There was nothing particularly memorable about the stone. It was hardly more than a couple of inches from end to end, a roughly oval shape with several jutting facets common to quartz. Amanda held it for a moment, her fingers examining the shape and hardness of the stone, rubbing the smooth facets. Then she returned it to the trinket box, adding the two delicate
rings and several pairs of earrings from the jewelry-niche. Satisfied with the resulting jumble, in which the green stone seemed merely a bit peculiar, she replaced the lid on the box.

After a moment’s thought, she deliberately cluttered the dresser’s polished surface, putting out her hairbrush and comb, a bottle of perfume, and several items of makeup. She left the case open.

A glance at her watch told her it was only three-thirty, which meant she had some time to kill. Supper at six, Jesse had told her, and she might Want to wander around and explore this afternoon. Obviously eager to spend time with her, he had nevertheless made a conspicuous effort to avoid overwhelming her, to give her room and time to herself. There would be a car and driver at her disposal if she wanted to go into town, he had said, and if there was anything she needed—anything at all—she should tell either him or Maggie.

Amanda felt a brief craven impulse to remain here in her room until suppertime, but shook it off. She’d come this far, and so going on was inevitable.

She left the window open since it was screened, but closed the balcony doors; summer wouldn’t officially begin for another month, but until Amanda found out how bad the flies and mosquitoes were around here— according to what she’d read, it varied from year to year—she had no intention of issuing a blatant invitation to the insects to enter her bedroom. She went to the hall door and unlocked it, and went out into the hall.

She turned left to head toward the stairs, moving slowly as she studied several landscapes and the occasional furnishings lining the wide, carpeted hallway. She had stopped to examine a beautiful gilt mirror and was still a good twenty feet from the head of the stairs
when she heard a low, guttural sound that caused the fine hairs on the nape of her neck to rise, quivering.

Very slowly, she turned her head. Back toward her room and not six feet away stood two black-and-tan dogs. Like so much else about Glory, they were big, heavily muscled, and wickedly powerful. They were Doberman pinschers, and they were not happy to find her here.

Amanda considered her options rapidly and decided that one thing she couldn’t do was stand here and scream for help. Even if the dogs didn’t get more pissed off just because of the noise, she didn’t want any of the large—and undoubtedly courageous—people in this house to find her frozen with fear and yelling her head off.

So, forcing herself to relax, she turned to face the dogs and dropped to her knees in the same motion. “Hi, guys,” she said to them, her voice calm. “Want to be friends?”

It took nearly ten minutes and all the patient tranquility Amanda could muster, but she liked dogs and that helped her to get on the right side of these two. Whether it was her voice, her scent, or her attitude, the dogs decided to accept her.

They were extremely friendly once that decision was made, and she ended up having to (gently) push one of them off her lap before she could get to her feet. Both the dogs were wearing silver chain collars, and she paused to examine the engraved tags announcing their names.

“Hope you guys haven’t heard the stories,” she murmured with a wince, wondering if she had just been granted a glimpse into the darker—or, at least, darkly mischievous—side of someone’s nature. To whom did the dogs belong, and who had named them?

Filing the question away to be answered later,
Amanda continued on her way downstairs, a dog on either side of her. She paused only once, reaching out to gently touch the ancient grandfather clock on the landing, then shook her head a little and went on.

She had just reached the polished floor of the entrance hall when Maggie appeared in the hallway leading to the rear of the house and looked at the threesome in surprise.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. “You made friends with those hellions?”

“I didn’t have much choice,” Amanda replied with some feeling. “They were just
there
in the hall upstairs when I came out of my bedroom.”

Maggie frowned. “They were supposed to be shut up in Jesse’s bedroom until he could introduce you.”

Which answered the question of the dogs’ ownership.

“Maybe he let them out,” Amanda offered.

“No, he wouldn’t have. Besides which, he’s down at the stables looking over a couple of new horses.” Maggie studied the two dogs, which stood on either side of Amanda so that her fingertips brushed their glossy black coats, and shook her head slowly. “I’ve never seen them take to anybody but Jesse; they just tolerate the rest of us.”

“I like dogs.”

“A good thing, I’d say. Are you exploring?”

“I thought I would. If it’s okay.”

With a lifted brow, Maggie said, “I thought Jesse had made it pretty clear. You can do just about anything you please here, Amanda.” Then, briskly, she added, “The garden is beautiful this time of year. Just go straight down that hall and out through the sun-room—exploring along the way, of course.”

“Thanks, I will.”

They passed each other in the entrance hall, since
Maggie was going upstairs. But with one foot on the bottom tread, the housekeeper called Amanda’s name.

“Yes?”

“That necklace you’re wearing. Christine had one just like it.”

“Yes.” Amanda’s voice was deliberate. “She did.”

Maggie looked at her for a long moment. “Keep the dogs with you. They’ll protect you.”

Amanda felt a chill. “Protect me? What do I have to be afraid of here?” she asked.

“Snakes.” Maggie smiled. “Watch out for snakes. The black snakes won’t hurt you, but copperheads are poisonous.” Then she continued on up the stairs.

Alone once more but for her canine companions, Amanda drew a breath and looked down at them. “Come on, guys. Let’s take a look at Glory.”

The mountain trail was narrow and winding, crossed here and there with fallen trees and rusting barrels and moldy bales of hay that made up crude but effective jumps. Only an expert rider with a highly trained—or suicidally obedient—horse would have attempted the rugged course, and then only at a carefully balanced canter.

Not a flat-out gallop.

But the big Roman-nosed black climbed the trail like a mountain goat, taking the jumps in stride, his ears flat to his head and his gait so smooth that the man on his back hardly felt the unevenness of the trail.

It took an unusually large and powerful horse to carry Sully for any length of time, particularly at top speed over rough terrain. That was the major reason he’d stopped competing in his late teens, because he was simply too big and too heavy to give most horses a fighting chance over jumps, and that was the only
kind of riding he really loved. This kind of riding. And this horse, the only one he currently owned that was capable of taking him up this trail.

Beau soared over the last jump, a stack of hay bales sprouting oat seedlings, and shook his head fiercely when Sully eased back on the reins. But he gradually obeyed the skilled and patient touch of his rider, and by the time the trail began meandering back down the mountain toward Glory, the stallion was moving at a shambling walk.

Sully wished his own edgy temperament could be as easily calmed. Not, of course, that the hand on
his
reins was overly patient—but Jesse was certainly skilled at forcing obedience from those around him. Give the old man his due: even on his last legs he was still firmly in charge.

Automatically, Sully guided his horse off the main trail, stopping a moment later on an overlook formed by a small granite outcropping. From here there was an exceptional view of the valley below. An exceptional view of Glory.

Back in college, Sully could remember when one of his friends had been dumped by the girl he’d dated since puberty. “She broke my heart,” he had said numbly. Some of the guys had laughed, but Sully hadn’t. Because he knew how it felt to love something so much it was terrifying, the loss or threatened loss of it crippling. He knew.

Sprawling out across the valley, Glory was so beautiful it made his chest ache almost unbearably. The house and garden, the rolling pastures dotted with glossy horses, the neat stables fanning out on a hill on the other side of the house and, beyond them, the training ring he had designed and built almost entirely with his own hands. It was more than home, it was his soul, his lifeblood. The years away at college had been
agony, and he literally couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Sully saw Beau’s ear flick back, felt the animal shift uneasily, and realized only then that some curse had escaped his lips with a viciousness the horse responded to instinctively. He made a conscious effort to relax, reaching up a hand to stroke the shining black neck.

“Easy, boy. Easy.” The high-strung stallion was perfectly capable of launching himself off this overlook if he took a mind to, and then they’d both end up at the base of the mountain with maybe two unbroken bones left between them. That would solve his problems once and for all. Yes, sir. He’d be gone, and when Jesse finally met his Maker, Reece and Kate could join forces and fight the will the old man would undoubtedly make in favor of his long-lost Amanda.

Sully stroked his horse with a gentle hand and scowled out over the peaceful beauty of Glory. Amanda. But was she Amanda? Walker McLellan didn’t think so, and though he tended to be a cautious bastard even for a lawyer, he was no fool when it came to people. She
looked
sort of right, even if she was about half the size of most Daultons, but Sully had been so furious when he’d stared at her that he couldn’t remember much beyond black hair and grayish eyes.

Not that any of that mattered. All that mattered was whether Jesse accepted this woman as Amanda, and he’d made it pretty damned plain even before she’d arrived that he believed—even in the face of vague holes in her story and Walker’s repeated warnings to be skeptical—that she was his granddaughter.

He wanted his precious Amanda back before he turned up his toes, and by God he meant to
have
her back.

This time when Sully spoke, it was softly so as not to disturb his nervous horse, but the words were no less fierce.

“You won’t take Glory away from me. I’ll see you in hell first.”