"No. But do you still bring your hunters back from the field bleeding and foundered? A hunter with broken wind isn't worth much either, is it? But I expect you'd do it the kindness of a bullet."
This bitter, passionate speech left Crispin for a moment dumbfounded. The attack seemed to have come out of nowhere, and he floundered around, trying to find a way of recovering his equilibrium. Chloe had suddenly reduced him to the status of an unpleasant little boy. His gloved hands flexed as he held himself on a tight rein.
"If we could change the direction of the subject of horseflesh, Sir Jasper has sent you a present," he said stiffly.
"Oh?" Chloe turned, squinting up at him against the sun.
He gestured to the horse he was leading. "This is Maid Marion. She's out of Red Queen by Sherrif. Your brother thought you might like a good riding horse."
"Oh, I remember Sherrif," Chloe said. "A magnificent stallion. No wonder she's such a pretty lady." She accepted the change of subject with the rueful reflection that her attack on Crispin had rather gone to extremes. "But I couldn't possibly accept her."
He'd been warned to expect this and had his answer ready. "Why not' It's perfectly customary for brothers to give their sisters gifts."
Chloe blew softly into the mare's nostrils. Maid Marion wrinkled her velvety nose and rolled back her lips in a horsey smile. Chloe stroked her neck and said as neutrally as she could, "Perhaps so, but I really can't accept her as a gift. Maybe I could borrow her one day though."
It would achieve the same purpose. Crispin relaxed and asked lightly, "Will your guardian permit you to ride with me?"
Chloe frowned. Hugo had forfeited all rights to dictate to her. There was not the slightest reason why she shouldn't spend time with her own family. It wasn't as if she had a surfeit of caring friends and relatives around her. She swallowed hard, castigating herself mentally for self-pity. She knew instinctively that Hugo would not permit her to ride with Crispin, but the reasons had nothing to do with her; they belonged to whatever lay between Jasper and Sir Hugo. She failed to see why her happiness should be sacrificed.
"I shan't ask him," she said. "But it can't be today. I'd have to plan it."
Crispin couldn't hide his satisfaction and asked eagerly, "When, then?"
"Let me think about it and we'll make plans when you come tomorrow… If you come tomorrow," she added.
"You'll have to promise to receive me with more courtesy," Crispin said. He tried to make his voice teasing, but his eyes were hard and he bent to pat the ever-present Dante, hoping to conceal his expression. The dog moved away.
"If I was rude, I apologize," Chloe said. "I sometimes speak out of turn when I'm angered… and I do become very angry when animals are maltreated." She shrugged as if such a response were only to be expected. "Poor Rosinante. Can't you imagine what it must have been like, unshod, starved, and beaten, and forced to haul impossibly heavy loads?"
"Not being a horse, I'm afraid I can't," Crispin said. He offered a wry grin and Chloe, whose sense of humor was never far from the surface, half smiled in response.
"I suppose I do become rather obsessive," she conceded. "But you did pull the wings off butterflies."
Crispin raised his hands in a disarming gesture of defeat. "But I was very young, Chloe. No more than nine or ten. I've reformed, I promise."
"Oh, very well," she said, laughing. "We'll consign it to the dim and distant past."
"And you really won't let me leave Maid Marion with you?"
Chloe shook her head. "Thank Jasper for me, but I can't possibly accept such a gift. I'd be happy to buy her though," she added. "Sir Hugo said we would purchase a good horse for me, once-"
"Once?" Crispin prompted when she seemed disinclined to continue.
"Oh, once it's been decided where I should live and in what manner," she said with another dismissive shrug.
"And when will that be decided?"
When and if my guardian is ever sober enough to think about it. "Soon, when Sir Hugo's looked at all the options."
"And what are the options?"
For some reason, despite her newfound charity with him, Chloe discovered she didn't want to confide her plans to Crispin. "Oh, I'm not sure yet," she said casually. "I have to prepare a fresh poultice for Rosinante, so…"
"I have to be On my way." Crispin took the hint. He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. "Until tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow," Chloe agreed, retrieving her hand in some surprise. She hadn't expected gallantry from Crispin. So far, in the arena of gallantry, she'd experienced only the stammers and fumbles of the curate and Miss Anne's nephew. The butcher's boy didn't really count.
And neither did what had happened between herself and Hugo. That hadn't been gallantry. What had it beea?
She waved good-bye as Crispin rode out of the courtyard, leading Maid Marion. What had it beea' It had been magical, but it had far transcended the games and rituals of gallantry. It had not been play. There had been nothing playful about it at all.
That night she heard the pianoforte again. But there was nothing merry or rollicking about the music-in fact it wasn't music. It was a harsh melange of discordancy, the notes beaten from the keyboard with a desperation that chilled her. It was a cry of pure anomie-a despairing statement of aloneness. The agonized cry of a man who'd lost his grounding in his own world.
Chloe could find no words for the pain described in the sounds coming through her window. But she felt the pain as if it were her own. She got up and sat on the window seat. Dante was shivering against her and Be-
atrice had curled around her kittens, her body and her warmth a protective arc.
Chloe heard Samuel's tread, heavy on the stairs. She heard the library door open and she drew a ragged breath. Samuel would help him as she knew she could not. The depths of her own ignorance, her own inability to grasp such pain, stunned her.
The discordant music ceased. She exhaled slowly, feeling the tension leave her body.
When Samuel's callused hands covered Hugo's on the keys, Hugo's head dropped onto his chest. "I don't know if I can do it," he whispered.
"Aye, you can," Samuel said softly. "You need rest."
"I need brandy, damn you!" Hugo held out his hands. They shook uncontrollably. "My skin's on fire," he muttered. "I feel as if I'm shoveling fuel on Satan's fires already. Eden in hell." His crack of laughter was mirthless. "Seems appropriate, doesn't it, Samuel? You want to join me there? I promise you the road is paved with every debauchery known to man. The question is-" He shook his head slowly. "The question is, Samuel, whether the joys of the road are worth the hell of its destination."
"Come upstairs," Samuel said. "I'll put you to bed-"
"No, damn you!" Hugo pushed away his helping hands. "I can't sleep. I'll stay here."
"You need to eat something-"
"Samuel, leave me alone." The sentiment was savage, the voice quiet.
Samuel left the library and went back to bed. Chloe heard him come upstairs and crept back beneath the covers of her own bed, encouraging Dante to leave her feet and come up beside her. His breath was damp and warm on her face, his heavy body like an extra blanket, and finally she fell asleep.
In the library Hugo kept up his lonely vigil of endurance.
Crispin didn't come the following morning, and Chloe, who had already worked out a plan for evading her custodian's sharp eyes, was more disappointed than she cared to acknowledge. Restlessly, she decided to take Hugo's advice and divert her energies into housekeeping. She took down the hangings and curtains in her bedchamber and washed them, hanging them to dry in the courtyard. With Samuel's grumbling assistance, she hauled the Elizabethan rug outside and beat the clouds of dust from it, then swept and polished the oak floor and the heavy wooden furniture in the bedroom. By sundown she was exhausted but satisfied. Dante, who'd had a long walk in Billy's charge, was equally at peace and flopped muddy and breathily at her feet in the kitchen.