Ryan's Bride (38 page)

He was on his way out. “Sorry to be in such a hurry. Some of the folks wanted to go for a morning ride. I’ll see you at lunch.”

Ryan felt like a hypocrite to have made Angele think there would be several people on the ride. He hated deceit and was now guilty of it himself but saw no other way. Had he told her he was going out alone with Denise, she might have got the wrong idea.

He didn’t want to go, anyway, but promising he would had been the only way he had been able to get rid of her last night. Now all he wanted was to get it over with quickly. Otherwise, she would think he wanted to be with her.

And he didn’t.

He had found the woman he truly wanted by his side.

The problem was—he feared that was not where she wanted to be.

Angele hated being so suspicious but felt she had to know exactly what she was up against.

She waited a few moments, then followed Ryan to the stables, careful that he would not know she was watching.

And when she saw that there was only one other person going on the ride with him and that person was Denise, the crack in her breaking heart deepened.

Somehow, she got through the morning, helping Clarice greet guests, making small talk…polite chat, pretending to be happy and having a wonderful time. But all the while she was fighting nausea. Sipping cool tea and nibbling Mammy Lou’s soda biscuits helped a bit, but she still didn’t feel at all well.

For lunch, linen-covered tables were set on the lawn beneath pastel canopies. The air was pungent with the smell of pigs roasting on hand-turned skewers over pits of smoldering hickory chips. Fish and chicken fried in big, black cauldrons over open fires. White-coated servants scurried about with trays of potato salad, coleslaw, tureens of buttered vegetables, crisp watermelon pickles, peach chutney, and corn relish.

Ryan joined Angele and led her to a table where no one else was sitting. She was grateful to be alone with him but the precious time did not last. Clarice came over, bringing Corbett and little Danny, and a few minutes later she spotted Denise in the crowd and waved her to join them.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said sweetly to Angele. “She’s my cousin, but if she makes you uncomfortable…”

“Of course not,” Angele responded cordially. “I don’t mind at all. If she’s your family, then it makes her my family,” she added, taking secret delight as Clarice’s face flashed with annoyance.

At once, Denise monopolized the conversation, making sure to talk about things that Angele knew nothing about so she would feel left out.

Her patience wore thin. To make Ryan turn his attention from Denise, she brought up the subject of the horses he had bought in France. Then she was able to easily hold his interest by telling him things she knew about Anglo-Arabs she’d not shared with him before.

He held on to her every word, fascinated, and believing she had learned it all during the time she had spent with
relatives
in England.

It was only when Dr. Pardee came to tell Ryan it was time for the horse jumping that he and Angele realized they had been so engrossed in the topic they had become oblivious to everything else.

Ryan glanced about in surprise. Everyone had finished eating and either moved to the terrace or gone inside the house. All the tables were being cleared away except for theirs, and they were the only ones still there. The others had left, unnoticed.

“Doctor Pardee, thanks for letting me know. I’ll be right there.”

The doctor nodded and left.

Ryan turned to Angele. “You just continue to amaze me, and I wish you’d share everything about yourself—all the way back to when you were born,” he added with a smile that washed over her like liquid sunshine.

Angele regretted that was not possible, but at least she could reveal one more thing. He was about to discover she was an excellent rider.

And so was Denise.

She went to the last stable, just as Roscoe had told her to do, and was relieved to find him waiting outside.

“I really appreciate this,” she greeted him. “Is my horse ready? I can’t wait to see him. Is there time for me to take him for a quick ride somewhere we won’t be seen? It would give me a chance to get used to him, and…” She trailed off to silence to see how he was staring over her head as if he was afraid to look her in the eye.

“Is something wrong?” Anxiety nibbled.

“Well…” he drawled, still looking beyond her. “I’ve been thinking how this isn’t such a good idea.”

“Please don’t change your mind,” she groaned. “You said you’d do it.”

“Yeah, I know, but if anybody found out, I’d lose my job. And what if you got hurt? You don’t know nothin’ about this horse, and you don’t have time to try him out. You’d have to get on him and jump.”

She was undaunted. “Is he well trained?”

“One of the best.”

“And he’s a good jumper?”

“Roussel used to jump him all the time.”

Hearing that made her all the more determined, for she knew Ryan’s father would have had nothing less than the finest horse on the plantation. “Then I have to ride him. Please, hurry and get him saddled.”

“He already is. I took Miss Clarice’s saddle from the tack room. But I still don’t know. I just don’t feel good about this.”

Frustration was making her feel even sicker than she already did. Once the jump was over, and she had proved herself she was going to talk to Dr. Pardee and ask him what he thought might be wrong with her. But right then, she had only one thing on her mind. “I’m begging you, Mr. Fordham. Let me have the horse. I swear to you again and again that I will never tell it was you who helped me. I’ll say I picked him out and took Clarice’s saddle. Your name will never be mentioned.”

He scratched his chin. “Are you willing to do that no matter what happens? Even if you fall and get hurt, you won’t tell I had anything to do with it?”

She held up her right hand. “I swear to God, Mr. Fordham.”

He did look her in the eye then, long and hard. She began to think he really wasn’t going to give in when he finally said, “All right. He’s in the first stall on the left. Now I’m getting out of here. You’re on your own, and I don’t know nothin’ about any of this.”

She thanked him and ran inside the stable.

Roscoe glanced around to make sure no one could see him and then took off for the woods. He would circle around as though he had been nowhere near the stables—just as Corbett had told him to.

And, just as Corbett had also instructed, he had given her the old man’s horse.

What she didn’t know, however—and would soon find out—was that nobody had ever ridden him but the old man.

Angele opened the gate to the stall very slowly.

The horse was a beauty, sleek and black as midnight, with a powerful chest and strong, heavily corded and muscular legs.

He looked like a jumper, all right.

He also looked leery of her.

“Ho, boy, it’s all right.” She spoke softly and was careful not to make any sudden moves.

He began to prance around a bit as he watched her warily.

Stroking him gently, she continued to whisper soothing words.

When he seemed calm enough, she climbed up on the railing, then slowly lowered herself into the sidesaddle.

Careful not to jerk the reins too tight, she backed him out of the stall, then walked him out and along the back side of the row of stables.

Reaching the closest point to where the jumping was going on without anyone being able to see her, Angele waited.

The horse seemed restless, and the way he pawed the ground impatiently made her nervous. He probably hadn’t been ridden in months and had too much green grass in his belly. That always made a horse a bit hard to handle, but as soon as he sensed that she wasn’t afraid of him and knew what she was doing, she was confident everything would be all right.

Finally, the time had come. Everyone was cheering Dr. Pardee, who appeared to have won, but Angele laughed out loud to think how she had news for all of them.

“Go, boy!” She popped the reins over his neck. “Show them what we can do.”

The great horse took off at full gallop as though he had been waiting for the moment.

Angele leaned forward, heading him straight for the line of hurdles. There were only three. She had jumped as many as five before but was grateful for a short ride on a strange horse, especially when she felt she was going to throw up any second.

She heard the cries and shouts from the crowd when they saw her. She couldn’t tell what they were saying but knew they were all rushing forward to watch. Those on the porch ran down the steps, all hurrying to the impromptu track.

She was almost lying across the horse’s neck, in position for the first jump. He was running wide open. She had given him full rein.

“Now, go!” she shouted, as his forelegs left the ground. He took the first hurdle, and the crowd yelled even louder.

Then came the second, and he flew over that one.

And when he made the third, his hooves nowhere near the wooden beams, cheers went up like a tidal wave.

She straightened and began to pull back on the reins. “You did it, you wonderful horse! I’m going to feed you sugar and apples for a week…”

He kept on going.

She yanked harder. “Whoa, boy. It’s over. Whoa, now.” He went faster, head thrown into the wind. She was having difficulty hanging on. Again and again, she jerked the reins and screamed for him to stop, but it only seemed to make him charge harder.

Suddenly he turned sharply, and Angele went sailing through the air to land with a hard smack on the ground.

She tried to breathe, but the effort sliced painfully through her like a knife. She’d had the wind knocked out of her before, knew the anguish of her lungs fighting for air. But she was also hurting terribly low in her stomach and around to her back. Feeling something warm and wet between her legs, she thought with a jolt that she must have landed on a rock and been cut somewhere and was bleeding.

Ryan was the first to reach her, having leaped on a horse to gallop after her.

He slid from the saddle and dropped to his knees beside her. “God, Angele. Are you hurt bad? Damn it, what made you do something so foolish?”

He saw she couldn’t breathe and raised her head, and she managed to gasp and gulp a bit of air and the pain in her chest lessened.

“Do you think anything is broken?”

“I…I don’t know…” she managed to wheeze, still fighting to fill her lungs.

Some of the other men came riding up with Dr. Pardee. He immediately knelt beside her, across from Ryan, and began running his hands up and down her arms, around her face. “Tell me where you hurt, Angele,” he urged. “We can’t move you till I find out how bad it is. Any motion might make it worse.”

Blackness was closing in, and there was a great roaring in her ears.

One of the men standing nearby asked of no one in particular, “Who told her she could ride Roussel’s horse? It’s a wonder he took the hurdles before he acted up like he did.”

Another man harrumphed in disgust. “I don’t know, but Ryan ought to kill the son of a bitch.”

“No one…” Angele strained to whisper as she felt herself sinking ever deeper. “I did it myself…”

“Angele, I need to know where you’re hurt,” Dr. Pardee implored again.

“Bleeding…below…I must have hit a rock…” Dr. Pardee nodded to the others to politely look away before he lifted her skirt to see what she was talking about. Then he whispered to Ryan, “We need to get her back to the house quick.”

Ryan tensed.

“What’s wrong? Why is she bleeding like that?”\

Angele could hear him speaking from far, far away as invisible hands pulled her toward the darkness.

Then she heard Dr. Pardee say in a voice thick with pity, “She’s having a miscarriage.”

Ryan was having difficulty accepting what the doctor was trying to tell him. “I…I don’t understand.”

And as Angele sank into merciful oblivion, Dr. Pardee’s words were like a dagger to her soul.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. It looks like she’s losing her baby.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ryan and Dr. Pardee were sitting on opposite sides of Angele’s bed.

It had been several hours since the accident. Shadows were drifting across the room as the sun began to slip away, and darkness was creeping across the sky.

Selma stood near the door, hands folded beneath her bosom. She was ready and willing to do whatever she could to help, but her presence seemed to have been forgotten.

Now and then tears would fill her eyes, and she dabbed at them with the corner of her apron. She felt so sorry for Miss Angele losing her baby. Bad enough she had taken such a terrible fall from the horse. Selma hadn’t seen it happen, but Toby had, and he said it was a wonder she hadn’t broken her neck. But her face was pale as goose down, and Selma was praying real hard she’d be all right.