Scarlett made no comment aloud. Privately she thought he looked like he needed taking down a peg or two.
Returning from the kill on Saturday, Fenton walked his horse alongside Scarlett’s. She was glad she was on Half Moon; it put her almost at eye level. “Good morning,” said Fenton, touching the brim of his top hat. “I understand we’re neighbors, Mistress O’Hara. I’d like to call and pay my respects, if I may.”
“That would be very pleasant. Where is your place?”
Fenton raised his thick black eyebrows. “Don’t you know? I’m on the opposite side of the Boyne, Adamstown.”
Scarlett was glad she hadn’t known. Obviously he’d expected her to. What conceit.
“I know Adamstown well,” she said, “I have some O’Hara cousins who are tenants of yours.”
“Indeed? I’ve never known my tenants’ names.” He smiled. His teeth were brilliantly white. “It is quite charming, that American candor about your humble origins. It was mentioned in London, even, so you see it’s serving your purposes very well.” He touched his crop to his hat and moved off.
The nerve of the man! And the bad manners—he didn’t even tell me his name. As if he was sure I must have asked someone. Oh, I do wish I hadn’t!
When she got home she told Mrs. Fitz to give instructions to the butler: she was not at home to the Earl of Fenton the first two times he called.
Then she concentrated on decorating the house for Christmas. She decided they really should have a bigger tree this year.
Scarlett opened the parcel from Atlanta as soon as it was delivered to her office. Harriet Kelly had sent her some cornmeal, bless her heart. I guess I talk about missing corn bread more than I know I do. And a present for Cat from Billy. I’ll let her have it when she comes home for tea. Ah, here it is, a nice fat letter. Scarlett settled herself comfortably with a pot of coffee to read it. Harriet’s letters were always full of surprises.
The first one she wrote when she arrived in Atlanta had brought—among eight tightly written pages of rhapsodic thanks—the unbelievable story that India Wilkes had a serious beau. A Yankee, no less, who was the new minister at the Methodist church. Scarlett relished the idea. India Wilkes—Miss Confederacy Noble Cause herself. Let a Yankee in britches come along and give her the time of day and she’ll forget there ever was a war.
Scarlett skimmed the pages about Billy’s accomplishments. Cat might be interested, she’d read them aloud later. Then she found what she was looking for. Ashley had asked Harriet to marry him.
It’s what I wanted, isn’t it? It’s silly for me to feel a twinge of jealousy. When’s the wedding? I’ll send a magnificent present. Oh, for heaven’s sake! Aunt Pitty can’t live alone in the house with Ashley after India’s wedding because it wouldn’t be proper. I do not believe it. Yes, I do. It’s just what Aunt Pitty would swoon over, worrying about how it would look for her, the oldest spinster in the world, to be living with a single man. At least that gets Harriet married pretty soon. Not exactly the most passionate proposal in the world, but I’m sure Harriet can do it up with lace and rosebuds in her mind. Too bad the wedding’s in February. I’d have been tempted to go, but not tempted enough to miss the Castle Season. It hardly seems possible that I once thought Atlanta was a big city. I’ll see if Cat would like to go to Dublin with me after New Year’s. Mrs. Sims said the fittings would only take a few hours in the mornings. I wonder what they do with those poor zoo animals in the winter?
“Have you another cup in that pot, Mistress O’Hara? It was a chilly ride over here.”
Scarlett stared up at the Earl of Fenton, her mouth gaping in surprise. Oh, Lord, I must look a sight, I hardly even brushed my hair this morning. “I told my butler to say I’m not at home,” she blurted.
Fenton smiled. “But I came the back way. May I sit down?”
“I’m amazed you wait to be asked. Please do. Ring the bell first, though. I’ve only got one cup, seeing I wasn’t at home to visitors.”
Fenton tugged the bellpull, took a chair close to hers. “I’ll use your cup if you don’t mind. It will take a week for another to get here.”
“I do mind. So there!” Scarlett blurted. Then she burst out laughing. “I haven’t said ‘so there’ in twenty years. I’m surprised I didn’t stick out my tongue, too. You’re a very irritating man, Milord.”
“Luke.”
“Scarlett.”
“May I have some coffee?”
“The pot’s empty… so there.”
Fenton looked a little less overbearing when he laughed as he did then.
84
Scarlett visited her cousin Molly that afternoon, throwing that socially ambitious creature into such a frenzy of gentility that Scarlett’s offhand questions about the Earl of Fenton were barely noticed. The visit was very short. Molly didn’t know anything at all, save that the Earl’s decision to spend some time at his Adamstown estate had shocked his servants and his agent. They kept the house and stables ready at all times, just in case he might choose to come there, but this was the first time in nearly five years that he had arrived.
The staff were now all preparing for a house party, said Molly. There had been forty guests when the Earl last came, all with servants of their own, and horses. The Earl’s hounds and their attendants had come, too. There had been two weeks of hunting, and a Hunt Ball.
At Daniel’s cottage, the O’Hara men commented on the Earl’s arrival with bitter humor. Fenton had picked his time badly, they said. The fields were too dry and hard to be ruined by the hunters, like last time. The drought had been there before him and his friends.
Scarlett returned to Ballyhara no wiser than she’d left it. Fenton had said nothing to her about a hunt, or about a house party. If he gave one, and she wasn’t invited, it would be a terrible slap in the face. After dinner she wrote a half dozen notes to friends she’d made during the Season. “Such a fuss in these parts,” she scribbled, “about Lord Fenton popping up at his place near here. He’s been absentee for so many years that even the shopkeepers don’t have any good gossip about him.”
She smiled as she sealed the notes. If that doesn’t bring out all the skeletons in his closet, I don’t know what will.
The next morning she dressed with care in one of the gowns she’d worn at her drawing rooms in Dublin. I don’t care a fig about looking attractive for that irritating man, she told herself, but I will not let him sneak up on me again when I’m not ready for guests.
The coffee grew cold in the pot.
Fenton found her in the fields exercising Comet that afternoon. Scarlett was wearing her Irish clothes and cloak, riding astride.
“How sensible you are, Scarlett,” he said. “I’ve always been convinced that sidesaddles are ruinous to a good horse, and that looks like a fine one. Would you care to match him against mine in a short race?”
“I’d be delighted,” Scarlett said, with honeyed sweetness. “But the drought left everything so parched that the dust behind me will probably choke you half to death.”
Fenton raised his eyebrows. “Loser provides champagne to lay the dust in the throat of both,” he challenged.
“Done. To Trim?”
“To Trim.” Fenton wheeled his horse and began the race before Scarlett knew what was happening. She was coated with dust before she caught up with him on the road, choking as she urged Comet alongside, coughing when they thundered across the bridge into town in a tie.
They reined in on the green beside the castle walls. “You owe me a drink,” said Fenton.
“The devil you say! It was a tie.”
“Then I owe you one as well. Shall we have two bottles, or would you prefer to break the tie by racing back?”
Scarlett kicked Comet sharply and took a head start. She could hear Luke laughing behind her.
The race ended in the forecourt of Ballyhara. Scarlett won, but barely. She grinned happily, pleased with herself, pleased with Comet, pleased with Luke for the fun she’d had.
>
He touched the brim of his dusty hat with his crop. “I’ll bring the champagne for dinner,” he said. “Expect me at eight.” Then he galloped off.
Scarlett stared after him. The nerve of the man! Comet sidestepped skittishly, and she realized that she had let the reins go slack. She gathered them up and patted Comet’s lathered neck. “You’re right,” she said aloud. “You need a cool-down and a good grooming. So do I. I think I’ve just been tricked good and proper.” She began to laugh.
“What’s that for?” asked Cat. She watched her mother inserting the diamonds in her earlobes with fascination.
“For decoration,” said Scarlett. She tossed her head and the diamonds swayed and sparkled beside her face.
“Like the Christmas tree,” said Cat.
Scarlett laughed. “Sort of, I guess. I never thought of that.”
“Will you decorate me for Christmas, too?”
“Not until you’re much, much older, Kitty Cat. Little girls can have tiny pearl necklaces or plain gold bracelets, but diamonds are for grown-up ladies. Would you like to have some jewelry for Christmas?”
“No. Not if it’s for little girls. Why are you decorating you? It’s not Christmas yet for days and days.”
Scarlett was startled to realize that Cat had never seen her in evening dress before. When they had been in Dublin, they’d always dined in their rooms at the hotel. “There’s a guest coming for dinner,” she said, “a dress-up guest.” The first one at Ballyhara, she thought. Mrs. Fitz was right all along, I should have done this sooner. It’s fun to have company and get dressed up.
The Earl of Fenton was an entertaining and polished dinner companion. Scarlett found herself talking much more than she had intended—about hunting, about learning to ride as a child, about Gerald O’Hara and his Irish love of horses. Fenton was very easy to talk to.
So easy that she forgot what she wanted to ask him until the end of the meal. “I suppose your guests will be arriving any minute,” she said as the dessert was served.
“What guests?” Luke held his glass of champagne up to examine the color.
“Why, for your hunting party,” said Scarlett.
Fenton tasted the wine and nodded approval to the butler. “Where did you get that idea? I’m not having a hunt, nor any guests.”
“Then what are you doing in Adamstown? They say you never come here.”
The glasses were both filled. Luke lifted his in a toast to Scarlett. “Shall we drink to amusing ourselves?” he said.
Scarlett could feel herself blushing. She was almost certain she had just been propositioned. She raised her glass in response. “Let’s drink to you being a good loser of very good champagne,” she said with a smile, looking at him through lowered lashes.
Later, when she was getting ready for bed, she turned Luke’s words over and over in her mind. Had he come to Adamstown just to see her? And did he intend to seduce her? If he did, he was in for the surprise of his life. She’d beat him at that game just like she had beat him in the race.
It would be fun, too, to make such an arrogant self-satisfied man fall hopelessly in love with her. Men shouldn’t be that handsome and that rich; it made them think they could have everything their own way.
Scarlett climbed into bed and nestled under the covers. She was looking forward to going riding with Fenton in the morning as she’d promised.
They raced again, this time to Pike Corner, and Fenton won. Then back to Adamstown, and Fenton won again. Scarlett wanted to get fresh horses and try again, but Luke declined with a laugh. “You might break your neck in your determination, and I’d never collect my winnings.”
“What winnings? We had no bet on this race.”
He smiled and said nothing more, but his glance roved over her body.
“You’re insufferable, Lord Fenton!”
“So I’ve been told, more than once. But never with quite so much vehemence. Do all American women have such passionate natures?”
You’ll never find out from me, Scarlett thought, but she curbed her tongue as she curbed her horse. It had been a mistake to let him goad her into losing her temper, and she was even more annoyed with herself than she was with him. I know better than that. Rhett always used to make me fly off the handle, and it gave him the upper hand every time.
… Rhett… Scarlett looked at Fenton’s black hair and dark mocking eyes and superbly tailored clothes. No wonder her eyes had sought him out in the crowded field at the Galway Blazers. He did have a look of Rhett about him. But only at first. There was something very different, she didn’t know exactly what.
“I thank you for the race, Luke, even if I didn’t win,” she said. “Now I’ve got to be going, I have work to do.”
A momentary look of surprise showed on his face, then he smiled. “I expected you to have breakfast with me.”
Scarlett returned his smile. “I expect you did.” She could feel his eyes on her as she rode away. When a groom rode over to Ballyhara in the afternoon with a bouquet of hothouse flowers and Luke’s invitation to dinner at Adamstown, she wasn’t surprised. She wrote a note of refusal for the groom to take back.
Then she ran upstairs, giggling, to put on her riding habit again. She was arranging his flowers in a vase when Luke strode through the door into the long drawing room.
“You wanted another race to Pike Corner, if I’m not mistaken,” he said.
Scarlett’s laughter was in her eyes only. “You’re not mistaken about that,” she said.
Colum climbed up onto the bar in Kennedy’s. “Now stop your yawping, all of you. What more could the poor woman do, I ask you? Did she forgive your rents or did she not? And did she not give you food for the winter? And more grain and meal in the storehouse waiting for when you run out of what you’ve got. It’s ashamed I am to see grown men pulling their mouths into a baby’s pout and inventing grievances as excuse for having another pint. Drink yourselves into the floor if you want to—it’s a man’s right to poison his stomach and addle his head—but don’t be blaming your weakness on The O’Hara.”
“She’s gone over to the landlords”… “prancing off to the lords and ladies all summer”… “hardly a day goes by she’s not tearing down the road racing the black devil lord of Adamstown”… The bar was aroar with angry shouts.
Colum shouted them all down. “What kind of men are they that gossip like a bunch of women about another woman’s clothes and parties and romances? You make me sick, the lot of you.” He spit on the top of the bar. “Who wants to lick that up? You’re not men, it should suit you fine.”
The sudden silence could have produced any kind of reaction. Colum spread his feet apart and held his hands loosely in front of him ready to form fists.
“Ach, Colum, it’s that restless we are with no reason to do a little burning and shooting like the lads we hear about in other towns,” said the oldest of the farmers. “Get down from there and get out your bodhran and I’ll be the whistle and Kennedy the fiddle with you. Let’s sing some songs about the rising and get drunk together like good Fenian men.”
Colum literally jumped at the chance to calm things down. He was already singing when his boots hit the floor.
There beside the singing river, that dark mass of men were seen
Far above the shining weapons hung their own beloved green.
“Death to every foe and traitor! Forward! strike the marching tune
And hurrah my boys, for freedom, ’tis the risin’ of the moon!”
It was true that Scarlett and Luke raced their horses on the roads around Ballyhara and Adamstown. Also over fences, ditches, hedges, and the Boyne. Almost every morning for a week he forded the cold river and strode into the morning room with a demand for coffee and challenge to a race. Scarlett was always waiting for him with seeming composure, but in fact Fenton kept her constantly on edge. His mind was quick, his conversation unpredictable, and she could not relax her attention or her defenses for a minute. Luke made her laugh, mad
e her angry, made her feel alive to the ends of her fingertips and toes.
The all-out racing across the countryside released some of the tension she felt when he was around. The battle between them was clearer, their common ruthlessness undisguised. But the excitement she always felt when she forced her courage to its reckless limits was threatening as well as thrilling. Scarlett sensed something powerful and unknown, hidden deep within her, that was in danger of breaking free of her control.
* * *
Mrs. Fitz warned her that the townspeople were disturbed by her behavior. “The O’Hara is losing their respect,” she said sternly. “Your social life with the Anglos is different, it’s distant. This racketing around with the Earl of Fenton rubs their noses in your preference for the enemy.”
“I don’t care if their damn noses are rubbed bloody. My life is my own business.”
Scarlett’s vehemence startled Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “Is it like that, then?” she said, and her tone wasn’t stern at all. “Are you in love with him?”
“No, I’m not. And I’m not going to be. So leave me alone, and tell all of them to leave me alone, too.”
Rosaleen Fitzpatrick kept her thoughts to herself after that. But her instincts as a woman saw trouble in the feverish brightness of Scarlett’s eyes.
Am I in love with Luke? Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s question forced Scarlett to question herself. No, she answered at once.
Then why am I out of sorts all day on the mornings he doesn’t show up?
She could find no convincing answer.
She thought about what she’d learned from the letters of friends responding to her mention of him. The Earl of Fenton was notorious, they all said. He possessed one of the greatest fortunes in Britain, owned properties in England and Scotland as well as his estate in Ireland. He was an intimate of the Prince of Wales, maintained a huge town house in London where rumored bacchanals alternated with famously elaborate entertainments to which all Society schemed for invitations. He had been the favored target of matchmaking parents for over twenty years, ever since he had inherited his title and wealth at the age of eighteen, but he had escaped capture by anyone, even several noted beauties with fortunes of their own. There were whispered stories about broken hearts, shattered reputations, even suicides. And more than one husband had met him on the duelling field. He was immoral, cruel, dangerous, some said evil. Therefore, of course, the most mysterious and fascinating man in the world.