The Valentine Legacy (Legacy 3)

“No. If I could gain weight in my bosom, I’d eat another one, but I can’t. Glenda is always showing off her bosom. She’s very pretty.”

“Who cares?”

On the following Tuesday, Jessie was a mite depressed as she went into Compton Fielding’s bookstore because James, just as he’d promised, had beaten her at the races the previous Saturday, cajoling Tinpin over the finish line a good two lengths ahead of her and Jigg. She’d had to hear her father grumble, then take a bottle of champagne over to Marathon to toast James until the both of them were as drunk as stoats.

She’d prayed James would have a vicious headache, but he’d been at church Sunday morning, with his mother, Ursula, and Giff, to hear Winsey Yellot exhort everyone present to exercise more moderation in their daily lives. She’d given James a nasty grin.

She waited inside Mr. Fielding’s bookstore until he finished with a customer, then walked toward him, the diary in her hand.

“What did you think of it, Jessie?”

“It was fascinating. He made me think I was there, his descriptions were so vivid. Not all of them to be sure, but enough to hold my interest.”

“You’re frowning. Why?”

“Oh, I was just remembering how a couple of times I thought for certain that reading the diary was somehow familiar. That’s silly, of course. I’d like to buy it, Mr. Fielding. Perhaps you have another one for me? Well, if you don’t have any more novels, that is.”

He did have another diary, and she paid for this one on the spot. It was written by an English sailor who’d tracked and hanged pirates in the early years of the eighteenth century. He followed her from the shop and onto the road, saying, “Give this one some time, Jessie. He isn’t a very clever fellow and he tends to repeat himself, but perhaps you’ll find him amusing.”

“I hope—” Her voice disappeared in her throat. She heard and saw the oncoming wagon at the same time. The man was driving it right at her at a furious pace, the horses snorting and blowing, pounding the packed earth. There was no time for anything. The man must be mad. He must be drunk. She managed to jerk herself back onto the sidewalk, panting hard, frozen with the worst fear she’d ever felt in her life. Then the wagon was coming right at her, the man yelling at the horses, whipping them up, swinging them toward her.

Compton Fielding grabbed her at the last instant and literally threw her against the door of his bookstore. She hit her head against the door frame and knocked herself out.

“My God, Jessie. Wake up!”

She did in just a few seconds and stared up at Compton Fielding, who looked as pale as the sheets that hung on the rope lines behind Warfield house every Tuesday.

“My head hurts. That man was mad. He tried to kill me.”

“No,” Compton Fielding said slowly. “No, I think he was drunk. It was a stupid accident. Don’t worry about it, Jessie.”

“Then why did he drive on?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll ask around.”

“Maybe he was after you, Mr. Fielding.”

“That’s a possibility, I suppose,” Fielding said, and grinned. “Perhaps he wanted me to give him violin lessons and I turned him down.”

She did laugh, a little.

Jessie told her family that evening at the dinner table. Her mother said when she’d finished, “No one in his right mind would want to kill you, Jessie. It was obviously some sort of strange accident. That or Compton Fielding was right. Someone wanted to knacker him.”

Glenda took a bite of blancmange, licked her lips only to purse them, and said, “Mother’s right. Who would have enough interest in you to want to kill you? It’s really quite absurd. So is your story.”

Her father, who hadn’t spoken up to this point, said slowly, “Everything happened just as you said, Jessie? All right, I’ll speak to Compton about it. Forget it now, my dear. Eat your stewed pork. That’s a good girl.”

Her father never mentioned it again. By the next racing day, when she swore she’d beat James to hell and back, she’d forgotten about it—a good thing, because a jockey from Virginia tried to butt her off her horse with the handle of his riding crop. It was a wild racing day, many jockeys were injured, and neither she nor James did very well.

8

The ideal thoroughbred is born to run, bred to win, and will literally race to death.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

APRIL 1822

WHEN JAMES SAW her coming out of a small dress shop, he wondered what in blazes Jessie Warfield would be doing there. He waved at her. When he caught up to her, he asked her to Balboney’s for some more ice cream. He didn’t know why he did it, but he did. Perhaps it was because they’d both lost at the last races.