Heiress (13 page)

"It sounds like I'd better start looking for a good horse suitable for a new, young rider."

"I'd like that, Dean, more than anything," she declared, the fervor in her voice eliminating any doubt that she meant it.

"I'll see what I can find when I get back." He talked with Rachel for a few more minutes, then spoke again to Caroline. Much too quickly Dean heard the door to the suite open, signaling Babs's return. Hastily he said his good-byes to Caroline and hung up.

Don't let her know, don't let her see, don't let her hear; just let her pretend none of it existed. That was his agreement with Babs. He did his best to keep it and not cause her any more anguish.

After a short drive south of London through the Sussex countryside on the way to Brighton, they arrived at the famed Arabian stud farm founded in 1878 by Lord and Lady Blunt on his ancestral estate. Even though the land wasn't Texas-flat, the lush green pastures, the big old trees, and the beautiful Arabian horses in the paddocks reminded Abbie of her home at River Bend. She hadn't realized how much she missed it until she saw Crabbet Park.

"Grandpa says the horses here are relatives of ours." Abbie scanned the sleek horses, searching for one that might remind her of River Rose, River Sun, or River Magic.

"Some of them, maybe," her father agreed as they followed one of the stable hands across the thick grass of the manicured grounds that had been the site of the famous annual Sunday parades during Lady Wentworth's days.

"I wonder if they'll show us Skowronek's stall. That's the way you pronounce it: Skov-ro-neck. Ben says that in Poland all the w's are pronounced like v's. That's vhy he talks the vay he does." She longed to hear his voice and listen to his endless stories and the fascinating things he knew about horses, especially Arabians.

"I know."

"Did you know that when Skowronek first came to England from Poland, he was used as a hack? Can you imagine a famous stallion like that being used as an ordinary riding horse and rented to people? Ben says that's what a hack is."

"But he wasn't famous at the time. And remember, there was a war going on. World War I. So people had other things on their minds beside Arabians."

"Ben says it was lucky that Skowronek was here because Communist soldiers stole the horses from the farm where he was born. And when the stallion that was his father—Ben says he'd always been a very gentle, well-mannered stallion—started to fight the soldiers that were trying to take him out of his stall, they shot him. Isn't that terrible?"

"It certainly is."

"Anyway, like Ben says, it's a good thing Lady Wentworth saw him and recognized what a great stallion he was. He was pure white, you know. They call him a gray 'cause he had black skin underneath like all Arabians, except where they have white markings, then the skin is pink. But Skowronek looked snow-white. Both Ben and Grandpa said that's very rare."

"That's true."

"Look, Daddy." Abbie spied the clock below the roof peak of the arched entrance to the Coronation Stables, built of brick, the muted color of terra-cotta. "Ben says the main stables at the stud farm in Poland where he worked had a clock tower. We should put a clock in ours at River Bend so we can be famous, too."

"It takes more than a clock, Abbie." Dean smiled down at her. "You need a stable full of outstanding broodmares and two or three really great stallions."

"But we have that, don't we?"

"Not yet, but we will."

"Are you going to buy some of these Arabians?"

"Maybe. First we have to look at what they have and see if it's what we want."

They spent the better part of the day looking over the Crabbet Arabians available for sale, walking around each horse to study its conformation from all angles, observing its action at a walk, a trot, and an airy canter, and studying it close up, Everything from yearling colts and fillies to Arabians under training to aged broodmares was paraded out for their inspection. Iridescent chestnuts, flashy bays, dappled grays, all slickly groomed, their coats glistening in the sunlight—Abbie wanted to buy nearly every one of them.

Although Dean found it difficult to fault the majority of them, none had aroused more than a passing interest. He couldn't define exactly what it was he was seeking—a look, an aura that made one horse stand out from all the others, something that would spark the gut feeling, "this is the horse."

As they drove away from the stables, Abbie felt the sting of tears in her eyes. One part of her hated to leave the familiar surroundings and the other part of her just wanted to go home to the real thing: River Bend.

"I think Grandpa would have liked that gray filly. She looked a lot like River Wind, and he loves her." Just talking about her grandfather made her feel worse, but she couldn't admit to feeling homesick for fear her father would not take her with him on another trip. "How come you didn't buy any horses? Didn't you like them?"

"I liked them, but they weren't quite what I wanted. Maybe we'll be luckier next week in Egypt," he replied, his mouth twisting in a crooked smile of wry hope.

"It's gonna be a while before we go home, isn't it?" Abbie asked. "I'll bet Grandpa and Ben are really missing us."

Teeming Cairo: a city of cacophonies, with its honking of horns, babbling of Arabic tongues, braying of donkeys, chanting of the muezzin, and bellowing of camels; a city of contrasts, with its modern buildings sharing the skyline with minaret-topped mosques, its cars and trucks traveling the narrow streets with donkey carts, caleches, or camel herds on their way to the slaughterhouse, and its people in Western attire walking along the crowded sidewalks with those in the more traditional robe and headdress; a city of extremes, with its abject poverty and limitless wealth, and harsh desert edges and verdant river bottoms.

Cairo was chaos after the quiet order of England. Babs hated it and refused to set foot outside their Western hotel. Justine was terrified of the strangeness of this city inhabited by heathens. Stuck in the hotel with nothing to do, Abbie grew all the more homesick.

After much persuasion, her father convinced her mother that she at least had to make one excursion out of the hotel to see the Pyramids of Giza on the outskirts of Cairo. Elaborate arrangements were made through their guide, Ahmed. When they arrived at Giza, a pair of horses was waiting for Abbie and her father, all saddled and bridled, ready to take them closer to the Great Pyramids.

Despite Ahmed's insistence that the horses were true steeds of the desert, Abbie was quite certain these skinny, narrow horses were not Arabians. She climbed on just the same and cantered her placid mount alongside her father's. Together they rode beneath the blazing sun toward the Pyramids that stood out starkly against a sky of pure blue. Abbie was just a little bit disappointed to discover that the ancient Pyramids looked just like the pictures she'd seen of them, only older maybe and more crumbled.

Near the base of the Pyramids, they rendezvoused with the car bearing Ahmed and her mother. The horses were taken away and replaced by a camel that its driver called Susie. All of them had to take a ride on this groaning, moaning "ship of the desert." Both Abbie and her father broke into laughter as her mother shrieked and grabbed at the protruding horn of the strange saddle when the camel rolled to its feet in a slow lurch. However, Abbie didn't think it was at all funny a few minutes later when she tried to pet the camel and it spit at her, literally ending their excursion on a sour note.

At dinner that night, her father suggested that Abbie accompany him the next day to visit the El Zahraa Arabian stud farm. She leaped at the chance, her head filled with visions of another Crabbet Park—another River Bend.

Located outside the city limits of Cairo in Ein Shams, the stud farm occupied sixty acres of desert. Before the overthrow of King Farouk, it had been known as Kafr Farouk and run by the Royal Agricultural Society. But with the recent ascension of Nasser to power, its name had been changed to El Zahraa and its governing board now went by the more democratic name of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization. Prophetically, perhaps, the neighboring land to El Zahraa stud farm had once been the site of the Sheykh Obeyd, the Arabian stud farm established by Lady Anne Blunt in Egypt.

A dust as fine as powder enveloped the car as they traveled down the long driveway lined with palms leading to the main stables of El Zahraa. Beyond lay sandy, grassless paddocks. Abbie saw immediately that this was not Crabbet Park or River Bend. There wasn't an oasis of green here, just more dry sand and hot sun.

At a distance, the horses in the paddocks looked positively skinny to her. Up close, she found out they didn't look any better. They had the delicate heads, arched necks, and high tail carriage typical of Arabians, but where were their satiny coats, and why did they look so lean?

When she put the question to her father, he replied, "The Egyptians like their horses slender. They think ours have too much flesh on them. Their favorite saying is 'We ride our horses, we don't eat them.'"

In Abbie's opinion, this was a wasted trip. She was certain there couldn't possibly be anything here that her father would be interested in buying to ship back to River Bend.

But Abbie was wrong. After more than three hours of walking, looking, and reviewing, Dean saw the horse he'd been looking for all this time. As they approached a group of yearlings, munching on a pile of berseem hay in a paddock, a bay colt lifted his head to gaze at them. The colt had the most incredibly classic head Dean had ever seen, his profile showing almost an exaggerated dish and his eyes large and dark. Dean stopped and just stared.

Here was the horse of his dreams—here in the desert sand beneath a blazing blue sky, surrounded by shimmering waves of heat. For a moment, Dean was afraid he was looking at a mirage. If he blinked, the colt might disappear. His eyes began to water. Unwillingly he did blink, but the colt was still there.

"I'm telling you, Babs, that colt had the most gorgeous head I've ever seen on an Arabian." Dean stood in front of the dresser mirror, tying his tie while Babs continued to add the finishing touches to her makeup in front of the mirror in the bathroom.

"I didn't think he was all that great," Abbie inserted, not caring that she hadn't been asked. Already dressed for dinner with Justine's help, she wandered about her parents' bedroom in the hotel suite, pausing now and then to twirl about and watch the full circle the skirt of her new blue dress made.

"I don't have any idea how much they want for him, but with a colt like that, price doesn't mean anything. You talk about charisma. This colt has it and then some. El Kedar Ibn Sudan, that's what they call him." Dean pulled the knot tight and adjusted it to sit squarely in the center of his shirt collar. "The head man wasn't there today. I'm going to have to call tomorrow and arrange to see him. They wrote his name down for me. I've got it here somewhere." As he reached for his tie tack, he scanned the items lying on top of the dresser. "It must still be in my jacket pocket. Abbie, my jacket's on that chair by you. Will you bring it here?" She scooped the wheat-tan jacket off the arm of the chair, letting it dangle upside down, and whirled around so her skirt would flare out.

"Careful," Dean warned, "You're going to dump everything out of the pockets."

Abbie stopped just as a postcard slithered out of a pocket to the floor, landing face down. "Did you send Grandpa a postcard?" Bending down, she picked it up and started to read the writing on the back of it. "Dear Rachel—"

"It's not polite to read other people's mail, Abbie." Dean took it from her before she could read more.

As he walked over to slip the postcard into the pocket of his dinner jacket, Abbie tagged after him, frowning curiously. "Who's Rachel?"

He darted a quick glance at the open bathroom door, then smoothed a hand over the top of her head and smiled, "Just somebody I know, okay?"

"Okay." Shrugging, she moved off to inspect her reflection in the mirror vacated by her father. She stared at the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl, wearing a new blue dress, white patent-leather shoes, and lace-edged anklets, then wiggled her hips to watch the skirt swing out.

Busily clipping on a diamond earring, Babs emerged from the bathroom, the pink silk chiffon of her Empire-style evening dress whispering about her. "Do you think I should wear the necklace, too, Dean, or would it be too much?"

"I'd wear it."

"Would you? You'd look positively silly in it," Babs replied, her hazel eyes twinkling outrageously, but her expression otherwise perfectly serious. Dean laughed.

Catching their playful mood, Abbie wanted to join in. "Momma, guess what?" She danced over to her and glanced slyly over her shoulder at Dean. "Daddy's sending a postcard to girl named Rachel."

Silence. Absolute silence came crashing down as the smile faded from her father's face. Sensing that something was dreadfully wrong, Abbie turned to look at her mother. She was white with shock, her expression almost pained as she stared at him.

"Babs. . ." He took a step toward her, his hand reaching out.

"Abbie, leave the room." The words came from her mother with a rush, yet there was something desperate in the tone of her voice, as if something terrible was about to happen.

"But. . ." A little frightened, Abbie stared at her mother, so motionless, never taking her eyes off her father.

"Leave the room now!"

Abbie recoiled instinctively at the sudden movement her mother made when she swung around, turning her back on Abbie to face the highboy against the wall, her body so rigid it was trembling. Abbie felt the touch of her father's hand on her shoulder.

"Go find Justine, and have her brush your hair." Firmly but gently, he steered her toward the door to the suite's sitting room.

Once there, she turned back to him. "Daddy, I—"

"I know, honey. It's all right." He smiled at her.

But Abbie knew it wasn't. She didn't understand what she'd done wrong. She'd only been teasing when she mentioned that postcard. Didn't they know it was a joke? She was just trying to have fun like they were, teasing each other.