Heroes of Heartbreak Creek 02 (17 page)

“Gordon?” Rafe’s blue eyes went wide with surprise. “He’s too inexperienced.”

“I know. But Father didn’t seem to care. I think perhaps he doesn’t have the extra funds to hire a qualified race rider.”

“Hell. None of this makes sense. If he pushes the horse too soon, it might endanger his chances to race in the Grand National next April.”

A half-formed thought arose, but before Josephine could think it through, movement down at the bottom of the slope drew her attention.

A groom raced into the stable, shouting. Although they were too far away to hear his words, it was obvious that something was wrong.

She stiffened, alarm prickling her neck.

Several stable boys ran out. Two raced into the sheep pasture; a third started up the slope to the house.

Sudden terror almost stopped her heart.

Jamie!

 • • • 

Wondering what had happened, Rafe watched the two grooms run across the field, sending sheep into bleating flight. Then he saw the riderless stallion lurching in a tight circle in the trees by the brook, trying to free himself from the reins tangled around his front leg. Nearby, Hammersmith knelt beside a prone figure half-concealed in the tall weeds. Not Jamie. Gordon.

“It’s Stevens,” he called to Josie as he charged down the slope at a full run.

Fearing the frantic stallion would injure one of the boys trying to approach him, he waved them away as he ran across the field. “Leave him! Get the dray!”

The boys ran back to the stable.

Rafe slowed to catch his breath, then speaking in a calm monotone, approached the thrashing horse. “It’s all right, boy. You’re all right.”

When his voice finally cut through the fear, the stallion stopped fighting and stood trembling, his sides heaving, his neck twisted at a sharp angle against his shoulder. The bridle held his mouth open, the bit pulling his lower jaw to the side. Blood dripped from his mouth where the bit had cut his tongue. Foam ran from his neck and chest. White ringed his dark eyes and his nostrils showed red as he struggled to breathe.

Rafe took out his penknife, opened it, and stepped closer. “Easy, boy. You’re all right. It’s just me.”

He quickly sliced through the leather. As soon as the pressure gave, Pembroke’s head flew up, but Rafe grabbed the loose end of the reins and held him fast. When he was sure the horse wouldn’t bolt, he glanced over to see Hammersmith and the two stable boys trying to slide Gordon onto a blanket.

He saw no blood, and the groom was awake. Rafe guessed by the way they handled him, that it was Gordon’s leg that had been injured.

The cart arrived, pulled by the stable workhorse. They quickly loaded Gordon into the back, then Hammersmith climbed into the driver’s box and drove toward the house.

The immediate crisis over, Rafe let out a deep breath. He saw Josie standing at the stable door with Jamie, and the last of his crippling fear began to fade.

The saddle had twisted sideways, so Rafe removed it and set it in the grass. Then he checked Pems for injury. Other than the cut in his mouth, minor scrapes on his front legs where his back hooves had clipped them, and a raw place under his foreleg where the reins had rubbed, the horse wasn’t hurt. But he would definitely be sore for the next few days. Relieved, Rafe picked up the saddle and saddle pad, and led the stallion back toward the stable.

Damn Cathcart.
Gordon could have been killed. In addition, with this setback, weeks of hard work with Pems might be undone.
Christ.
At least now, if the bastard wanted to prevent further injuries, Cathcart would have to let Rafe take over the training.

“He’s all right?” Josie asked when he approached.

“Nothing serious. I’ll longe him in the pen later to see how he goes. Did you get the gelding brushed and put away?” he asked Jamie, hoping a change in subject would take that worried frown off the boy’s face.

“Yes, sir. I gave him a carrot, too.”

“Good.” They walked together into the stable, Josephine following well behind Pems. Rafe left the saddle and blanket in the tack room, then continued with Jamie to Pembroke’s stall.

“Will Gordon be all right?” the boy asked, a quaver in his voice.

“He will. A busted leg is all.”

“Will it hurt terribly?”

Fearing a gush of tears, he tried to keep his voice light. “Maybe a little. But Gordon is tough. He’ll be up in no time. You decide on a name for the gelding?”

“Blaze.” Jamie swiped a sleeve under his nose and looked up. “Do you think that’s a good name?”

“I think it’s a perfect name.” Opening the stall door, he unhooked the stallion’s lead and sent him inside. After securing the latch, he hunkered in front of Jamie, who stood beside his mother in the aisle. “So you like Blaze?”

Another swipe at his nose. “I think he’s the best horse in the whole world.”

“Then he’s yours.”

It was almost comical the way the boy’s jaw dropped. “Mine?”

“If you promise to take care of him and treat him well—and your mother agrees”—he shot a glance at Josie and was alarmed to see tears gathering in her eyes, too—“then he’s yours.”

“You’re
giving
Blaze to me?”

“I’m giving
you
to Blaze. The horse needs a boy like you.”

“Truly?” His voice rose to a near squeak. “Mother, can I keep him? Please? Please?”

“Ssh, you’ll scare the horses,” she warned, still fighting tears, even though now she was smiling. Rafe would never understand women. “Yes, you may keep him.” Her eyes met Rafe’s, and her wobbly smile warmed into something else, something that made him forget his resolve to stay detached, and made a mockery of everything he’d said down by the brook. “I think he’s perfect for you.”

B
efore Rafe could think of a suitable response, a carriage came through the front gates. Wondering if it was Adderly again, he followed Josie and Jamie to the front stable doors and saw a well-dressed man with a black bag step down from the carriage and walk hurriedly toward the house. Too skinny for the weasel.

“That’s the doctor. I’d best go.” Josie glanced hesitantly at her son. “Would you mind—”

“Let the boy stay here.” Rafe smiled down into Jamie’s worried face. “I’ll need help tending the stallion’s scrapes and repairing his bridle.”

She knelt in front of her son. “I will send word about Stevens as soon as the doctor finishes with him.”

Jamie nodded.

“Shall I have Cook send down a picnic lunch? You could share it with Mr. Jessup.”

A more enthusiastic nod this time.

“Mind Mr. Jessup, then.” She rose, sent Rafe a smile of gratitude, then hurried up the slope to the house.

Rafe and Jamie went back into the stable.

“Hope those aren’t your favorite clothes,” Rafe said, opening the door into the small room where Hammersmith stored feed and medicinal items.

“No, sir.”

“Good.” Rafe retrieved a tall brown bottle off the shelf, checked the white label, then went back into the aisle. “Because this is going to stink.”

A short while later, they left Pembroke’s stall, reeking of the horse liniment they had rubbed into the stallion’s stiff muscles.

Wrinkling his nose, Jamie wiped his hands on his trousers. “That truly does smell dreadful. Will it help, do you think?”

“It should.” Rafe looked up to see Hammersmith coming down the aisle with a basket in his hand. His mouth was pressed into such a thin line it almost disappeared into his beard.

Fearing bad news and wanting to spare the boy, Rafe stepped forward to meet him. “How bad?”

“By the blood of Saint Andrew,” the Scotsman began, then saw Jamie watching, and altered his tone. “Both bones broken in his shin. Bruises. The bones stayed in place, so the lad’s leg should heal well. Ye are to resume the stallion’s training. The master wants him jumping the creek by the end of the week. If he willna do it,” he added in a lower voice, “he says he’ll put a bullet in him.”

“He better not!” Jamie cried from behind Rafe.

Hammersmith groaned. Forcing a smile, he said, “I dinna think he meant it, Master Jamie. Speaking from temper, is all.”

“I’ll check Pems this afternoon,” Rafe said. “See if any injuries appear that I didn’t find earlier.” And if they did, he would buy the horse himself, rather than allow him to be destroyed. Or have Thomas steal him if he ever came back. Indians were good at that.

“Cook sent this.” The groom held out the basket. “Aye, and it smells better than you, I warrant.”

Rafe waited for Jamie to offer to share their meal with Hammersmith, and was proud when he did. But the Scot said he and the other grooms had already taken lunch at the house, as they usually did, and advised them to eat outside so they wouldn’t stink up his stable. After washing their hands at the pump, they took the basket to the brook and sat on the same log where he and Josie had suffered through that awkward conversation several hours earlier.

Another time when he should have kept his damn mouth shut. He could still see the hurt in her eyes. At the time, he had thought putting his cards on the table might help her see the hopelessness of the situation.

Instead, he had made it worse.

Won’t you even fight for us?
she had asked, as if doubting his feelings for her and her son.

God
, if she only knew. When he saw her wounded look, and realized that something rare and precious had slipped through his hands, he was filled with a desperation to get it back.

But why, if nothing had changed?

He looked beyond the pasture at the stone mansion on the hill. He could never compete with that. But maybe, if he could offer something more . . .
be
something more . . .

It came to him then, as he sat beside Jamie, wolfing down a cold lunch of baked chicken, biscuits, roasted potatoes, and an entire tin of peaches, that he wanted to change. To be better than he was. To take the risk of opening his heart again. All because he was falling in love with Josie.

Falling.
His chewing slowed
.
The perfect word for how he felt. Spinning out of control. Flailing in midair, tumbling headlong into a place he had never been.

Strangely, he wasn’t afraid. In fact, he felt energized, more hopeful than he had in a long time. Everything seemed sharper, more defined. His senses were more acute. This chicken leg tasted better—although he suspected it was pigeon, not chicken—birdsong sounded sweeter, the clouds hovering overhead felt less depressing.

If that wasn’t due to the fumes from the liniment, then it must be love.

He grinned, the word rolling through his mind, kicking up hopes and ideas along the way. He would fix this. He would make it work. He wouldn’t live a life without Josie and her son.

“Jamie, what do you know about America?” he asked on impulse.

“It’s where cowboys and Indians and buffalos live.”

“Ever thought of moving there?”

He looked up, squinting against the struggling sunlight. “Is it far away?”

“Across the ocean.”

“By France?”

“The other way.”

The boy thought for a moment, then sighed. “Mother wouldn’t let me.”

“What if she came, too?” Rafe smiled, thinking about it. A nice little cabin—nothing too big or elaborate—nestled in a field of columbine, ringed by tall pines and aspen, and bordering a clear mountain stream.

And live on what? Juniper berries and balsam root?

“Could I bring Blaze?”

Rafe studied the boy, realizing from the question how lonely he must be, isolated by his wealth, his birth, his mother’s worry. But in America, Rafe could claim him as his own and no one would even care. “Sure.”

“When can we leave?”

When, indeed.
Seeing a reflection of his own impatience in the boy’s hazel eyes, Rafe grinned and ruffled his thatch of blond hair. “I’m thinking on it.” If he intended to make this happen, he needed a plan. Something that would give him a way to build a life for the three of them in America.

And it all started with Pems.

Now that he was back in charge of the stallion’s training, he would have to make some revisions. Work him a little harder. If they hadn’t lost too much ground with the mishap this morning, and there were no other problems, the stallion might—
might—
be able to run in a month.

And if he won . . . hell . . . that could change everything.

 • • • 

That afternoon, Hammersmith brought Gordon back to the stable in the cart.

“How is he?” Rafe asked as they loaded the droop-eyed groom out of the back.

“They should have kept him at yon house,” the Scot complained, bowed under Gordon’s weight as he and Rafe carried him to his bunk in the room he shared with the other grooms. “I’ve no time fer nursemaiding.”

“Bugger that, you sheep-humping Scot,” Gordon slurred between gasps of pain. “As cheap with your help as you are with your coin—mind that rail!—bloody hell!”

“Dinna pay him any heed,” Hammersmith muttered, pulling the sheet over Stevens’s slack form. “The laudanum is wearing off.” Bending close to Gordon’s ear, he shouted, “And I’ll no’ be giving ye more, ye worthless cur, if ye dinna watch your tongue. There’s a bairn present.” He punctuated that with a thump on the injured man’s head.

“Ow.” Gordon’s eyes blinked open, wandered for a moment, then settled on the boy watching wide-eyed at the door. “Hallo, Master James. A word of advice. Don’t break your leg. It hurts like a bloody, buggerin’—”

“Best come along, Jamie,” Rafe cut in, steering the boy away from the door before he heard too much. “Your mother will be looking for you.”

“Gordon used bad words.”

“He didn’t mean to. It’s just the medicine talking.”

“How can medicine talk?”

“Never mind. And it would be best if you didn’t tell your mother.”

“Yes, sir.”

After pointing the boy up the path to the house, Rafe walked back into the stable just as Hammersmith came out of the room where Gordon was. “Can I talk to him?” Rafe asked. “I’d like to know what happened at the brook.”

“Aye. I canna give him more laudanum for a while yet, so he’s still awake.”

Rafe pulled a stool near Gordon’s bed, sat down, and asked him what happened when he took Pems to the brook.

“He refused the jump, like I figured he would. Took him around again. Same thing. Third time, the bloody bastard dug in his heels and sent me flying. Guess I pushed him too hard. Is the Scot bringing more laudanum?”

“Soon. And don’t fret about Pems. He fared better than you.”

Gordon tried to move his leg, then winced. “He’s well then? I saw he was caught up in the reins.”

“He’s sore, but fine. How about you?”

A weak grin split the groom’s pale, weary face. “Cook is sending Henny down with my meals, so it’s not too terrible.” He motioned Rafe closer. “She’s glad to get away,” he whispered. “The miss and her father are fighting again. Even heard your name mentioned a couple of times.”

Rafe wasn’t surprised. His feelings for Josie put him squarely in Cathcart’s sights. “Don’t worry about that. Just get yourself healed.”

“The doctor is bringing a crutch so I can get around. I suspect I’ll be back on my feet well before you return to the colonies.”

“We haven’t been colonies for nearly a century,” Rafe reminded him.

“Bugger that.” The injured man motioned him closer again. “Any chance the earl might need another wrangler for the trip?”

Rafe straightened in surprise. “You want to emigrate?”

Gordon nodded.

“What about Henny?”

“Her, too. She figures if Miss Josephine marries the baron, she’ll be looking for another position, anyway. Not hoity-toity enough for a frigging baroness.” Gordon frowned. “Did I say ‘frigging’?”

“You did.”

“But not in front of Jamie.”

“No, only ‘sheep-humping,’ ‘buggering,’ and ‘bloody hell.’ But don’t worry. He said he wouldn’t tell his mother. You’re serious about emigrating?” Rafe would help Gordon toward that goal, but wanted to make sure it wasn’t just the laudanum talking.

“We don’t want to be servants all our lives. But it would help if we had employment and a place to go. We can pay our way, if we must. Where’s Hammersmith? He said he’d be back soon.”

“If the earl doesn’t need you, someone will. There’s always room for hard workers.” And if things work out as Rafe hoped, he might even be able to hire Gordon, himself.

Clouds were sinking down to meet the mist rising off the fields when Rafe took Pembroke out to the round pen for his afternoon workout. He started him at a walk, and gradually moved him through his gaits. The stallion was definitely stiff, but seemed sound, so Rafe worked him just long enough to limber him up, then brought him back inside. More liniment and a good massage, then he fed and watered him, and called it a day.

Henny brought Gordon’s dinner. Rafe was pleased to see that Josie came, too, carrying a plate piled high with food. Since he had been banished from the house, he usually had to go get his own plate from the kitchen then bring it back here to eat. Apparently, even the house help had been warned away from him.

“I hope you’re hungry,” she said, handing the plate to him.

“We can share. Unless my stink chases you off.”

She laughed. “Don’t you know liniment is perfume to a horse lover? Let’s hope it helps. Pems wasn’t looking that spry when I checked on him just now.”

“He’s mostly sore. He’ll be fine.”

They settled on overturned buckets in the tack room—stables weren’t usually dressed out for callers—and he asked how Jamie was handling all the doings up at the house.

“He’s worried.” She forked a bite of potato in her mouth, then slowly chewed. He had never seen anything quite so arousing. “He overheard that Father planned to shoot Pems if he can’t jump. I told him you wouldn’t allow that.”

“I won’t.”

“How will you stop him?”

“I’ll think of something.” He wasn’t ready yet to talk about the ideas bouncing around in his head. They were too new. Too impossible. He needed more time to think them through and come up with a workable plan.

They sat in silence for a time. There was something intimate about eating off the same plate. Hearing her chew and swallow. Sitting close enough that her arm rubbed against his as she ate. Intimate and arousing.
Hell,
everything about her aroused him. It was damned distracting. But nice.

“He’s also planning his move to America,” she said after a while.

Rafe gave her a sheepish look. “Jamie told you about that?”

“He’s quite excited about it. Apparently I’m invited, too.” She looked at the green bean impaled on her fork. “I know you mean well, Rafe, and were simply trying to distract him, but I’d rather you didn’t put wild ideas in his head.”

Rafe studied her for a moment. “What if it’s not a wild idea?”

She froze, the bean halfway to her mouth.

“What if I figured out a way to provide for you and Jamie?”

She returned a green bean to her plate, wiped her fingertips on the napkin, then fixed her gaze on his with a directness that made his skin tingle. “How?”

“I’m not sure yet. But if I can work it out, would you go to America with me?”

“Go with you to America.”

He nodded.

“Permanently. Forever.”

He nodded.

She thought for a moment. Then she tipped her head to the side in that teasing way she had that told him she was fighting a smile. “Is this a proposal of marriage, Mr. Jessup?”

Heat rushed up his neck. “Not yet. But maybe soon. You’ll be the first to know, I promise.”

Her smile faltered. “Then ask me when you’re certain, and I’ll give you my answer then.”

He hid his disappointment. He’d botched it. “Fair enough.”

After they finished eating, he set the empty plate on the floor by his boot. “Have you told Jamie about Adderly yet?”