Enchanted Afternoon Page 3

  But she could not carry on like this. She had more than herself to consider.

  “Michael, wait.” She hurried after him as he wrenched open the door to the foyer.

  He stopped and turned. “There’s nothing more to say.” He strode across the entry hall and disappeared out the door.

  She felt strangely, terrifyingly light, as though she might float away at any moment. Summer sunshine streamed through the fanlights framing the door. On the hall table, a silver tray overflowed with calling cards, their corners bent to indicate the caller had come to express condolences. She took no solace in the attentive gestures. In all her years of living here, she had made no true friends, only well-heeled acquaintances who considered her important because of whose daughter she was…and who she’d married. It was depressing to realize she had no one to give her a cup of tea and simply let her weep for her loss.

  “Mama!” The cry came from the rear of the house, followed by the slap of running feet on the parquet floor. “Mama, guess what? Just guess! You’ll never guess!”

  William. Heavens, he wasn’t supposed to be back yet from his outing. She’d sent the driver to take him on a turn around the racetrack, hoping the excursion would keep him preoccupied while she changed the course of their lives. Now, the mere sound of her son’s voice drove home the folly of what she’d just done. Bringing Michael into this mess would suck William into it, too. Had she even considered that?

  Stupid, she thought. Impulsive. Hadn’t she learned a thing since her reckless youth?

  William ran to the foyer through the back entry. Fair-haired and fresh-faced, he barreled toward her.

  Only when he practically collided with her did he stop. The impact of his small form against her bruised body was agonizing but she never let it show, never even flinched. “Slow down, my little dynamo,” she cautioned, resting her fingers on the boy’s shoulders.

  A feeling of gratitude washed through her. He was the reason she woke up each day, took the next breath of air. He was the reason she cared to live at all. And he was the reason she was going to leave her husband.

  William was a typical rough-and-tumble boy in many ways, although he had his own unique quirks and attributes. He was grubby and bright and adorable, and he was wearing his shoes on the wrong feet and his shirt buttoned wrong, just like—

  “Oh,” William said, looking past Helena at the front door. “Hello.”

  “I forgot my—” Michael began, stepping inside.

  Man and boy locked onto each other, steel to a powerful magnet.

  William stepped out from behind Helena.

  Michael strode across the foyer, pale and tight-lipped.

  “Hello,” said William again, extending a grimy hand. “How do you do?”

  Helena’s son was blessed with the gift of ease and charm and his manners were impeccable. He was a handsome lad with a ready smile. A freshly lost tooth punctuated his grin as he placed his sweaty hand in Michael Rowan’s.

  And his eyes, surely the most charming attribute of her beautiful eight-year-old son, were vivid blue mirrors of his father’s.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Michael stood motionless in the foyer of the Barnes mansion, looking at his son for the very first time. Shock swept over him in great, numbing waves. The rational, empirical part of his mind, the part that refused to feel the pain, put together the facts. This boy was his. She had borne his son and given him to another man. All these years, Michael had had a son, and he’d never known.

  Yet neither Helena nor the boy could see his inner turbulence. They simply watched him, she with a waiting tension, the child with unabashed curiosity. She covered William’s shoulders with her hands as if ready to snatch him out of harm’s way.

  Somehow, Michael managed to shake his son’s extended hand, to acknowledge the well-brought-up greeting. “My name is Michael Rowan.”

  His hand engulfed the boy’s. Small and hot and firm. His son. He was touching his son.

  “How do you do, sir?” he said again. “I’m William.”

  “It’s very good to meet you, William.” With a false heartiness he instantly hated, he said, “Aren’t you a fine big boy. How old are you?”

  “Eight years, one month, sixteen days, eleven hours…” He peered at the parlor clock through the doorway, barely paused before adding, “And six minutes.”

  “That’s very clever,” Michael managed to say. “Where did you learn that?”

  “I figured it out for myself.” The boy danced from foot to foot. “Mama, I have a very important thing to show you. A wonderful thing.”

  “William, Professor Rowan was just saying good day.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Michael said, hiding the cold fury that was slowly taking hold of him, “I came back to collect my spectacles.” He retrieved them from the parlor. “I wouldn’t be averse to seeing something wonderful.”

  “It is.” William punched his fist in the air. “Come this way, hurry.”

  Michael permitted himself a look at Helena as the small boy led them through the house. She didn’t flinch at his glare, didn’t seem the least bit repentant as she walked away. Behind her, he was engulfed by the light floral fog of her perfume and the quiet silken swish of her elegant black skirts. Only Helena could raise this havoc of emotion in him—love and fury and yearning and bitterness. It had been true years ago, and to his amazement, it still was.

  She carried herself with a stiff dignity he didn’t remember in the willowy girl he’d once adored, and her face bore delicate lines and faint shadows of maturity that were new to him. Yet she still had sun-shot coppery hair and the sort of creamy skin a man longed to touch. Helena as a young lady had been utterly captivating. Helena in the full flower of womanhood took his breath away, even despite his anger at her deception.

  As he walked with the mother of his child across the lush, manicured lawn, Michael muttered in a low voice, “When were you planning to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  William skipped along, oblivious, in front of them. Beds of foxglove and delphinium lined the walkway, their candy colors a vivid contrast to the emerald lawn. For a moment, the boy had the surreal look of a figure in a painting, even though he was constantly in motion.

  “Look, you played me for a fool once,” Michael said to Helena, “but I’m a quick study. It won’t happen again.”

  She smiled, her expression brilliant, her gaze trained straight ahead. “I positively will not discuss this in William’s presence,” she stated.

  He couldn’t help but admire her brittle self-possession. The belle of Georgetown had become the first lady of Saratoga Springs. He’d read about her from afar, but even the most blatant scandal sheets respected the privacy of a woman of her status.

  In his rarefied, self-contained world at the Institute, Michael wasn’t supposed to pay attention to the mundane matters discussed in the news, but there was nothing mundane about Helena. According to the social column in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, she was the most fashionable, most sought-after hostess in the popular resort town. Regular visitors to Saratoga Springs included Vanderbilts, Astors, crown princes of foreign lands, captains of industry and millionaires with shady pasts. Blue-blooded Helena Cabot Barnes was the doyenne of them all.

  He could understand why. She was not beautiful—that was too commonplace a term to describe the full impact of her appearance. She had some indefinable, ethereal quality that went beyond mere beauty. It had to do with the way she carried herself, the intriguing charms that hid inside her gaze and flashed in her smile.

  It was an odd feeling, to remember the ways he used to touch her, the liberties he took with that exquisite body, the emotions and sensations he used to feel as he lay with her, never thinking of the past or future. Odder still and infinitely more painful was the discovery he had made today. Their heedless pleasure had resulted in the lively boy who led them along the garden path. Michael was a man of science, yet he now knew himself to be in the
presence of a miracle, a mysterious creation, an invention that made itself. He could think of William in no other terms.

  Michael marveled at the idea of having a son of his own. He’d never thought of taking a wife and having children. After Helena, marrying another woman and giving her children simply made no sense. All other women had been ruined for him. Meanwhile, she had selfishly kept William for herself and, worse, introduced him to the world as the son of Troy Barnes.

  The child had no notion of the hostility snapping between his mother and the man he regarded as a stranger. Michael didn’t want to confuse the lad so he tried not to stare, but couldn’t help himself. He devoured William with his gaze. His son had Helena’s coloring—the creamy fair skin with a saddle of freckles across the bridge of the nose, a profusion of burnished copper hair, a smile that rivaled the sun for brightness.

  But other things about the boy did not come from Helena. That was obvious. The eyes were unmistakable. Michael Rowan saw those very same eyes when he looked in the mirror. They were a curiously dark shade of blue, like the sky at twilight.

  He had another, more haunting memory of blue eyes. In a miserable backstretch alley behind the famous Thoroughbred racetrack of Saratoga Springs, there used to live a woman with those same eyes—bluer than nature had intended, intense, almost burning. It was one of his earliest memories of his mother—and his last of her.

  Oblivious to the shifting shadows of sentiment that lay over Michael, William led them across the expansive yard, stirring a flurry of butterflies from the hip-tall, sun-paled grasses. At the edge of the property, he pointed toward an unpaved bridle path. “See? See? Isn’t he wonderful?”

  Helena stopped walking and stared. “Oh, William—”

  “Chalkeye Hopkins brought him over from the racecourse stables. He said I could keep him for my very own.” Hopping from one foot to the other, he said to Michael, “Chalkeye used to be a famous jockey. Now he’s the chief trainer of the Barhytes’ farm. Come see, Mama. You, too, Professor Rowan.”

  “Don’t you dare go near that beast,” Helena yelled, her voice wincingly shrill. “William, do you hear me?”

  The boy stopped instantly, but set his jaw at a mutinous angle. “Hector’s not a beast. He’s going to be my very own horse.”

  “He’s going straight back to the Barhytes’.”

  “Mama, no! Chalkeye brought him all the way over here, just for me.”

  “A racehorse is a dangerous, high-strung animal, dear. This poor creature would never make a good pet.”

  “Let’s have a look,” Michael said, brushing past her and ignoring her gasp of outrage. He approached the racehorse. The old jock had tethered it by a cord from its halter to the horseheaded iron hitch post at the end of the path, then wisely disappeared so he wouldn’t be forced to take back his “gift.” The dull-hided chestnut gelding had a Thoroughbred’s beautifully sculptured head, deep chest and slender legs now powdered with dust from the pathway.

  Crippled, no doubt, Michael thought, approaching the animal. It rolled back one eye at him, then flattened its ears. A soothing sound came from Michael’s throat. He’d had little to do with horses since his youth, yet the old affinity bubbled to the surface, and within seconds, he calmed the horse, stroking it about the muzzle and head.

  The years fell away as his hands ran over the hot, thick hide. He’d been younger than William when he went to work for Mr. Dishman, the fodder man who supplied the stables with feed for the sleek, beautiful champions. The horses consumed pound after pound of fortified whole oats, steeped in walnut oil and molasses. The fare was better and more nutritious than the food Michael Rowan and his mother shared each night by the sputtering light of a single kerosene lamp. One day, when he thought no one was looking, he sampled the warm-smelling, glossy grain. It had tasted so rich that he’d scooped it up by handfuls, chewing and swallowing as fast as he could until a high-pitched, chiming laugh had interrupted him. Filled with humiliation, he looked up to find a handsome, strapping boy clinging to the hand of a tall, well-dressed man. “Look, Father,” the lad said. “That boy is eating from the feed trough.”

  The man had pulled the lad away from the stable row, saying, “That’s what comes of idleness and lack of supervision. Come along, Troy.”

  Word of Michael’s transgression must have reached the head stableman, for Michael earned a caning for his greed, and they docked a week’s wages to pay for the few stolen mouthfuls. Decades had passed since that day, yet still he had not been able to shed the stink of that alley, the pangs of hunger, the tormenting itch of lice and fleas. It was no coincidence that he thought of Troy now, given their lifelong connection.

  “Do you know horses?” William asked, straining forward although Helena held his hand, keeping him at a safe distance.

  “A bit, yes. I used to work at the racetrack when I was about your age.”

  Helena tilted her head to one side. “You never told me that.”

  There was much he’d never told her; simple abandonment had been kinder. She didn’t need to know what his past was like, didn’t need those dark images in her head. And he certainly didn’t want her pity. Now, though, William changed everything.

  “And you never told me—”

  “I said, not now,” she warned him.

  Out of consideration for the boy, he dropped the subject and turned back to the Thoroughbred. Running a hand down the front of each of the horse’s cannon bones, Michael felt a telltale warmth and swelling. The common, catastrophic injury had been the end of many a horse’s career. This gelding, though pretty, was now as useless for racing as he was for breeding.

  “He’s got bucked shins,” Michael said. “He can’t race anymore.”

  William nodded gravely. “That’s what Chalkeye said. Can you fix him?”

  “Not for racing, but perhaps for the occasional ride, if he has the temperament for it.”

  “Hurrah!” The boy’s shout caused the horse to shy. Helena immediately reeled her son back in, her full black skirts enveloping him. William dropped his voice and tried to extricate himself from his mother’s grasp. “Did you hear that, Mama? The Professor is going to fix Hector.” His clear-eyed gaze worshiped Michael as a hero. The look made him feel ten feet tall, made him want to give this boy the whole world.

  “Ah, William,” Helena said in a gentle voice Michael had never heard before. “He’s lovely, but we can’t keep him.”

  His face fell. “But if we don’t, the owner will send him off to the knacker’s. I know what they do to horses at the knacker’s. They bash them in the head and tan their hides for harness leather and boil their bones for glue.”

  Helena pursed her lips. “Chalkeye invented that story to make you feel sorry for him.”

  “The boy’s not far wrong,” Michael said. “Horses that can no longer race or breed can’t earn their keep, so they’re quickly culled.”

  She shot him a poisonous look, then softened her expression for William. “I’m afraid this is not a good time to be adopting a horse, sweetheart.”

  “But Mama, if you make me give him back, he’ll die.”

  “We haven’t a proper stable to keep him.”

  “There are livery and boarding stables down every alley in this town,” Michael pointed out, earning another scowl from her.

  William twisted his hand free of his mother’s and moved over to stand close to Michael. “Yes, a livery stable would be fine. There’s one over on Spring Street, and I can walk there all by myself. Could he live there? Could he?”

  “William.” Love and exasperation strained her voice. “In the first place, that’s too far to walk. In the second place, you don’t know the first thing about caring for a horse. You’ve never even ridden one.”

  “You can’t mean that,” Michael said.

  She pulled William back against her skirts again and held him there, her hand pressed against his chest to keep him still. “He’s very fragile. Why would I subject him to the dangers of horseback
riding?”

  “Because he’s breathing?” Michael couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. Already he was getting an unhappy picture of what his son’s life was like. An overbearing mother, fussing and worrying about him. Judging by the lad’s pallor and thinness, Michael guessed he led a sheltered life, away from sunshine and fresh air.

  William seemed to bear his mother’s overprotectiveness with a sort of weary patience that hinted at long practice. “I’m not fragile,” he said, a subtle edge of mutiny in his voice. “I know what fragile means, and I’m not.”

  “Look,” said Michael, “I’ve got a rig from the Institute, so I’ll be needing a place to put up for the night. The horse can come with me.”

  “See? See?” Once again, William wrenched himself away from his mother, and the brightness of his smile surpassed even the vivid summer colors of the garden. “Let’s get Hector a bucket of water. I bet he’s thirsty.” Grabbing Michael’s hand, he tugged him toward a pump at the end of the yard.

  It was an old-fashioned sweep pump, its rusty maw dripping red sludge. William dragged a bucket from under the rickety wooden deck and positioned it under the spout. Michael primed the pump a few times, then a gush of reddish, bubbly water spewed out into the bucket.

  “This spring’s called Little Red,” William said, clearly proud of his knowledge. “My father’s family has boreholes all over town.”

  Michael gritted his teeth at William’s mention of a father. He was well-acquainted with the Barnes success story. The family had made a fortune in banking, and had turned that into an even bigger fortune pumping water from boreholes, bottling the rare, health-giving carbonated drink and selling it to big-city beverage companies for shipping all over the world. It was not a particularly glamorous or prestigious enterprise, but it was a lucrative one. Within a few years, Adam Barnes, a collier’s son from Newcastle, became the richest man in town. Making no apology for turning the natural landscape into a veritable sieve, Adam Barnes was also indifferent about the vast forests of firewood the stokers at his bottling factory razed each year, just to produce enough bottles.