"Now, why would Louis Marchmount need a bodyguard, Faith?" Rafe's question was the most casual! She gave a little laugh.
"Frankly, Rafe, I think he's just had too many bad trips and is getting flashes. Every time a phone rings, he flips his lid. But if a bodyguard makes him feel safe, why not? The man does come from a good family, after all, and I must say that I like a person who can take reverses like a gentleman, who faces reality." "Bobby's really bugging you, Faith?" She nodded rather grimly. "I'm supposed to be the making or breaking of him. And I'm sorry, Rafe, I simply don't look at the problem, or the solution, from that angle."
"Using moral blackmail on you, huh?" Rafe asked, and gave me a look that made me want to kill him-for just a split second, mind you. "You ignore that kind of shit, Faith. You're on the right track. How're your classes progressing?… Faith teaches equitation to handicapped children."
"I'm qualified for that," she said, still a bit grim. "What did you say to Bobby?"
"Enough. I sent him for some coffee and suggested that he was making an ass of himself. One more explosion would upset Lou."
"Oh, Rafe, how could you?"
"Why not? Wendy can put the fear of God in him when neither you nor I can! She scares him shitless."
"Who scares who?" asked John Milanesi, insinuating himself into our group. I wished he wouldn't lean over me so. "Have you seen the palatial grounds of the Herrington estate, my dear sister-in-law?"
And he took my arm and began to lead me off, nodding pleasantly to Rafe and Faith. If I had not seen my mother-in-law bearing down on us with a stormy expression on her face, I'd not have let myself be "rescued." But I did. "You certainly are a surprise, sister dear," my new relative said, tucking my hand under his arm in a way that made me wonder if I was being taken from the pan only to deal with the fire.
"In what way? You ought to have had enough practice meeting sisters-in-law."
He laughed, and it was a sort of caressing type of laugh that disturbed me.
“You're different." He glanced down at me, his eyelids obscuring his expression. "Nialla. That's a pretty name." He halted now that we were at the top of the sloping lawn, and gestured about, as if he were monarch of all he surveyed. "Lovely setting, isn't it?" I duly appreciated the view. "No comparable aspect from the Dower House, is there?"
Again he gave me that unsettling sideways glance.
"No, there isn't, but I prefer the Dower House. The ambience is suitable to my plebeian tastes."
I’d’ve said you had… more ambition than that."
"I'm a horse trainer's daughter. Horses are my life, and my ambition is to deal with… horses… as much as possible. This"-I could make regal gestures, too-"is not my scene."
"My, my. Do we protest too much?"
"No, I just want to get something straight, Mr. Milanesi. When Rafe married me, I thought he was just another horse trainer."
"And here I was given to understand that this was a romance of long standing."
Rafe and his little white lies! I glared at John Milanesi now.
"What is it you want to know, Mr. Milanesi?" I asked, trying to keep my temper.
He eyed me coolly, a half-smile on his lips. "How much you'll cost us."
"How much I'll… Why, you, you…"
"Son of a bitch?" He suggested.
I couldn't leave him fast enough, but I forced myself to walk, each step jolting through me and the pebbles of the path throwing me off balance. I told myself he was not laughing, he was not laughing, but his laughter followed me all the way back to the terrace.
Rafe was nowhere in sight. Nor, fortunately, was that bitch, his mother. John had to be acting on his mother's instructions. Or could he be so two-faced that he'd adopt one attitude in front of his half-brother and propose to buy me off when be got me alone? Either way was despicable. Despicable! Lou Marchmount was reclining in his lounge, a limp rag of a man. Paddy Skerrit was talking at a sullen Iona-who did not have a drink-and the D-N type. Pres and Sara were absent, and Bobby Wellesley, while the others were clustered about the bar. Just then a clutch of new arrivals swirled out onto the terrace, Rafe and his mother in their midst.
One thing certain, she hadn't expected to find me back on the terrace so soon. Another thing, I wanted to go home. Now! Protocol had been satisfied, and I wanted out. If Rafe wouldn't take me, I'd walk!
Without seeming to hurry, Rafe reached me before the vanguard of the new guests. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were blazing with anger.
"John try to buy you off?" he asked in an undertone, though the question must have been unnecessary if my face mirrored any portion of the rage inside me. "Don't blow your cool now, Nialla. I beg you!"
In the instant before we had to turn to be introduced, I got several messages. I must be, I could be, bigger than all the insults being dealt me. Rafe wanted me to be bigger. He had chosen me, despite two bad marital experiences. He was proud of me, and I could make him prouder. This whole evening, with its vicious undertones and inhospitalities, was insignificant in the fabric of our lives together. As if I were faced with a bad approach to a very difficult jump, I took a deep breath and looked up, straight ahead.
Maybe my frame of mind made the difference, plus the fact that most of the new arrivals stayed for only a drink or two, and their conversation was confined to felicitating me, congratulating Rafe, some jokes or chitchat all on a polite and jocular level. Pres's costume made a conversation piece. (I wasn't sure who looked more unhappy, Pres or Sara, but they stayed at the bar, finding sympathy in Dennis' kindred company.) Bobby Wellesley had sunk, almost out of sight, into the lounge at the edge of the terrace, and seemed almost as much of an exile as Louis Marchmount. Wendy kept everyone away from him; Lou, that is.
One older couple, the Eldicotts, were particularly outgoing. I was very sorry when they excused themselves. Of course, they were horse breeders, and I felt much happier on that subject than the ups and downs of the stock market that otherwise dominated small talk. Small talk? The figures mentioned took my breath away.
Full dark came, the terrace lights glowed before Rafe asked Sam about dinner. The party was now down to the original complement.
"A buffet is set up in the courtyard, Mr. Rafe. It's ready whenever Madam is."
"Madam is, whether she knows it or not," Rafe told him, and Sam, inclining his head with dignity, went off into the house. "Otherwise"-Rafe grinned at me-"I'll never hear the last of it from Garry."
"I'm so hungry I could even eat peanut butter."
"We can leave right after dinner, dear heart, if I can catch Urscoll by himself for a few moments."
"Urscoll?"
"Yes." And Rafe's eyes narrowed. "If he is a bodyguard, maybe he'll tell me from what is he guarding Lou Marchmount."
"He simply doesn't look or act like a bodyguard."
"You've seen too much TV, love."
"Oh, you know it all."
Rafe raised his eyebrows in polite consternation. "Hardly, but I appreciate your attitude."
Madam, my reluctant mother-in-law, was also reluctant to interrupt her drinking for dinner, but Ted Mc-McCormack greeted the announcement with such gusto that she relented, all gracious smiles, and brightly announced that everyone should follow her to the buffet.
I think, under other auspices, I'd've enjoyed that dinner. Certainly the setting was lovely, with the fountain playing under colored lights, the tables set around it; the cold soup, the delicious curry, the salads, the meringue dessert. There was champagne, too, with which our health was drunk. (I wonder she didn't choke on the bubbles, it pained her so to propose our happiness.)
We didn't get a chance to talk to Urscoll at dinner; we were seated at smaller tables, and the Madam-Marchmount-Urscoll trio did not encourage the arrival of a fourth at their table.