The Valentine Legacy Page 7

  “You are a horse breeder and racer, James. You couldn’t possibly speak French.”

  “Well, I do. In fact, I’ve spent a good deal of time in France.” He eyed her up and down. “You’re wearing a gown. Where the devil did you get it? It’s too short and quite an ugly color of yellow, and it bags in the bosom. Ah, I know. It must be one of Nelda’s or Glenda’s castaways. Would you like to borrow a pair of my socks to stuff down the front?”

  Compton Fielding cleared his throat. “James, would you like to come see the collection of Corneille’s plays I just received? You particularly wanted to read Le Cid. The collection also has Cinna and La Mort de Pompée. I myself prefer Le Cid. The others are a bit tedious in that pompous classical sort of way.”

  James gave Jessie a final look of acute dislike and followed Compton Fielding to his small desk at the rear of the store. The air was so heavy with the smell of wood, books, and rag dust that James wondered how Fielding could breathe after a couple of hours in the bowels of the shop.

  When he held the Corneille plays in his hands, he gently opened the pages to Le Cid. He began reading the first scene between Elvire and Chimene.

  “You can really understand that?” Jessie had wandered up and was standing at his elbow, staring down at the page. “It looks like gibberish.”

  “Yes, of course. Why would I want to buy it if I couldn’t even read it?”

  “Perhaps just to put me in my place. Me and all the other ragtag Colonists. That’s it, isn’t it, James? You think we’re all ignorant buffoons.”

  “I’ve never thought you the least bit ignorant, Jessie, and how could I, given what you’re buying? Here you are reading a diary—something of historical interest. I’m impressed.”

  “Before I got her on the diaries, she read every gothic tale I could find her.”

  “I’m not surprised,” James said, and laughed. She looked as if she wanted to peel a layer of skin off him, but she kept her mouth shut, which surprised him.

  Feeling a touch guilty, James thought he’d try to make it up to her. “Come on, Jessie, I’ll buy you an ice cream over on Baltimore Street. Would you like that?”

  She glowed with pleasure. “Perhaps I’d like it, just a little bit.”

  James paid Compton Fielding for the Corneille and escorted Jessie and her diary down Calvert Street. He was stunned to see she even had a parasol, a flowered confection that she held like a club. Her red hair was pulled too tightly back from her face and tied with a black velvet ribbon at her neck.

  “We’re going to Balboney’s?”

  “That’s right. Mr. Balboney’s son, Gray, wants to learn stud management. I’m thinking of taking him on.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “‘Oh dear’ what?”

  “There’s your mistress, James, Mrs. Maxwell. She’s waving at you.”

  Sure enough, Connie Maxwell was just across the street standing in front of Hezekiah Niles’s newspaper office, waving frantically at him. He waved back, motioning her to wait for him. He turned back to Jessie. “For God’s sake, you’re not supposed to know anything about mistresses.”

  “Perhaps not, but Glenda knows all about her. I heard her discussing Mrs. Maxwell with Mama. Glenda’s afraid you’ll marry Mrs. Maxwell and not her, but Mama said that wouldn’t happen. Mrs. Maxwell is too old for you and you’ll want sons, and she is too old for that as well. She said you’d want a young virgin, a lady who is malleable and submissive and sweet, someone who would bring you money, someone just like Glenda. She did allow, though, that Mrs. Maxwell was very fine-looking, which she is. She’s lovely. She doesn’t look at all old.”

  James stared at her, fascinated by what was coming so guilelessly out of that mouth of hers. “Jessie, I have no intention of marrying your sister.”

  “You don’t?”

  There it was: that hopeful look, as wistful as that of a child being offered a Christmas cookie.

  “No. Were you eavesdropping again?”

  “Oh, no. Well, maybe. Sometimes they talk in front of me. It’s as if I’m not there.”

  “But this time they didn’t? You eavesdropped?”

  “Yes. At least I didn’t fall through the door or make any noise.”

  “Jessie, do you know what a mistress is?”

  “She’s someone you mount whenever you want to.”

  “Horses mount. Humans have sex. Do you know what sex is all about?”

  “I suppose it’s a lot like the stallions and the mares, regardless of what you say. All very loud and messy and painful.”

  “Painful?”

  “The mares are always screaming and thrashing around, and the stallions bite their necks and rumps. But they keep doing it, so I suppose it must please them. Sweet Susie was eager for any stallion available, even poor old Benjie. When we were racing away from those men, I told Benjie to promise Sweet Susie that he’d give her anything she wanted just as long as she ran as fast as she could. She did run fast, James.”

  “Jessie, I can’t believe this conversation. Now, I want you to go to Balboney’s. I’ll join you in just a few minutes, all right?”

  “All right. Oh, James, I like Mrs. Maxwell. She’s ever so pretty and she laughs a lot. She’s always been very nice to me. She always bets on me, too.”

  “I know, she told me. You’re right. She is very nice. Wait for me, Jessie.”

  She watched him make his way through the drays, the horses, the carriages, and the beer wagon to get to the other side of the street. She watched him greet Mrs. Maxwell and saw the lady smile up at him, her gloved hand on his forearm. He leaned down to hear what she was saying. Mrs. Maxwell was very small, barely coming to James’s shoulder. Jessie turned away, twisting the handle of her parasol with such violence that it split apart. “Well, damn,” she said, and walked to Balboney’s Ice Cream Emporium on Baltimore Street.

  Jessie was eating a vanilla ice cream out of a small blue bowl when James strode into the shop not five minutes later. He sat opposite her, ordered himself an ice cream, and said, “Connie says hello. She also said my taste is improving. I told her she needed spectacles. She said I should ask you nicely to give me some pointers on racing.”

  “I could give you lots of pointers, James, but I doubt you’d listen. You’d box my ears even if I managed to make gentle suggestions, wouldn’t you? Besides, you don’t really need all that many pointers. The fact is, you’re just too big to ride in races. I’m sorry for you, it’s too bad, but you’re just going to have to face up to it. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to swagger around the way you do if you were a real jockey who weighed one hundred pounds. How’s Redcoat? Will he be able to ride at the Axminster Races Saturday?”

  “No, it’s me again. Redcoat’s leg won’t be healed properly for another couple of months, at least. I’ve been training Peter, but the lad’s not ready yet. You’d eat him alive. The male jockeys would toss him off his horse’s back and into a ditch without even breaking stride. No, he needs more time so I can make him mean. You’ve got me as an opponent on Saturday, Jessie. Are you going to ride Rialto?”

  “No, he has a sore hock. I don’t know what happened, but I suspect his stable lad wasn’t all that careful with him. No, since it’s quarter-horse racing, I’ll be on Jigg and Bonny Black. They can run faster than the wind for that quarter mile. How about you?”

  “Tinpin. He’ll beat you this time, Jessie. You haven’t got a chance. I’ve been speaking to him privately all week, offering him bribes, telling him that you’re just a twit female and that if he lets you beat him again, he’ll have to retire in ignominy. He’s ready. He’ll be out for blood.”

  “Just you stay away from me, James. No pushing me into a tree or a ditch. Do ride Console, too. He’s got more heart than any horse I’ve ever seen.”

  He shouldn’t be surprised. He said slowly, “You’re right. Console is a bit too long in the back, but he does have heart. I’m always afraid that if I race him for longer than a quarter mile, his heart will bur
st because he’ll push himself so hard.”

  “You wouldn’t push him. That’s why you’re an excellent horseman. Not as good as my father or I, but you’re good nonetheless. Now, I’ve been thinking about this, James. I’ve decided that Connie Maxwell isn’t really your mistress.”

  “You’re quite right. She’s a friend and I like her and she likes me and we enjoy each other. A man pays a woman to be a mistress. Connie is independent. She can order me out of her life whenever she tires of me. Now, Jessie, you’re unmarried, a virgin, and this sort of talk isn’t right. It wouldn’t fluster Glenda, but with you, no, it’s just not right. Eat your ice cream.”

  “I am. It’s delicious. I’d like another one.”

  “Just don’t ask me to carry you around anymore.”

  “You think I’m fat?”

  “For God’s sake, Jessie, you’re as skinny as that table leg. I’m just jesting with you.”

  “Nelda and her husband, Bramen, came to dinner last night. He’s fat, James, and he eats like Friar Tuck, who’s in stud now and can eat like a pig if he wants to. I don’t think Nelda likes him very much.”

  “Friar Tuck or her husband?”

  Jessie took another bite of her ice cream. “Nelda doesn’t like horses at all, so I guess it’s both. Glenda told her about how she was going to marry you by the end of the summer. She said she’d be a beautiful September bride. She said you would be ready by then. Mama agreed with her. She said that you would be over your grieving, if in fact you were still grieving, which she doubted because you were a man and men evidently don’t grieve. Grieving about what, James?”

  He said in a voice as remote as that faraway desert in Africa, “I was married. My wife died in childbirth. That was three years ago. I told you I wasn’t going to marry your sister. Why don’t you weave that into your dinner conversation this evening? I don’t wish to be rude to her, Jessie, but I have no intention of marrying her.”

  “Do you like me?”

  “No, not particularly. You’re a pest. At least you’re a good horsewoman. Don’t get that punctured look. All right, I like you sometimes. I see you’re finished. Do you want another ice cream?”

  “No. If I could gain weight in my bosom, I’d eat another one, but I can’t. Glenda is always showing off her bosom. She’s very pretty.”

  “Who cares?”

  On the following Tuesday, Jessie was a mite depressed as she went into Compton Fielding’s bookstore because James, just as he’d promised, had beaten her at the races the previous Saturday, cajoling Tinpin over the finish line a good two lengths ahead of her and Jigg. She’d had to hear her father grumble, then take a bottle of champagne over to Marathon to toast James until the both of them were as drunk as stoats.

  She’d prayed James would have a vicious headache, but he’d been at church Sunday morning, with his mother, Ursula, and Giff, to hear Winsey Yellot exhort everyone present to exercise more moderation in their daily lives. She’d given James a nasty grin.

  She waited inside Mr. Fielding’s bookstore until he finished with a customer, then walked toward him, the diary in her hand.

  “What did you think of it, Jessie?”

  “It was fascinating. He made me think I was there, his descriptions were so vivid. Not all of them to be sure, but enough to hold my interest.”

  “You’re frowning. Why?”

  “Oh, I was just remembering how a couple of times I thought for certain that reading the diary was somehow familiar. That’s silly, of course. I’d like to buy it, Mr. Fielding. Perhaps you have another one for me? Well, if you don’t have any more novels, that is.”

  He did have another diary, and she paid for this one on the spot. It was written by an English sailor who’d tracked and hanged pirates in the early years of the eighteenth century. He followed her from the shop and onto the road, saying, “Give this one some time, Jessie. He isn’t a very clever fellow and he tends to repeat himself, but perhaps you’ll find him amusing.”

  “I hope—” Her voice disappeared in her throat. She heard and saw the oncoming wagon at the same time. The man was driving it right at her at a furious pace, the horses snorting and blowing, pounding the packed earth. There was no time for anything. The man must be mad. He must be drunk. She managed to jerk herself back onto the sidewalk, panting hard, frozen with the worst fear she’d ever felt in her life. Then the wagon was coming right at her, the man yelling at the horses, whipping them up, swinging them toward her.

  Compton Fielding grabbed her at the last instant and literally threw her against the door of his bookstore. She hit her head against the door frame and knocked herself out.

  “My God, Jessie. Wake up!”

  She did in just a few seconds and stared up at Compton Fielding, who looked as pale as the sheets that hung on the rope lines behind Warfield house every Tuesday.

  “My head hurts. That man was mad. He tried to kill me.”

  “No,” Compton Fielding said slowly. “No, I think he was drunk. It was a stupid accident. Don’t worry about it, Jessie.”

  “Then why did he drive on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll ask around.”

  “Maybe he was after you, Mr. Fielding.”

  “That’s a possibility, I suppose,” Fielding said, and grinned. “Perhaps he wanted me to give him violin lessons and I turned him down.”

  She did laugh, a little.

  Jessie told her family that evening at the dinner table. Her mother said when she’d finished, “No one in his right mind would want to kill you, Jessie. It was obviously some sort of strange accident. That or Compton Fielding was right. Someone wanted to knacker him.”

  Glenda took a bite of blancmange, licked her lips only to purse them, and said, “Mother’s right. Who would have enough interest in you to want to kill you? It’s really quite absurd. So is your story.”

  Her father, who hadn’t spoken up to this point, said slowly, “Everything happened just as you said, Jessie? All right, I’ll speak to Compton about it. Forget it now, my dear. Eat your stewed pork. That’s a good girl.”

  Her father never mentioned it again. By the next racing day, when she swore she’d beat James to hell and back, she’d forgotten about it—a good thing, because a jockey from Virginia tried to butt her off her horse with the handle of his riding crop. It was a wild racing day, many jockeys were injured, and neither she nor James did very well.

  8

  The ideal thoroughbred is born to run, bred to win, and will literally race to death.

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  APRIL 1822

  WHEN JAMES SAW her coming out of a small dress shop, he wondered what in blazes Jessie Warfield would be doing there. He waved at her. When he caught up to her, he asked her to Balboney’s for some more ice cream. He didn’t know why he did it, but he did. Perhaps it was because they’d both lost at the last races.

  Yet again, Jessie’s delight was alarmingly obvious. They discussed the race and found themselves in the rare situation of commiserating with each other. By the time James ordered her another bowl of ice cream, he still hadn’t delivered a single snide comment.

  At that moment, Mr. Parvis, a longtime newspaper man from the Federal Gazette, burst into the emporium shouting, “Allen Belmonde was just found shot through his mouth!”

  “Oh my,” Jessie exclaimed. She called out, “He’s dead, then, Mr. Parvis?”

  “Oh, Jessie, it’s you. Yep, he’s deader than a mackerel caught in the Patapsco and lying out on the dock for a week. The back of his head was blown off. His poor little wife found him in one of the tack rooms.”

  “Good God,” James said blankly. “I can’t image Allen shooting himself.”

  “Oh, he didn’t,” Mr. Parvis said, rubbing his hands together. “Someone killed him dead.” Oh dear, Jessie thought, her sweet, helpless Alice—frail and weak-spirited, but still Jessie had always liked her, probably because Alice had never had a negative word about her racing horses and wearing men’s breeches.
It was Alice who’d told her about the cucumber mixture for lightening the freckles. She pictured Allen Belmonde with the back of his head blown off and nearly gagged into the melting ice cream in her Balboney blue bowl.

  Oslow Penny said, “Jessie, you’re depressed about poor Alice Belmonde. You’ll see the lady tomorrow, and you can flutter around her all you please. But no more sighs and tearful expressions now. That’s right. You just chew on that piece of straw, pull your hat over your face to protect that pretty white skin of yours, and listen to the story of Grimalkin the cat.”

  “I’m listening, Oslow.” Jessie pulled the disreputable old leather hat over her eyes, sank back against a hay bale, drew her knees up, and chewed on a fat straw.

  “You remember that all thoroughbreds are descended from three and only three stallions.”

  “Yes, the Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the—”

  “The Godolphin Arabian. That’s right, Jessie. Now be quiet. The Godolphin Arabian was foaled way back in 1724. Now, the Godolphin Arabian’s companion wasn’t a stable lad or his owner or even a donkey. It was Grimalkin the cat. That damned brindle cat rode on his back, sitting up, all proud and smug, neck stretched out, surveying the world as if he were a bloody proper prince. The cat ate beside him, clawed through his mane to keep the tangles out, and slept draped around his neck. No one could figure out why that horse and that damned cat were so inseparable, but they were. It came in time that Grimalkin the cat died.

  “The horse went wild. He wouldn’t eat for days. He wouldn’t let anyone near him. He looked to be pining away. Then he appeared to be normal again, but he wasn’t. He wouldn’t let another cat near him. He tried to kill any cat he even saw. He’d go wild if he even saw a cat in the distance. It’s said that when he died, they buried him beneath the stable gateway next to Grimalkin the cat.”