FIFTY-SEVEN

Nell walked into the office to get the breeding book where she would record the foal’s birth and its forebears. She liked doing this; it seemed to give life an order that it otherwise didn’t have. At least these books presented the illusion, the appearance of orderly progression, and that was worth something and should be respected. The horses themselves certainly should be, and if these bracketed markings did that, well, good.

She had passed Davison, who was muttering a blue streak of profanities, making for Fool’s Money’s stall with a man who looked familiar. A small man, no doubt a jockey from some stable around here. There were so many of them. She stopped Davison and asked what was wrong. Ah, you know, they’re putting more weight on Fool’s Money than he ought to carry. Nell had reminded him (utterly unnecessarily, for Davison knew it) that the greater the Thoroughbred, the heavier the weight. It was to even things out for lesser horses. The small man nodded. They walked on.

Halo, son of Lucky Me by Lockout out of Angel Eyes by Treasure. She repeated it like a mantra as she looked for and found the breeding record beneath a stack of folders on her grandfather’s desk. Lying there, too, was his penknife and a bit of wood. She picked up the smooth wood, wondering what he was fashioning this time. She set it back down by the knife.

Halo, son of Lucky Me by . . . All of this should give the scrawny little Halo a promising start. The mare Angel Eyes stood at the Anderson stables. She had been bred to Lucky Me as part of the season Anderson had bought, his mare to be bred to the Ryder stable’s Lucky Me. Halo, son of Lucky Me—

It kept her, for a few moments, at least, from thinking about Maurice. She clasped the book in her arms and rested her chin on its scarred binding, and shut her eyes. Maurice. What disorder there had been in his poor life should have left the family unsurprised by his death, though of course she couldn’t mouth that thought. She did not tell her grandfather that she’d been afraid for a long time of something, not this, certainly, but something. Everyone had to think of it as an accident, pure and simple. Thrown from a horse against a stone wall—what else could it reasonably be?

It could be a great deal else. It could be Maurice trying to show that he really was Danny Ryder’s son. He’d been competing all of his life with the shadow of Dan Ryder. How could he not? Maurice was very smart: he knew the danger of jumping Hadrian’s walls after dark, if one wasn’t a good jumper.

She had liked her uncle, even despite his being such a deplorable father. She had liked him for his feeling for horses. It was strange to her how a man could be not much good in so many ways, ruinous to others, yet still retain a passion for one thing—in Dan Ryder’s case, horses. In that respect, they were alike. It made her uncomfortable to think they were alike in this way for that might imply they were in other ways, too. At times she was afraid that her passion for horses had drained her of feelings for people. But she did love people—her father, grandfather and Vernon. She really loved Vernon in ways she knew were hopeless for a seventeen-year-old girl. Ruefully, she hoped she’d never have to choose between Vern and a horse. She laughed. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’d choose Vern. And her other self said, Doesn’t that depend on the horse?

Nell laughed again, straightened, wondered how she could laugh with Maurice dead. She felt cold; she felt the blood drain from her face. Maurice. But she hadn’t cried. Tears sometimes came to her eyes, but didn’t fall. She wondered again if she was, after all, a cold person. When was the last time she’d cried over anything but the mares or flown into a rage? She couldn’t remember. Was it because of the last months at Valerie Hobbs’s place, where she’d schooled herself in repressing her feelings so that she could stay clearheaded? Or simply keep from shattering to bits? You’re so dramatic! But she had never really thought of herself as self-dramatizing.

In all of these ruminations her eyes traveled round the room—the books, the wall of photographs—Do I still look like my old self?—until her glance rested on the coatrack near the door. Silks.

She went nearly rigid. The green and silver silks were on a hanger. The stranger’s, the jockey’s, they must be. And then a shape came to her, burst into her consciousness like glass shards flying together, turned back to their recognizable shape. She felt as if she had in that moment turned into some other girl.

Nell whirled around and snatched the penknife from the desk. She flicked it open and moved to the rack and slashed the shirt, lacerating it again and again until it hung in rags. Then she dropped the knife on the floor and ran from the house to the stables.

In minutes she had Aqueduct saddled and was out of the stable yard and gone.