Outsider

She remembered now. It had caused quite a sensation—one of the country’s top steeplechase riders and a former champion jockey retiring in his early thirties. She’d absorbed the information and then discarded it as having no significance to her.

Now, suddenly, she wasn’t so sure.

She said, ‘Then what is he coming for?’

‘He’s coming because I’ve asked him to,’ said her father. ‘It isn’t a decision I’ve made lightly. If I were still on my own in life, I’d probably have said hang the doctors, and carried on as usual. But there’s Beattie to think of now.’ His face softened. ‘We’ve only been married two years, and I don’t reckon on making her a widow quite yet, so I’m going to behave myself, and take the advice I’ve been given as if I was grateful for it—which I’m not. These are my stables, and I built them up from what your grandfather left, and I’d no thought to share them with anyone except my own kith and kin. But with Tony gone, and no grandchild to think of, I had to reconsider. And they tell me I need a partner to take the weight of this place off my shoulders.’

Natalie knew what was coming, and was terrified by it. She said urgently, ‘Dad, I could …’

‘That you couldn’t.’ One brief phrase smashed her dreams to smithereens. ‘You know my views, and they haven’t changed. I need a man—someone who knows jump racing, and can stand shoulder to shoulder with me. Lang’s never ridden for me, but I’ve always respected him, even if he did get his name into the gossip columns more than I care for. Well, a lad must sow his wild oats, I suppose. Anyway, the papers said he was thinking of going into training, so I got Andrew to contact him, and we’ve agreed terms. He’s buying a half share in Wintersgarth.’

She felt numb. There was a fold of her dress between her fingers, and she was pleating and unpleating it endlessly as she tried to assimilate what he had been saying.

The weeks of struggle, of trying to prove herself, had all been in vain. While she’d been working her guts out through all the hours God sent to keep Wintersgarth together, Grantham had been making his own plans. Plans which totally excluded her, she realised.

She ran the tip of her tongue round dry lips. ‘And what’s going to happen to me?’

Her father looked at her as if the question surprised him. ‘Well, you’ll do your normal job, same as always. He’s quite amenable to that.’

She said thickly, ‘How good—how very good of him.’

‘And you’ll be provided for in the long term, naturally, if there’s need.’

If there was need … Natalie’s head reeled. All her life she’d been totally dependent on her father. At school, she’d opted for a commercial course rather than pursue an academic career so that she could work in the stables office. Because in those days, naïvely, she’d thought that might be a foot in the door to better things.

And marriage had changed nothing. She had met Tony shortly after her father had employed him as stable jockey on a retainer, and the wedding had taken place two months later, which meant there were two of them dependent on Grantham Slater instead of one. Tony had been a more than promising jockey, and he had enjoyed the fruits of his success, living for the present. After he had been killed, she discovered he’d been living on overdraft. She had paid it off, but the way the debts had been incurred still rankled … She closed her mind abruptly, and focused on what was happening here in this room, right now.

‘I suppose I must be grateful for small mercies. At least I still have a roof over my head.’

‘There’s no need to take that tone.’ His voice was repressive. ‘And don’t tell me you’d thoughts of filling my shoes here, because I know it already. And you know my opinion on the subject. Or did you think a heart attack would soften my brain as well? The stables are no place for you, Natalie. They never were, and they never will be, so make your mind up to it. And keep off the backs of my thoroughbreds,’ he added. ‘A time or two I phoned here to be told you were out with one of the strings. That stops as of now, although I won’t deny you the exercise you need. Maybe old Jasmine’s bit tame for you. I’ll find you a good hack …’

‘No, thanks.’ Natalie shook her head. ‘Jasmine suits me very well.’

An hour ago, barely more, she had sat on that hill with the world at her feet. Now, everything she had ever wanted had been snatched away from her and given to a stranger, although that was surely a misnomer applied to Eliot Lang. His career and lifestyle had been described so often in the newspapers as to make them totally familiar.

Unlike Tony, who had been an apprentice, Eliot Lang had started his racing career as an amateur. He’d enjoyed a meteoric success, which hadn’t prevented his wealthy family protesting volubly when he became a professional. And he had been making headlines ever since. He’d spent several seasons riding for Kevin Laidlaw, and then had left in a blaze of publicity and innuendo which said that Laidlaw had dismissed him because he couldn’t keep his hands off his wife. The Laidlaws had vehemently denied the rumours, but Eliot Lang had said ‘No comment’ and gone to ride for Duncan Sanders, who was divorced. At least from then on he’d seemed to keep away from married women, perhaps because of the horsewhipping Kevin Laidlaw was alleged to have threated him with. But he had never maintained a low profile. The good life was there, and he enjoyed it, in the company of a succession of models and actresses, few of them distinguishable from their predecessors. And at the same time, he took more winners past the post than his rivals thought decent. His cottage in Lambourn had been the subject of a colour spread in a Sunday supplement.

Her mouth curling in distaste, Natalie thought, He’ll find Wintersgarth dull.

Aloud she asked, ‘Does Beattie know what you intend?’

She was thankful when her father shook his head. If Beattie had known, and not told her, that would have been another betrayal, and she felt bruised enough.

She got to her feet. ‘I’ll go and see if we’ve got any of Andrew’s favourite sherry.’

‘That’s a good lass.’

That was what he approved of, she thought bitterly as she went out into the hall—her ability to deal with small domestic details, to shelter him from unwanted phone calls from querulous owners.

In the kitchen, Beattie was stirring a pan of soup on the Aga. She said over a shoulder, ‘Have a look at the dining-room, and tell me if it’s all right.’ Then she saw Natalie’s white face and blazing eyes, and her tone sharpened. ‘Nat darling, whatever’s the matter?’

‘Eliot Lang,’ said Natalie. ‘The man whose name you forgot.’

‘Why, so it is.’ Beattie shook her head. ‘I knew it was something familiar. He’s some kind of jockey, isn’t he?’

‘He certainly was,’ Natalie said grittily. ‘Now he’s going to be some kind of trainer—here.’

Beattie’s lips parted in a soundless gasp, then she turned back to her soup. There was a prolonged silence, then she said, ‘But where does that leave you?’

‘Back at square one, where I apparently belong. Only I now have two bosses.’

Beattie said half to herself, ‘He told me he had a surprise, but it never occurred to me …’ She stopped. ‘Oh, my dear child, I’m so sorry! It’s so cruel—so unnecessary.’

‘So unacceptable,’ Natalie completed. ‘If I’m going to be a dogsbody, I can find another office somewhere—preferably as far from racing as possible.’

Beattie transferred her pan to the simmering plate. She said, ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Oh, but I do,’ Natalie said bitterly. ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve tried my damnedest for Dad, but I’m never going to measure up to the standard he wants—because I don’t even know what his criteria are, and I suspect he doesn’t either.’

‘All the same,’ said Beattie, ‘you mustn’t leave.’

‘You think I’d stay and watch that—that racetrack Romeo help himself to my inheritance?’ Natalie asked fiercely. ‘Over my dead body!’

Beattie said quietly, ‘If you leave now, like this, it could be over Grantham’s.’ She sat down beside Natalie at the kitchen table. ‘We’re not supposed to expose him to any kind of upset—the doctor said so.’

‘He probably wouldn’t even notice I’d gone—until he wanted his letters typed, or found the owners weren’t paying their bills on time.’

‘That isn’t true, and you know it,’ Beattie said roundly. ‘He loves you, Nat, although I admit he has a very strange way of showing it. He has this—fixation about women working with horses.’ She paused. ‘I think one of the reasons he fell in love with me is that I know nothing about the beasts except that they bite at one end, and kick at the other.’ She smiled at Natalie. ‘There were a lot of women after him, you know, who had strong connections with racing, who’d have been able to talk to him about horses in an intelligent manner. Coral LeFevre, for one.’

In spite of her wretchedness, Natalie felt her lips curve in the ghost of a smile. ‘The Black Widow? What makes you think that?’

‘The way she still looks at him,’ said Beattie simply. ‘I know that a lot of your father’s friends and colleagues were horrified when he married me, when there were so many more suitable wives around.’ She thought for a minute. ‘But my attraction for your father was my unsuitability, somehow. We met at a concert he’d been dragged to, and he didn’t mind that I thought the Derby and the Grand National were the same kind of race. He’s never minded it. In a way, I’m part of the same fixation. I’m happy with my music and my cooking, and that makes Grantham happy too. I can’t explain it.’ She gave Natalie a level look. ‘I sympathise with you, every step of the way, but I love Grantham, and I won’t have him upset for any reason, however good. If you really want to leave, wait a few weeks until he’s stronger, and feelings have cooled. You can’t quarrel with him, Nat. I won’t allow it.’

There was a long silence, then Natalie said dully, ‘Very well. You’re right, of course. I’d never forgive myself if there was a row, and it caused—problems.’ She shook herself, and stood up. ‘But I can’t sit at that table with Eliot Lang and eat lunch as if nothing has happened. Make some excuse for me, Beattie, please. Tell them I’ve got a headache, or bubonic plague, or something.’

Beattie groaned. ‘I’ll do my best—but, Nat, your father won’t be pleased.’

Natalie opened the kitchen door. She said, ‘I promise you he’d be even less pleased to hear me tell Eliot Lang to go to hell.’

That, she thought, was relatively mild compared with what she’d really like to say to him, so why was Beattie sitting there looking as if she’d been frozen?

She turned to walk into the hall, and cannoned straight into six foot of bone, sinew and muscle, standing there on the threshold. As unusually strong arms steadied her, she thought confusedly, Andrew? and realised in the same moment that it couldn’t be. Andrew was only medium height and distinctly pudgy. Whereas this man, she thought as she took a hurried step backwards, hadn’t a spare ounce of flesh anywhere.

Her face burning, she looked up to encounter hazel eyes regarding her with no expression whatever.

‘Now, why should you tell me any such thing?’ said Eliot Lang.

CHAPTER TWO (#u1293e7cf-52a0-5751-8d18-68e81968c7eb)