Showdown

  Linda sighed. She was tired of having this pointless, circular conversation. Beyond tired.

  “Let’s not go over this again, darling,” she said wearily. “Not tonight. You know why we don’t let you ride, and what Rachel does or doesn’t do is neither here nor there. As a matter of fact I was sitting with her and her parents in the Queen’s Stand today, and I must say I found her to be perfectly charming.”

  Milly rolled her eyes to heaven. How could her mother be so blind?

  “She was terribly complimentary about Jasper too,” Linda went on. “Do you think perhaps this silly feud you keep talking about might have run its course? Because I certainly didn’t see much sign of it from Rachel’s side. She even asked after you. Wanted to hear all about your dress . . .”

  But Milly wasn’t listening. Rachel being “complimentary” about Jasper could mean only one thing.

  “Oh, so she was sniffing around J. again, was she?” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “What a surprise. He’s so vain, I bet he fell for it hook, line, and sinker, didn’t he?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Milly,” said Linda stiffly. “But your brother is not vain.”

  “Ha! Not much!” Milly’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Am I the only person that can see the way she’s using him?”

  “Using him?” Linda looked puzzled.

  “To get at me,” said Milly, exasperated. “Honestly, Mummy. She’s even got you convinced she’s on the level. My own mother!”

  “Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Dropping her powder compact back into her handbag, Linda clicked the clasp firmly shut, an indication that the conversation was closed. “Let’s try to focus on this evening, shall we? And do try to smile once we get there, darling. No one’s going to want to dance with you if you keep sulking like a three-year-old.”

  Milly gazed sullenly out of the window. When would her parents ever understand? If only her father would get over his fears and give her another chance at racing, everything could be different. But no. Her mother already had her grand plan—a racing career and a fat inheritance for Jasper, and marriage and immolation on some ghastly estate for her—and Cecil was going to sit back and let it happen.

  And now, to cap it all, Rachel Delaney seemed determined on turning her own family against her. Wasn’t taking her place as the top girl rider in Newmarket enough?

  Apparently not.

  “Look, darling,” said Linda, sensing her darkening mood. “I know you were disappointed not to be there today. But won’t you try, just try, to enjoy yourself tonight? It’s your coming-out ball, for heaven’s sake. There’s a whole world out there beyond racing, you know. I don’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on limiting yourself.”

  No, thought Milly gloomily, gazing out at the silvery reflection of the moonlight in the still, murky water of the Thames. They were approaching Westminster along the embankment, and she could see the familiar white face of Big Ben lit up by floodlights from below. You don’t understand, do you? But that’s because you never listen, you or Dad.

  No one ever listens to me.

  Her mother was obsessed with punctuality and was usually always the first to turn up at parties, so Milly was relieved when, for once, they arrived at the Grosvenor House hotel at a sensible time. Paying the cabbie, they made their way into the ballroom, Linda striding gracefully, Milly teetering behind her in her Manolos like a baby giraffe on stilts.

  A group of awkward-looking boys, none of them older than twenty-one, were already huddled in a corner close to the bar, laughing too loudly at one another’s jokes. Most of them looked like they had dressed up for the night in Daddy’s tux, although one or two had tried to stand out from the crowd and proclaim themselves as one of the “lads” by wearing a novelty waistcoat, covered either with red lipstick marks or luridly colored cartoon characters.

  Milly’s heart sank. What a bunch of prepubescent, hooray tossers. What on earth was she doing here?

  “Look, darling, there’s Harry Lyon,” said Linda enthusiastically, pointing out one of the shortest and spottiest of the crowd, who was sporting a tartan waistcoat, presumably an allusion to his aristocratic Scottish ancestry. “You know Harry. He was Algernon in the Amateur Dramatic Club’s The Importance of Being Earnest last Christmas. Remember?”

  Milly shook her head. She had made a concentrated mental effort to forget the posse of nerds and losers from the Newmarket theater group that she’d been forced to spend endless weekends with, missing out on all the excitement at the racetrack that Jasper got to enjoy.

  But Linda was on a roll and ignored her head shake and accompanying look of tedium. “Harry was at Eton until last year,” she gushed, her smile seeming to indicate that this was considered a selling point. “I think he must be at Sandhurst now, going into the guards like his father. Yoo-hoo! Harry!”

  She waved gaily across at the hapless boy, who was instantly ribbed by his little gaggle of friends. Moments later she was dragging a mortified Milly across the room toward him.

  “You remember Milly,” she said brightly, thrusting her daughter forward, like a ritual sacrifice. “She doesn’t know very many people here. I wonder if you’d be kind and take care of her for me until more of the girls arrive?”

  Oh God, please, let me die, thought Milly, managing a weak, hopeless smile at Harry and his leering friends. He smiled back, looking every bit as miserably awkward as she did. Clearly, he didn’t remember her from the ADC either. For a moment they both stood, shuffling shyly from foot to foot while Linda disappeared to join Harry’s mother on the other side of the dance floor. The other boys, completely thrown by the presence of a real, live, attractive girl among them, had also mooched off, leaving their friend to his fate.

  “Would, er, would you like to dance?” he mumbled eventually, trying to maintain eye contact without letting his gaze wander down to Milly’s newly bronzed cleavage as it strained for escape from its blue taffeta prison.

  Poor thing. He looked utterly terrified.

  “Not really,” she said. “I could murder a drink though.”

  “All they’re serving at the minute is that awful nonalcoholic punch.” He pointed to a huge silver bowl behind them, with some Chernobyl-green liquid and half the EU fruit mountain swilling around in it. “I think some of the mothers were worried about all the blokes getting shit faced before the coming-out ceremony. Apparently, last year Milo Saunders got really drunk and tried to stick his hand down Rachel Delaney’s dress just as she was about to be presented.”

  “Hmmm,” sniffed Milly. “He must have been drunk to go for that old slapper.”

  Harry grinned. He’d also been on the receiving end of Rachel’s vanity and bitchiness in the past, and was not a fan.

  “I gather there should be beer later, but not for a couple of hours at least.”

  Milly’s face fell. Never in her short life had she felt more in need of a stiff drink than she did this evening.

  “I’ve got a couple of spliffs though,” he said tentatively, sounding her out. He hoped she wasn’t one of those bonkers “Just Say No” crusaders who’d go shrieking to her mother and accuse him of being a drug dealer in front of the entire room. But he was soon relieved to see her smiling naughtily back at him.

  Pulling a silver cigarette case out of his inside jacket pocket he gave her a surreptitious flash of three immaculately rolled joints.

  “Here’s some Harry made earlier,” she said with a giggle in her best schoolma’am voice.

  “Using double-sided sticky tape for speed!” He finished the catchphrase for her and they both roared with laughter. Suddenly Milly didn’t seem quite so hard to talk to after all. “You smoke, then?”

  “Well, I do tonight.” She rolled her eyes in the direction of the other debutantes chattering overexcitedly and pointing at the boys as though they’d never set eyes on the male of the species before. “What a fucking nightmare.”

  “I know,” said Harry with feeli
ng. “My mother forced me to come.”

  “Mine too,” sighed Milly. “I think she’s trying to sell me off to the highest bidder. Come on.” She grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him toward the fire escape. Perhaps he wasn’t such a chinless wonder after all. “Bring those spliffs and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Two hours later, she was sprawled out on a flat roof at the back of the hotel, wrapped up warmly in Harry’s tuxedo, staring up at the stars. The pair of them were helplessly, hopelessly stoned.

  “D’you think anyone’s missed us yet?” asked Harry, taking a big bite of the crunchy bar he’d purloined from the gift shop downstairs before offering it to Milly. His munchies were kicking in big-time now.

  “Dunno,” she said, nibbling gratefully at the chocolate. “Probably. Oh!” she gasped suddenly, as though she’d just remembered something desperately important. “Do you think we’ve missed the curtseying to the cake? My mother’ll go spare if we have.”

  Harry dissolved into yet more giggles. “Curtseying to a cake!” he said, repeating the words over and over until they sounded so ridiculous that they were both doubled over with laughter.

  “Did I mention,” said Milly, once she’d finally gotten her breath back, “how much I hate Rachel Delaney? Hate her, hate her, HATE her!”

  “You did.” Harry nodded slowly. “Twice, in fact. Or was it three times? And you told me that she’s after your brother—”

  “Who I also hate.”

  “Who you also hate. And that she’s a crap rider, and that the sole purpose of her existence is to make yours hell.”

  Milly beamed at him. “So you have been listening, then?”

  “Of course.” Harry smiled. “How could I not listen to a girl as beautiful as you?”

  Milly blushed. Suddenly she felt uncomfortably out of her depth. Harry was adorable, but she definitely didn’t fancy him and she was too inexperienced to know how to take a compliment without making a hash of it. In fairness, she hadn’t had a lot of practice: Most boys were scared off by her tomboy stroppiness long before they got the chance to say anything nice about her.

  “Maybe we should go back in?” she mumbled awkwardly. “I’ve no idea how long we’ve been out here, have you?”

  Harry shook his head. He longed to lean over and kiss her, but he didn’t have the nerve. Besides, it had been such a lovely, relaxed evening—Milly really was an amazing girl. He’d hate to ruin it all now for the sake of one misjudged lunge.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But you’re right. We ought to be getting back.” Standing up a little unsteadily and brushing the dust from his evening trousers, he chivalrously offered her his hand and pulled her up to her feet. Soon the awkwardness was past and they were giggling again like a couple of infants as they tottered and swayed across the rooftop. At one point Milly was so beside herself with laughter that she slipped and fell on the fire escape ladder, twisting her ankle painfully in the process.

  “Blast!” she said as she felt an ominous snapping beneath her feet. “I think the heel’s come off one of my Manolos. They cost Mummy a fortune.”

  “Never mind that,” said Harry, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine,” she said blithely. Having spent her formative years being thrown from galloping horses, she had a high pain threshold. “I’m not sure if I can walk though. You might have to help me back inside.”

  Staggering into the ballroom a few minutes later, they were horrified to find that a good half of the debs and their partners seemed to have left and the party was evidently winding down. The beautiful white-iced, four-tiered cake, the focal point of the evening and the coming-out ceremony, had already, Milly noticed with a rising sense of dread, been butchered into hundreds of tiny slices, some of which were still being greedily consumed by the few remaining mothers or folded into paper napkins and stuffed into their handbags to be kept, presumably, for posterity.

  Oh fuck. Her mother was going to hit the roof.

  “Milly!” Right on cue, Linda appeared, her eyes narrowed and lips puckered in fury. She was accompanied by a thunderous-looking Mrs. Lyon, Harry’s mother. “Where the hell have you been? We were looking everywhere for you. If I hadn’t known you were with Harry I’d have called the police.”

  “It’s my fault, Mrs. Lockwood Groves,” said Harry nobly. He might be a soldier in the British army, but Milly doubted he’d ever been faced with two quite so fearsome opponents as their respective mothers, and she was very grateful for his support. “We were out on the roof talking. We must have lost track of time.”

  “Lost track of time? You missed the entire thing! After all my hard work, Milly. How could you?”

  There were tears stinging the backs of her eyes, and Milly could see that beneath the anger her mother was genuinely hurt. For the first time that day, she felt a twinge of guilt about her own behavior. Okay, so she’d had to miss the Oaks for a stupid, pretentious ball, and she had every right to be pissed off about that. But deep down she knew that her mother, however misguidedly, did have her best interests at heart. She also knew that she’d sweated blood organizing everything tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and meant it. Sadly, the impact of her apology was rather undermined when she stumbled again on her broken shoe and slithered down to the floor, dragging poor Harry with her. Tangled up in one another’s limbs, they were both overcome yet again with tears of mirth. She knew it wasn’t funny. But she was so wasted, she couldn’t help it.

  “Go downstairs and get in the car,” snapped Linda. Milly laughing at her, after everything that had happened, was the absolute last straw. “Look at you!” She was shaking with anger. “Do you ever, ever think about anyone but yourself?”

  Milly didn’t dare look up at her. She caught Harry’s eye for a moment and thought she saw him give her a fleeting, rueful smile as she hobbled to her feet again. But there was no point looking to him or anyone for support. Nothing he could do or say would save her now.

  “Your father will be hearing about this, young lady, the moment we get home,” Linda hissed. And then she delivered her coup de grâce: “And you can forget about helping out at the stud for the rest of the summer. Until you can learn how to behave properly you’re not going near a horse and that’s final.”

  Milly’s eyes widened in horror. The rest of the summer? She couldn’t be serious, could she?

  “I mean it, Milly,” said Linda in a tone that made her blood run cold. “As far as you’re concerned those stables are closed as of tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hank Cameron’s funeral was the biggest event anyone had seen in Solvang in over forty years.

  Cowboys from all across the state came to pay their respects and honor the passing of a California legend. It was strange, in a way, how the old man’s reputation had grown throughout his lifetime. Despite, or perhaps because of, his reclusiveness and the jealously guarded privacy at Highwood, the image of Hank Cameron as the last of the true cowboys seemed to have taken deep root in people’s consciousnesses.

  Bobby’s mom had told him once, in a rare moment of wisdom, that people idolized Hank because they needed something to believe in. Some sort of hero to cling to as they felt their way of life, their traditional Western culture, slipping inexorably away. Nowadays, when folks thought of cowboys they thought of the Hollywood version—Clint Eastwood, John Wayne—the Marlboro Man. Possibly they drove upstate in their station wagons and SUVs, with their overweight kids glued to Game Boys in the backseat, and spent a weekend on a dude ranch, where Western heritage was served up on a plate with a complimentary ten-gallon hat and a side order of ribs. But the real cowboy traditions, the old life of cattle ranching that had once been the beating heart of the Santa Ynez valley, that was all but dead now. Hank Cameron, his Highwood ranch, and all it had stood for—for many people they were the last bastions of that much-loved but disappearing world.

  Looking stiff and formal in his black suit and tie, Bobby c
ouldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so uncomfortable. As if the heat and the itchy, constraining fabric of his pants weren’t bad enough, he had the unsettling feeling that all eyes were on him, watching and waiting for some sort of outpouring of emotion.

  What did they want from him, for Christ’s sake? Everyone knew that he and his father hadn’t gotten along. Still, he couldn’t help but feel kind of heartless, seeing perfect strangers dabbing at their eyes all around him while he couldn’t muster a single tear.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have feelings. It was just that the feelings he had were so confused—a torrent of grief and relief, anger and regret, pounding through his head until it throbbed with noise. Besides, he was his father’s son and had never been one for wearing his heart on his sleeve.

  “Don’t you be too hard on yourself,” said Maggie McDonald, taking his arm as they walked back toward the ranch once the last of the mourners had finally gone. “Everyone deals with things in different ways. There’s more to grief than tears, you know.”

  Bobby smiled at her gratefully. Maggie had long ago become like a surrogate mother to him. He still loved Diana—both rebellious, restless spirits, the two of them had become close again in recent years—but it was a relief to have a second mom who provided all the stability and wisdom that his first one lacked.

  “Running the ranch is gonna be challenge enough without worrying about what other folks are saying about you,” she insisted. “Besides, people do understand, Bobby. More than you might think.”

  “I guess,” he said doubtfully. Having been an outsider and a loner for so much of his life, he didn’t share Maggie’s faith in human nature. Still, he thought, opening the gate for her as they turned in to the long drive, she was right about one thing: Highwood was gonna be one hell of a challenge. What with all the funeral preparations, he’d barely had time to glance at the books yet, let alone figure out a strategy for turning the failing ranch around.

  But now there could be no more procrastinating. He’d have to come up with something. And he’d have to do it soon.