Dark Garden Part 7

"I won't deny we have some kind of weird chemistry," Vienna said, refusing to get into verbal sparring. "But whatever just happened... it doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything," Mason said, making no attempt to cover her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "We just made love."

"We f.u.c.ked in your hall like a pair of hormonal high schoolers," Vienna corrected her coldly. "Let's not break out the promise rings, okay?"

Mason froze like she'd been slapped. Her face lost its color. In a voice rough with emotion, she said, "I've made a lot of a.s.sumptions about you over the years, but I never took you for a coward."

"Well, now you know." Vienna could smell their mixed scents on the borrowed shirt. The tangy residue stabbed at her heart and tore through her senses, undoing her from the inside out. Afraid that Mason would see her turmoil, she headed for the door. "I have to go."

She wrenched the door back and darted down the front steps, cursing under her breath. She heard Mason call after her but didn't slow down. A huge weight seemed to crush her and she felt like a child again, facing her father's wrath after the horse incident. His words rang in her ears. You let your family down. You let me down. But worst of all, you let yourself down. The rebellious part of her wanted to yell f.u.c.k you and f.u.c.k the family. She almost turned around right then and ran back to Mason, but she knew she would be running toward disaster. Everything the Cavenders touched turned to ruin. Mason would destroy her.

Tears flooded over her cheeks and she braced her shoulders against the sobs she couldn't control. The day was overcast. A cool breeze gathered shoals of red and gold leaves and spread them in its wake. The oak trees creaked and the pines rustled. Vienna walked so blindly, she didn't realize she'd veered across the lawn toward the temple until she found herself in its shadow. As though stepping into a dream, her feet carried her up the pale marble steps to the broad portico. She glanced back once from within the colonnade to be certain she hadn't been followed, then slipped into the chamber.

A gleaming tomb stood beneath the high dome at the center, two separate marble coffins side by side. Vienna read the upright Roman letters chiseled into each: Nathaniel Cavender and f.a.n.n.y Blake Cavender. They'd married back in the days when the families were allies, so their son Hugo was half Blake. That hadn't stopped him from murdering his own uncle, Benedict Blake. He'd then tried to take over the company their families jointly owned, waging a pitched battle for control with Benedict's son, Truman.

Hugo and Truman had grown up together as inseparable friends, the men on whom the future of their families rested. Hugo's brutal act had made them bitter enemies, and the Blakes and the Cavenders had been fighting ever since. No one really seemed sure why Hugo had murdered Truman's father, but greed was the general consensus. Being two years older than Truman and half-Blake himself, Hugo evidently saw himself as the rightful president of the company. His mother f.a.n.n.y was the firstborn Blake of her generation, but because of s.e.xism her younger brother Benedict was destined to head the family. All the same, her status and her marriage to the Cavender heir meant that her son had been raised like a prince, the ultimate symbol of their united houses.

But the man who should have personified the best of both worlds, instead betrayed all they stood for. He was never charged with the killing. At the time, the Cavenders' wealth and power made them virtually untouchable. According to Blake legend, the Cavender Curse began that year. Only days earlier Hugo's wife Estelle had drowned in the lake at Laudes Absalom, soon after their son was born. At the time there was speculation that foul play was involved; after all, Hugo had a violent streak and some thought he regretted marrying the daughter of servants. Estelle had always been a problem.

Her mother, Sally Gibson, had been governess to the youngest two of the "Famous Four," the appellation bestowed on Benedict Blake's sisters, legendary society beauties in their time. A woman from a respectable family, Sally had married beneath her, wedding the Blake's head gardener in haste after the couple found they were expecting a child. The Blakes had generously allowed them to remain in their employment despite this impropriety, and had even built a cottage on the property for the pair. After Estelle was born, she was treated like family and allowed to play with Truman, who was only a year older. The two children had their lessons with Hugo Cavender in the schoolroom the families shared.

They were taught by Estelle's mother until the boys were deemed too old to take their lessons from a woman, then a tutor was hired, a scholarly man who educated them before they were sent to prep school. As the years went by, it came as a shock to everyone that by the time they entered college, both Hugo and Truman wanted Estelle's hand in marriage. The girl who'd been like a younger sister to them all their lives suddenly became a cause of tension, with both men competing for her.

The Blakes tried to arrange a more appropriate match for Estelle, but she'd been brought up a lady. She wrote poetry and played the pianoforte. How could she be expected to settle down with a working man? Fortunately, being a Blake, Truman came to his senses in the end and married a suitable debutante. But Hugh Cavender always got what he wanted. Only weeks after his father died, he walked Estelle down the aisle, free of parental disapproval. A year later their son Thomas Blake Cavender was born. He never knew his mother, of course, and was raised by his grandmother f.a.n.n.y, the woman whose gleaming marble coffin stood before Vienna.

Very few people knew their family histories going back almost two hundred years, she supposed, but the Blakes kept faith with the lessons of the past, handing them down as acc.u.mulated wisdom. Vienna had only been twelve years old when she was first permitted to read the diaries kept by Patience Blake, a forebear who had recorded the scandal with fourteen-year-old awe. Patience found the whole episode deeply romantic and had seen herself as a go-between, having at some point carried notes between her cousin Truman and the beautiful Estelle.

Vienna couldn't remember all the colorfully embellished details, but it was clear that Truman's advances were not unwelcome. Naturally Patience had read every letter entrusted to her and faithfully recorded the contents in her diary. Estelle's short missives were models of propriety, offering only circ.u.mspect encouragement to the man bent on wooing her. Truman's replies could best be described as the ramblings of a young man besotted. The communications had ceased abruptly in 1869 and Patience's diary recorded the engagement of Estelle to Hugo Cavender, scandalously soon after his father's funeral.

Eventually Patience had traipsed off to Paris where she had a long list of lovers, and gave birth to a daughter, Colette, whose fatherhood was a mystery. Patience's European diaries had found their way back to the Blake library after World War One, carried by a friend of hers who reported that Patience had died of grief after her daughter was killed. Colette had been a battlefield nurse at a casualty clearing station near Saint Omer when German planes bombed the hospital tents.

Several of her letters were tucked inside one of Patience's diaries along with a faded sepia photograph of a soldier who'd been courting Colette. Their contents had always intrigued Vienna because Colette carefully avoided the use of a p.r.o.noun when describing her beau and wrote strangely feminine descriptions of him. Vienna had recognized something in those letters that made her question her own s.e.xuality for the first time. She'd always wondered what had happened to the officer in the photograph. Killed, no doubt, in a muddy, rat-infested trench on the Western Front and buried in a common grave.

She sighed and stared out the arched doorway to the lake. Two white swans glided together across the tranquil surface and Vienna recalled that the birds mated for life. Some even formed same-s.e.x couples, like Romeo and Juliet, the famous pair whose return to Boston Public Garden was celebrated with a parade every year. When they were outed not so long ago as two Juliets, the city was in shock for months.

She stepped back outside and sat down on a carved bench overlooking the water. Her legs had stopped shaking and her mind had cleared, allowing her to reclaim the detachment she'd abandoned earlier. The sky was grim, casting the lofty pines along the lake's eastern sh.o.r.e into deep shadow. Their pungent sweetness hung on the still air, and beneath the gathering rain clouds, the moribund fortress of Laudes Absalom languished in its decay. The deep silence of the surroundings was broken only by the cry of a bird somewhere above.

As Vienna looked up, a raven swooped low over the temple, inspecting her in several pa.s.ses, then landed on the portico step a few yards away. Carrying something in its beak, the bird pranced fearlessly toward her, its bold eyes fixed on her face. Vienna sat very still and it hopped up onto the bench. Before she could touch its glossy black feathers, it dropped a small, tightly rolled piece of paper in her lap and instantly took fight in the direction of the house.

Disconcerted, Vienna unfurled the note and stared down at two lines of beautiful calligraphy.

When the G.o.ds wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Chapter eight.

Mason, are you in for lunch?" Mason turned around, belatedly registering Mrs. Danville's presence in the library doorway. She wasn't sure how long the housekeeper had stood there un.o.bserved. She'd been so preoccupied she hadn't noticed the usual discreet knock or Ralph's arrival. After she watched Ulysses deliver the Oscar Wilde quotation, Mason had thought about going down but she'd vacillated too long. Her infuriated neighbor had fed the temple and was almost at the gatehouse now, her loose red hair billowing as the wind picked up.

"I'll have something in my room," Mason said, checking the b.u.t.ton at her collar. She could smell Vienna on her hands, a sensory trigger that rebounded painfully through her body, twisting her nipples and heating her groin.

An appalling thought crossed her mind. What if Mrs. Danville had returned from her weekly expedition to St. Paul's Church in Stockbridge and walked in on them? In her time the redoubtable housekeeper had seen it all, and she knew how to be discreet, but Mason preferred to spare her embarra.s.sment.

"Dinner this evening at the usual time?" Mrs. Danville asked showing no sign that she'd noticed Mason's fuster.

"Yes. Just the household."

Mason stroked Ralph's head so she wouldn't fidget. Mrs. Danville always fed him before she departed for church and he napped near the kitchen fire if she left something cooking. He then stuck to the housekeeper's side for the rest of the day until she slipped him a succulent morsel or two. Mason pretended not to know about these treats. Officially Mrs. Danville frowned on indulging pets or children.

"I'll serve in the kitchen parlor, then?" the housekeeper asked.

No answer was necessary, but Mason adhered to the draconian script that governed their interactions. She was the head of the household and Mrs. Danville expected her to behave accordingly. "Yes, that will be fine, thank you."

"Mr. Pettibone brought in a side of venison," Mrs. Danville said, prompting Ulysses to tilt his head as though captivated by a siren song. He harbored a pa.s.sion for the housekeeper that was not returned.

Cawing softly, he jumped down from Mason's shoulder to his perch, bobbing and puffing out his l.u.s.trous blue-black feathers. When this attracted only doggish wonder from Ralph, he lowered his head and spread his wings, making a gallant bow.

Immune to the display, Mrs. Danville continued, "I'm spit-roasting the haunch in collops."

"Excellent." The thought made Mason queasy. She would only eat the vegetables, but Mrs. Danville took no pleasure in cooking unless she could serve fine meat dishes and good wine, so Mason responded in the manner expected of her. "Have Mr. Pettibone open a Pommard."

Mrs. Danville consulted the notebook that swung from a cord at her waist. "Domaine de la Vougeraie?"

"Yes, by all means." Mason had a huge wine cellar to work through and once a bottle was opened she could offer it to her staff, since she avoided alcohol herself-she didn't want to become her father.

Mrs. Danville's lips thinned a little. "That bird is making a nuisance of himself again, dropping things through the kitchen window."

Poor Ulysses had chosen the wrong woman to try to impress with shiny objects. Mrs. Danville despised sentiment.

Mason offered her usual ineffectual deterrent. "I'll confine him for a few days."

"Thank you." Mrs. Danville flipped a page. As her index finger moved down the contents, Ulysses gazed longingly at the one ring she wore, a plain gold signet. "Miss Blake wishes to meet Dulcifal."

Mason froze. Had the two seen each other as Vienna was departing? If so, Mrs. Danville would have noticed her wearing Mason's shirt. Very little escaped her. "She asked you herself?"

"Mr. O'Grady informed me."

Surprised that the stable manager hadn't mentioned this unusual request, Mason said, "She can visit the barns tomorrow morning. I won't be taking Dulcifal out until after nine."

"Very well." Mrs. Danville dropped the notebook and smoothed her hands down her dark gray gabardine skirt. A woman of austere appearance and temperament, she normally wore the skirt with a crisp white cotton blouse and a dove gray cashmere cardigan b.u.t.toned all the way up. Today being Sunday, she had exchanged the cotton blouse for one in silk crepe with a dainty crocheted border of ivory lace. Her face was framed on either side with the soft reverse roll hairstyle she adopted for outings that warranted a hat. For dinner the hair would be drawn back up into the usual tight silver-white topknot and speared with the art deco comb her mother, also a Cavender housekeeper, had handed down to her.

"There was a man hanging about the stables yesterday, by the way," Mason said. "I have no idea how he found his way into the grounds, but he's not to be let in again."

"Ah, the ruffian in the brothel creepers?"

"I didn't notice his shoes. Pantano is the name."

With a disdainful sniff, Mrs. Danville recorded this information in her notebook. "I can't image the fellow is acquainted with an honest day's work," she tonelessly observed, "yet it appears he is employed by our neighbor."

Shocked, Mason said, "By Vienna? Are you sure?"

"According to Mrs. Hardy he consumed half a beef Wellington last night, virtually single handed. And without a green vegetable."

Mason stilled her hands by clasping them behind her back. "In what capacity is Mr. Pantano employed, do you know?"

"One can only speculate. He has some business here on behalf of a family friend in New Jersey, or that's the story, for what it's worth."

Mrs. Danville was always miserly with information acquired from her contacts in the village, or directly from Bridget Hardy. The two housekeepers always gossiped after church and Mason knew exactly what must have changed hands that morning, apart from mutual dismay over Pantano's gluttony. If the Cavenders had venison, it would also be served at the Blake household this week, along with some vague explanation of its origins. Everyone knew the widowed Mr. Pettibone was enamored of Mrs. Danville and brought offerings of pheasant and venison whenever he and his son went hunting, and that Mrs. Danville shared this largesse. But the Blakes always acted as if dressed game fell from the sky. G.o.d forbid anyone acknowledge that the staff pooled resources between the two households.

Mason thanked Mrs. Danville and returned to her post at the window. She didn't buy the "family friend" bulls.h.i.t for a minute. That b.i.t.c.h. She'd hired a Mafia thug to do her bidding. The veiled threat to Dulcifal now made sense, as did the lowball offer. Well, if Vienna thought she could trick Mason into selling Laudes Absalom for peanuts, she had another thing coming. Was that why she'd arrived on the doorstep earlier-Plan B: weaken the enemy's defenses by seducing her?

Aggravated, Mason put Ulysses in his aviary, dropped the stopper in her inkwell, and strode out of the library. Once she was upstairs in her room, she stripped off her clothes and turned the shower on. How she could have fallen for that blushing damsel act she had no idea. Those nervous looks, that quivering mouth. Disgusted with herself, she stood under the hot jets and scrubbed all trace of Vienna off her body. But she couldn't erase the memory of her. The soft cries of pleasure. The irresistible wetness and writhing pleas for more. Those eyes, as beguiling as the ocean, and just as treacherous. Mason should have known better than to believe what she saw in them, the craving that matched her own.

When would this enchantment end?

She sagged against the tile wall, every nerve end quivering. She never felt like this, she never pined and mooned over any woman. Only Vienna. Wanting her was like a sickness. At times she thought she was cured. Months would pa.s.s. A year. Life would draw her in. The symptoms would fade. But then she would wake from another of those dreams, fully aroused, desperate for release and capable only of seeing her. That face, that throat, that walk. And she would have to deal with the throbbing pressure between her legs, seeking release just as she was now.

Delaying the moment, Mason let herself drift into a favorite fantasy. Soft focus. A field of wildflowers. Vienna in a long clinging dress like a medieval virgin, her red hair rippling past her waist. Mason would kneel in front of her and pledge her loyalty. Vienna would bestow a token, her girdle. Mason would wear it off to war, all the while imagining her beloved sitting at a window, chastely awaiting her return. Finally they would marry and on their wedding night, Mason would be afraid to touch her bride in case she was rejected-that in seeing who she really was, stripped of her armor and sword, Vienna would not love her.

In her fantasies, Vienna always took over then, and Mason would find herself on the edge of exploding, afraid to move an inch. Vienna would barely touch her. Their lips would meet and Mason would know everything, see it all with such clarity. They were meant to be joined like this. She knew no other way to feel complete.

Gasping, she closed her eyes tightly against the hot spray of the shower and drove her fingers down hard, calling up the image that always pushed her over the brink. Vienna with her legs spread and her hands on Mason's shoulders, drawing her deeper, demanding, "Come. Come now."

And Mason did.

The face was handsome, the hair and eyes dark, as far as Vienna could tell from the degraded sepia image. She tucked the photograph back inside Colette's letter, disturbed that everywhere she looked she saw Mason Cavender. She'd just spent the past two hours trying to shake herself free of Mason's touch, but her body refused to be soothed into denial. She had bruises along the inside of one thigh where Mason's belt had dug in. Her throat wore the purple evidence of teeth. And the flesh Mason had invaded was exquisitely tender.

Vienna wasn't used to roughness. Her lovers, not exactly a legion, were too considerate to leave her sore. She never felt their impression inside her body afterward. Her stomach hollowed at the thought and she was instantly, infuriatingly wet again. Her nipples hurt. She couldn't swallow properly. Her thoughts were chaotic. She even entertained the idea of going back to Laudes Absalom and dragging Mason upstairs. Maybe, if they spent all night getting their fill of each other, they could get this inconvenient physical attraction out of their systems.

The thought was tempting, but not because she could convince herself that a night of limitless s.e.x would end her infatuation. The real reason was less palatable by far. She felt cheated. That frantic coupling in the great hall hadn't been nearly enough. Vienna wanted more. She yearned to explore every smooth, firm contour and hidden recess of Mason's body, to feel every quiver of arousal. Mason was so responsive. So pa.s.sionate. Vienna was both unnerved and fascinated by the dormant self Mason had awakened in her, a s.e.xual being unfettered by common sense or duty, driven only by desire. Even now it strained restlessly within, like a wild thing wanting to return to its mate.

She'd seen the same compulsion blazing darkly from Mason's eyes and it had thrilled her. She recognized that need, she'd glimpsed it in veiled flashes since the first time they'd met. But this time was different. This time Mason didn't hide it, or couldn't fight it. Vienna loved that she had the power to inflame her, to make her betray her better judgment and ignore her reservations. And she had plenty of those; after all, she still blamed Vienna for her brother's death. Part of Vienna found that hard to endure and wanted to prove Mason wrong in her a.s.sessment. But the Blake in her cold-bloodedly a.s.sessed this new turn of events. She now had an extra weapon in her a.r.s.enal; the question was whether to use it. Imagine how completely she could defeat the last of the Cavenders if she also struck a blow to her heart.

Vienna cradled her head in her hands, repelled by the thought. A realization struck her then, a certainty she could not escape. If she did such a thing, if she seduced Mason into an affair and then discarded her, the heart more deeply wounded would be her own. Vienna stopped breathing. For several seconds she thought she was about to faint. Disbelief crowded her reasoning. No, it wasn't possible. She could accept that she was physically drawn to Mason. There'd always been a heightened awareness between them. But she refused to believe that the attraction was also emotional.

She decided she must be experiencing some kind of post-o.r.g.a.s.mic elation. Brain chemistry was notoriously susceptible to hormones. Given the way hers were raging, she couldn't trust a single impulse she had, let alone an epiphany about her feelings for her enemy. Next thing she would be seeing the image of Christ in a can of beans.

Besides, Vienna didn't have to sink so low as to take her fight to the bedroom. Everything she'd worked for was coming to fruition. She could beat Mason cleanly, and that was the way she wanted to end this nightmare. The feud between the Blakes and the Cavenders had been personal for decades, but Vienna had never felt personally attached to their destruction. For her, the task was a business matter. She had a huge, complex corporation to run and couldn't afford to waste time on the family obsession. The Cavender issue was a distraction, one other family members were not above using as a lever. She was sick of hearing about the Cavenders, and in the end her father had been fed up, too. In his final days he'd offered her a piece of advice. Finish it and move on. Don't let it eat you alive.

The words weighed on her, for all they said about the choices he'd made and the regrets he seemed to have. Since childhood he'd been single-minded in his determination to live up to his father's expectations. Vienna knew how much it had pained him to "fail." He never stopped talking about Blake senior's deathbed wishes. Even dying of pneumonia in his eighties, the old man had the Cavenders in his sights. He blamed them for his illness. Cavender dogs kept coming over to Penwraithe, chasing the Blake cats. He was chasing an offender one day and had gone after it with his rife. That was when he fell and broke his hip. He'd caught pneumonia in the hospital.

Vienna had only vague memories of that stressful period. She was six years old and sometimes sat at her grandfather's bedside holding his hand. She remembered the funeral because it was the only time she'd ever seen her father cry. Looking back, she realized that the wedding incident, when Mason disrupted the celebrations on her horse, must have rubbed salt in her father's fresh wounds. The episode had occurred less than a year after his father's death. Norris was still grieving and had shouldered the entire responsibility for running the family business. Vienna knew now how alone he must have felt.

His two sisters, in the Blake tradition, had received cash settlements from the family trust and shareholdings that would revert back to the company when they died. In exchange, the company would pay cash to their beneficiaries. For six generations, the Blakes had used this system to avoid boardroom battles. Ownership was not diluted across numerous descendents. Instead, eldest sons made out like bandits and everyone else had to content themselves with adequate wealth and very little influence. That was her father's other failure, Vienna reflected. No son. He never mentioned his disappointment to her or to Marjorie, but he didn't have to.

Henry Cavender had never missed a chance to rub his face in it. For that reason, as much as the wrongs of the past, Norris had been consumed with hatred for their neighbor. Desperate to ensure that there was nothing for his rival's son to inherit, he'd all but wiped the Cavenders out. There was little left for Vienna to do to complete his life's work but nail the lid on the coffin. She owed him that, and the day couldn't come soon enough. She wanted the deal done and was willing to pay a premium just to get the Cavenders out of her hair.

Under normal circ.u.mstances, she wouldn't have gone after the company at all; it was worthless. And the house was an even worse proposition, given the repairs it would need if she didn't demolish it. But Laudes Absalom symbolized victory even more than the Cavender Corporation. Once the Blakes owned the property, her ancestors could sleep easy in their graves, knowing justice was finally done.

Vienna wasn't planning to rip Mason off. She didn't care if she had to pay twice what the place was worth, so long as she could present a fait accompli at the next family gathering. Her two aunts, whose lifetime shareholdings gave them votes on the Blake board of directors, would hold her feet to the fire until she delivered, and her cousin Andy saw his VP position as nothing less than president-in-waiting. He constantly overreached and ran his own loyal clique of staff, who did their best to make Vienna feel irrelevant in her own company.

Vienna hadn't expected to find herself fighting battles on two fronts the day she took over Blake Industries, but her aunts thought Norris had made a huge mistake vesting his ownership entirely in her. They didn't want their shares repurchased by Blake Industries, and instead had plans afoot to transfer the holdings to their sons. Vienna knew an internal power struggle was inevitable, and to win it she needed to be free of the Cavender problem. Only Mason stood in her way.

Hence Pantano.

The move was clumsy, but it was a means to an end. Mason needed cash, and five million for that property was a good offer. Vienna had wanted to make it easy for her to accept by starting the bidding high. Unfortunately Pantano had taken it upon himself to try for a better deal. That was the trouble with enforcers of his ilk, it never crossed their minds that some people wouldn't just grab the money and run. One lousy million-Vienna was surprised that Mason hadn't set her dog on him. She only hoped he'd been convincing about buying the place for a boss back in Jersey who needed to lie low for a while. If Mason thought Vienna was the real buyer, she'd never sell.

She got up and made herself another espresso. Having a machine in the study meant she could work without interruption when she needed to. As she sipped the coffee she pondered her options once more. She had just instructed Pantano to go back tomorrow and put the real offer on the table. She was willing to go to eight million if Mason continued to hold out.

But what if Mason sent Pantano packing again? Vienna would be a fool not to use all means at her disposal to get what she wanted. She had no doubt that Mason desired her. Hopefully she hadn't blown her chances of closing the deal by running out on her after their encounter. She smothered the memory of Mason's words: Do you ever wonder how things might have been? Her drawn face and hurt stare still stabbed at Vienna. Mason hadn't even tried to hide her emotions. She'd exposed herself, just as she had that day in Vienna's office, only this time Vienna had taken a shot.

She knew her callous remark about the promise rings had hit home. That was her intention. She'd set out to trivialize the intimacy they'd just shared and had expected retaliation in kind, not that pained stare of betrayal. Not the jarring accusation of cowardice. And certainly not a message delivered by a raven. When the G.o.ds wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Her prayer, for as long as she could remember, was to ruin Mason Cavender. She'd always known there would be a price to pay. But she never realized that money would be the least of it.

Chapter nine.

Would you like to ride him?" The low voice behind Vienna made her start. Heat flooded her cheeks. Willing herself not to sound unnerved, she said, "I'd love to, if a stranger won't bother him."

"Dulcifal is beautifully mannered. Treat him with respect and he'll refrain from throwing you."

Vienna summoned the strength to turn around. Her power of speech deserted her at the sight of Mason in a black riding coat and breeches, looking as darkly etched and muscular as the stallion in the barn next door. She was carrying a saddle. Her expression was so impa.s.sive that Vienna had trouble reconciling her with the fiery, sweating lover whose mark she still bore. Memory immediately pummeled her senses. Her lungs seemed to collapse inward, ejecting the breath she was holding in an audible gasp, as if the wind had just been knocked out of her.

"English okay for you?" Mason asked, holding up the all-purpose saddle.

"Yes, fine," Vienna answered, and fifteen pounds of leather was dropped into her arms.

"If you want breeches, you'll find spares in the tack room. Help yourself."

Vienna glanced down at her jeans. They would suffice for a short turn on horseback. Besides, she was already self-conscious enough without wearing skintight pants. "It's okay. I'm fine, thanks."

Mason slipped a halter over the Lipizzan's head, crooning, "h.e.l.lo, handsome. Want to earn some carrots?"

The pale stallion p.r.i.c.ked his ears and arched his neck. He stared deeply into Mason's eyes, then laid his cheek against hers and they seemed to be whispering together. Mason looked up after a moment, as if she'd suddenly remembered Vienna was present. Awkwardly, she checked the fastening at her throat, then let her hand slide down to rest over her heart, pressing inward as though to still it. For the briefest second, Vienna glimpsed the pa.s.sionate Mason then, staring mutely through the haze of all they couldn't say to each other. Their eyes met, and she tried to remember the scheme that had brought her here, the bargain she'd made with herself to do whatever it took. But her concentration had lapsed. She had come here to see the Lipizzan, then she planned to knock on Mason's door, apologize, and soften her up for Pantano's next move. Yet at the first sight of Mason, her resolve was breaking down.

Torn between emotions she could not quite fathom, she couldn't marshal her thoughts around her goal. Instead her mind wandered through a mishmash of fragments, trying to a.s.semble an orderly whole that could explain her confusion. This moment. That impression. Bright, clear memories. Muddled recollections. In the center, eluding definition, was a dream she'd once had.