Ring of Fear

4

I came partially out of the faint when the very cool air hit the burns on my arm.

“You’re hurting, me,” someone whimpered. My side, where Orfeo had shoved me against the metal post, was on fire. Whoever carried me had his hot, hard hand over the sorest place.

“We’re almost there, dear heart.”

Mercifully I was laid on a soft bed, but my own body’s pressure on a burn made me pass out briefly again.

“Shock is the most of it, Mr. Clery,” a baritone voice was saying. ‘The dress saved her from a more severe burn. These cinder blisters look worse than they are, but this anesthetic salve will make her comfortable. They’ll soon heal. It’ll take longer for her hair to grow back, but I’m told singeing is good for hair. That was a brave and foolish stunt, but she should be all right in a few days. Looks a little rundown. You show people don’t take care of yourselves in the summer.”

“Rafe? Rafe?”

The room was so bright, and I was sore, stiff, and sticky. My toes hurt. The sheet was too tight.

“Yes, Nialla?” His face was a blur above me. “My feet. The covers…”

The pressure was abruptly eased, with the fringe benefit of a cool draft of air over the burns. I thought cool was bad for burns, but it felt so good.

“Call me if you need me.” That must be the people doctor. “Make an appointment with my secretary for tomorrow. Office opens at nine.” A door slammed, so the doctor must have left.

I felt awfully sleepy, and limp too, and I wanted to stay awake. I had to tell Rafe. I had to get my money from Budnell tonight. I had to get my horses away from here.

“You’re staying where you are, young lady, and that’s that!”

Then I remembered. “Dice? Did anyone see Dice?” I couldn’t get my eyes to focus.

“The doctor gave you a shot, Nialla. Don’t fight it.” A hand stroked my cheek gently, and I rubbed against it, the way Dice rubs against legs. ‘ “Where’s Dice?”

“Pete said he left before the fire, growling, prowling.” “I’ve got to find…”

As I woke up, I was almost instantly conscious of being stiff. What on earth could I have been doing? My side felt as if it were puckered from armpit to waist. My shoulders smarted in a dozen places. And when I yawned, my face hurt with stiff painful patches. I opened my eyes on a darkened room. Then my fingers touched the singed stubbly hair around my face, and I couldn’t help crying out.

“Nialla?”

“My hair, oh, dear”-and that was because I couldn’t even sit up.

Rafe was there, on the edge of an obscenely huge double bed.

“Do you really want to sit up? Dice came back in the night. Mac phoned to say he was curled up on Orfeo’s rump. The gelding’s groggy with shock, but the vet looked in again this morning and said he’s doing fine. Fair steward says you’re not to think of moving him.”

“Is it night?” I kept my hands around my hair, somehow not wanting him to see me in such a state. “God, no. It’s nearly ten.”

“Ohhhh.” The tears sprang to my eyes, and I turned my head away.

“Has the salve worn off? I’ve got more to put on. Where does it hurt worst?”

I batted at his hands in a feeble, half-witted fashion, the tears spilling down my cheeks, the salt stinging in the burns.

“Nialla! Dear heart, don’t cry,” said Rafe in such an inexpressibly moving, deep voice that I cried all the harder.

Very gentle hands lifted me, limp and useless as I was. Then my face was pressed against a soft silk shirt. With exceeding care an arm encircled my shoulders, missing the sores. My singed hair was smoothed back, and I tried to shake his hand off, but I could only cry helplessly.

“That’s good, just cry, honey. It’s reaction. You need to get it out of your system. And stop worrying about your goddamn hair. It can get trimmed in one of those feathery cuts as soon as you can sit up… hey! Why, Nialla Dunn, you lousy fink. You are a redhead!”

That made me weep harder and struggle to get free. His other arm wrapped over my thighs, securing me to his lap as if I were a child. So I cried myself out. He gave me tissues to blot my eyes and blow my nose, until I finally just lay against his chest, mildly fascinated by the slubs of the silk shirt, the comforting bulge of the biceps in his left arm, the low table with the ghastly china bird-bath monstrosity the motel thought a bedside lamp, the brilliant blue rug that went up to the floor-to-ceiling thermo-pane window, curtained in a rather attractive splashy floral. Moving my head slightly, I could see the opposite wall and the partially open closet where his clothes hung neatly on hangers. I counted five pairs of boots, heels out. A jacket had been dropped on the green velvet boudoir chair, the sleeve dangling to the rug. “This is your room.”

“I slept in the adjoining one,” he said. Then added in a meek voice, “I told them we’d just got engaged.”

I pushed myself away from him as if he’d been on fire, lost my balance, and slid off his knees to the bed, stinging all over as my exertion opened barely scabbed burns.

His hand connected with my bare buttock, one of the few portions of me unscathed. It was a disciplinary slap, and stung, as he meant it to, for he grabbed me around the waist and shook me. Then, not releasing me, he bent, his face right above mine, stern and angry.

“Behave yourself, Nialla. You’re hurt, you’re vulnerable. I want to be able to protect you.”

Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

“What’s impossible, dear heart?” His voice was kind, but his face was so very stern. “Saving that black behemoth of yours? God, I was so proud of you, you goddamn fool. You scared me shitless. I thought we’d never be able to hold him. Do you realize I was riding his head?” He chuckled, awed.

Two-legged ride? Two-legged ride? Oh, God, I didn’t say that out loud, too, did I?

“You did tell me Orfeo would be all right?” And I mustn’t have babbled the other, because now I could hear my voice asking about Orfeo.

“Yes, and I told the truth. I wouldn’t lie about your horses.”

He had straightened, and looked awfully tall from where I lay in the bed. When he leaned down and twitched the sheet over me, I realized that I had been lying there half-naked; the nightgown (sizes too large anyhow) was wrapped around my waist.

As if there were absolutely nothing wrong or awkward, Rafe Clery sat down on the bed, a tube in his hand, and began to spread salve over the pinpoint burns on my arms and shoulder. He might have been back in the stall tending Orfeo, he was so impersonal. He worked in silence for a few moments, his face blank. Then he let out a long sigh and looked me in the eyes. He was about to say something, something very important, from his expression, when the phone rang.

He swore under his breath as he reached for it. He went very taut as he listened, his eyes still. I could hear the mumble of a man’s voice on the other end, but not what was said.

“Orfeo?” I asked, grabbing Rafe’s arm.

He gave a curt shake of his head and then covered the receiver.

“The police are here, and Haworth of the State Fire Insurance Company. They handle the fair indemnity.” He just kept looking at me, waiting with a sort of odd patience for my answer. I knew I’d have to talk about the accident sooner or later. Sooner suited me, because he was here. And this motel room was costing money, money I didn’t have to spare. I nodded.

Rafe gave them my consent, hung up, and strode to the bureau at the far end of the large room. There was evidently a kitchen and dinette behind the lowered paneling. The door to the adjoining room, his, was in the wall against which the bed stood.

He came back, unbuttoning a clean white shirt, which he then put around my shoulders, helping me get my arms through.

“Don’t struggle. That nightgown is not only up to your waist, it’s down to it.”

A startled glance at myself confirmed this, and I buttoned the shirt right up to my throat. It was soft against the burns and exuded that comforting clean, ironed laundry smell.

“Oh, my hair. My face.”

“Vanity, vanity.” He extracted a comb from a hip pocket and ran it carefully through my tangled hair, gentle with the snags. Distressingly huge clumps came free. He studied the result of his handiwork with a smile that unnerved me more than he knew.

“Dear heart, your face could be covered with mud, and you’d still be worth a second glance.” There was a knock on the door.

The policeman was identifiable because he wasn’t carrying an attachй case. He was a rough-hewn type in his mid-thirties, and he looked tired. His suit looked tired, and he walked with that beyond-tired, odd, broken-kneed gait that infantrymen develop. Korea? The insurance man, Haworth, looked more the picture of the hayseed county cop, except that policemen rarely look so worried. Stern, disgusted, annoyed, impervious, tired, but not anxious-worried.

“Jim Michaels, County, Fourth District. Sorry to trouble you, Miss Dunn.” He flipped open an identity wallet and let Rafe get a long look.

“Nigel Haworth, representative of State Fire Insurance Company, Miss Dunn. We handle the fair.” Haworth had a habit of hesitating between phrases, until you could almost hear the silent “ah” between them.

“We’ve about the same questions right now,” Michaels said, glancing at Haworth, who nodded nervously. “Get it over with and leave you alone.”

Haworth drew up a chair so he could open his case and bring out the necessary forms. He closed the case prissily and used the lid as a writing surface.

The questions were routine. Pete could have answered them, and probably had. Yes, my horses were the only ones stabled in G-Barn. I’d gone with Mr. Clery for dinner at six, leaving Pete Sankey in the stable. We had become aware of the fire only when we left the restaurant. No, I didn’t remember the time.

“Full dark. I’d say nine,” Rafe replied.. No, I didn’t smoke, and Pete chewed. An expression of annoyance crossed Haworth’s face, as if he were sorry he couldn’t find us negligent.

Yes, the barn had been very hot all weekend. No, I had not gone into the loft for any reason. I’d kept my hay and straw in an unused box stall across the aisle for convenience. Yes, I’d’ve seen anyone who’d entered the barn, but I’d been in and out all afternoon.

Haworth cleared his throat. “Now, about your equipment. What was in the barn at the time of the fire?”

“Not much. Most of my tack, saddle, bridles, sheets were in the trailer.”

Haworth grimaced, and I knew that the trailer and all my tack were gone. But, with insurance, I could even get a new girth for Phi Bete.

“I suppose the car is a complete wreck. You can’t…” Rafe’s hand came down on my shoulder warningly.

“Barn wall collapsed on it, honey. It’s a total wreck. Even the peanut butter.”

How could he? I giggled weakly. “Miss Dunn’s tired, gentlemen…” “About that automobile? Do you have your registration?”

“Oh, Lord, I don’t know if I do.” My mind spun, for that car registration was in my real name.

“Do you happen to remember the license number?” asked Mr. Haworth with that patient forbearance prissy men often exhibit for the frailties of the opposite sex.

I rattled that off. No use to hide it, because they’d find out soon enough. “The car is registered under the name Irene Nialla Donnelly.” I had to say it.

Haworth looked up from his writing, puzzled. I could feel Michaels’ alert attention.

“Nialla’s father was Russell Donnelly,” Rafe said unexpectedly. From the calmness of his voice, he sounded as if he’d known all along. But how could he? “A well-known racehorse trainer. ‘Dunn’ is her nom de cheval, you might say.”

He was mean. A wicked, mean, dirty infighter. “Know any reason why someone might have deliberately started that fire, Miss Dunn?”

I closed my eyes and felt Rafe’s fingers press lightly into my arm.

“I have to ask that,” Michaels went on, “since your father’s murder is still open.”

Rafe’s fingers tightened unbearably, but I couldn’t move. “I’m a horse fancier myself, Miss Dunn,” Michaels continued. “I was sorry to hear of his death, but I know it’s still an open case.”

“That’s enough for now,” Rafe said smoothly.

“Sorry, Mr. Clery, I need an answer.”

“No reason, Mr. Michaels,” I said. Anything to get them out of the room. “I’ve nothing anyone wants.”

Rafe made them leave somehow. He told Haworth he’d find out what I’d had in the car and the trailer later, when I’d rested. We’d want replacements as soon as possible, of course. Haworth nodded glumly. Rafe told Michaels that G-Barn should have been condemned and torn down years ago, that they’d probably find the fire had been caused by spontaneous combustion. Nothing sinister. No need to harass Miss Dunn anymore today.

“Harass” is a marvelous word. Only it wasn’t the policeman and the insurance agent who were harassing me. It was Rafe Clery.

I felt like crying again, and didn’t have any tears left. I just lay in the bed, unable to open my eyes, unwilling to look Rafe Clery in the face. Not now.

The bed sagged. I could feel his body just beyond my hips.

“Shall I get the doctor over?”

“No.”

“If anyone tells Haworth that you drove the car through, the barn,” he said in a very noncommittal voice, “he may hedge a total claim.”

I couldn’t say a thing. A hard splat made me open my eyes. He was driving one fist into the other palm, his expression ferocious.

“Aw, for God’s sake, Nialla. I want to help you. And I can’t if I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Nothing’s going on.” My voice was high and shrill.

“Nothing? Hell, you’re scared. Your saddle girth is cut. There’s a deliberate attempt to spook your horse, the barn is burned around your stock, and now I learn Russ Donnelly’s murder was never cleared up. No reason? Why have you changed your name? Dyed your hair? Why are you on the East Coast? Russ went to California five years ago after Agnes du Maurier died.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I know something. Someone’s out to get you. Dear heart, you’re in trouble. And right now, you’re in no condition to run, hide, or dodge. Let me protect you?” Then, because he was a rough infighter, he added, “ ‘Sure, Mr. Clery!’“

“Oh, Rafe!”

My hand went out to him, and I was folded in his arms, gently but so securely. His heart was pounding under my cheek, and that surprised me, because he seemed too cool, so confident. I looked up at him. With a groan I could hear reverberating in his chest, he bent his head and covered my lips with his. His hands lifted me against him, somehow getting under the shirt so that his wrists lay along my bare breasts. His lips weren’t gentle. His lips were hard, forcing my mouth open. His tongue flicked mine as if he had to invade me.

I’d been kissed before. I’d petted. I’d enjoyed it. But I’d held out, wanting to be virgin for the man I married. His kisses, his hands on my nipples, seemed to touch invisible strings that sent hot fires to my loins, to that part of me I’d been trying to deny ever since Marchmount..

Somehow I broke free and scrambled away from him, crouching against the headboard.

“You liked that, Nialla!” He spoke in a rough voice, and his breathing was fast. “Who ever raped you didn’t ruin you completely. But I won’t force you. Although”- and his voice steadied with a funny laugh-”you’d better get under the covers. Fast.”

I grabbed the sheet to my chin and huddled under it.

“Don’t look so scared, sweetheart. See? I’m staying put. But-” and he paused for emphasis-”I’m not leaving until I get a few answers. You know”-now he grinned at me-”I’d wondered why you seemed familiar. I used to jockey for Agnes du Maurier. And I remember you as a redheaded tomboy, riding a show horse bareback in the pasture. I admired your father, and I was damned sorry when I read his obit. Wasn’t he training for Louis Marchmount? Any idea why your father would be murdered?” I shook my head.

“But how was he killed? Gun, car, what?”

“A pitchfork in his chest.”

“Oh, God, Nialla.”

“He’d been at Caliente. I was at college. He phoned me to meet him at home right away. He was furious about something. When I got home, he wasn’t at the house, so I went to the barn and found him… the pitchfork was still going up and down. The cops said the murderer had wiped his fingerprints off. But Rafe, Dad didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“I know, Nialla. I know. He was a decent guy.”

“The police weren’t. They were… like something in a bad movie. They kept suggesting the most horrible things. That Dad doctored horses to make them win because the Marchmount colors had been losing steadily. That he’d lost money betting and couldn’t pay up. Awful things.”

“About Russ Donnelly they were lies.”

“Then… a man I knew called to say he thought he could help me clear Dad’s name.”

Rate’s expression altered, as I knew it would when he heard this part of my stupidities.

“And he needed some money to carry on the investigations?” he asked. I nodded. “A predictable confidence approach.”

“I’m really not that stupid,” I protested, irritated. “I knew the man. And he did know everything there was to know about racetracks and the people connected with them. It was also entirely likely that he could get people to talk who’d clam up in front of the police.”

“Who?”

“Caps Galvano.” Rafe closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, shaking his head slowly, a kind of tired wisdom in his eyes when he looked at me again.

“You must have been hard up to trust that slimy excuse for a human.”

“He said he knew!”

“All right, all right. So you paid him, and it wasn’t enough, right? And he was back for more. So what did you do?”

I didn’t want to go on, but there was an expression on Rafe’s face that told me he’d find out if he had to sit there all day. He was worse than the police, this one.

“Galvano thought Louis Marchmount might help me.”

Rafe’s hand came down on his knee with a resounding crack.

“That figures. Galvano’s been running Lou’s errands for him for years. So it was Marchmount who raped you.” And Rafe began to swear with coarser words and phrases than I’d heard from the foulest-mouthed hostlers. Coarse but inventive, displaying such a knowledge of Louis Marchmount’s erotic habits that I was appalled. How could Rafe Clery possibly know such things? Then he cut off the invective and looked at me pityingly, shaking his head slowly.

“You poor silly chinch of a kid. What a shitty thing to happen. And that bastard knew just how to put the squeeze on you. If you’d been one of his usual blonde broads, he couldn’t have worked it. You’d’ve told him off and got the money anyhow. The nice girls, the good girls, they get screwed every time. Oh, Jesus!” And he threw up his hands and rolled his eyes in apology at his choice of words.

But the idiom was so appropriate, and I was so tired, that I began to giggle, and then kind of folded up again. He must think me such a despicable, stupid…

“No, dear heart, I don’t. From where I stand, you were foolish, yes. But mighty inexperienced and innocent, and in a damned rough bind. How do I know what I’d’ve done if I’d been you?”

He stroked my head. Then his fingers rubbed my jaw gently, where I wasn’t burned. It had the effect of a benediction. His weight shifted, and I felt his fingers on my back, lightly applying the salve. He began to talk in that deep wonderful voice of his, so comforting, so soothing.

“You aren’t the first girl to be subjected to that old routine. ‘Your virtue for my money, fair beauty.’ You won’t be the last.”

“I can’t ever get married,” I heard myself murmuring wistfully. “I’m not a virgin.”

He chuckled, tipped up my chin, daubing my right cheek with salve.

“How many wives d’you think are nowadays,” he asked with a soft laughing tenderness.

“None of mine were.” “But you divorced them.”

“Not because they weren’t virgins. Lie flat.” When I had, he slipped the shoulder strap down to anoint my chest. “You shouldn’t’ve said we were engaged just to get a room next to me.”

He paused, giving me a very level look. “That wasn’t exactly why. I’m well known in this town and in the business. I thought”-and his unsaid comment chided me for his lack of knowledge-”that some sour character was just giving you a hard time. If he knew I was interested in you, he’d bug oft. A pretty girl with two fine horses, a championship rider, but with no obvious sponsor, is fair game. Now…”

“Because Mr. Clery is interested, I’m safe?” “Don’t get snotty. How’n’ell was I to know murder was involved?” He lowered the other strap and dabbed at a cluster of blisters. “I suppose the police cleared Marchmount?”

“He was in Caliente when… it happened.” “And Galvano? Though I don’t fashion that little worm as a murderer.”

“He was in Caliente, too.”

“Hrrrmmmm. Over you go.” He deftly flipped me to my stomach, and I buried my face wearily into the pillow. It was so nice to be taken care of. And I did feel safe with this crazy little man.

“Come to think of it, Marchmount’s colors haven’t been winning much lately. Was he bearing down on your father at all?”

“Not that I knew of. He’ always told Dad he had implicit confidence in him.”

“He’d have to say that. Your father’s reputation was high. Lift up. This gown’s a mess.” He was working on my legs now. “But to use you like that. Christ. Move your left leg a little. I can get most the burns this way. No. Over you go again.”

I turned, carefully and languidly, but the stiff pains were easing off now that the salve was taking effect. He flipped the sheet over me, and it settled down with a cool sigh around my body.

“God, you look like a freaked-out case of measles. Lie still a minute.”

Enjoying the respite from the myriad discomforts of the flesh, I heard him rustling around.

“Let’s see, it’s your right side that’s got the bad burn, isn’t it?”

I nodded dreamily, unconcerned even when I felt the sheet lift again, with a rush of cool air over my body. When I felt his bare foot touch mine, it was too late.

He had me pinned against the length of his warm strong body and had placed his hands just so, avoiding the worst of the burns. My head was caught in the crook of his right arm, and I couldn’t move.

“This won’t be rape, Nialla, because you’ll want me as much as I want you. There won’t be any nonsense about helping me. You ought to realize that right now.”

He was pressed against my hip, firm and hard.

“Please, Rafe. Please don’t.” I was scared.

“Oh, no, Nialla,” he said with gentle firmness, his eyes a brilliant blue. “You’ve built that incident all out of proportion. Happened over a year ago, didn’t it? Yet when I touched you at the pool, you went rigid. It’s ruining you for any normal relationship with men. And you’re too damned fine a girl to be crippled like that. So I’m going to make love to you. And you’re not going to resist me, because, dear heart, you can’t.”

He threw one leg across my thighs. Inched his body slightly to pin my left arm down. He already had my right hand captured at the elbow. Bending his head, he began to kiss my breast, teasing it with his tongue, stroking it with his free hand. Then his fingers lightly drifted down to my belly, to the soft part of my inner thighs. Between kisses, he kept talking to me, ignoring my pleas, my protests, my curses. He switched his attentions to my other breast, gently at first, then suddenly rough. And the pressure on my nipple hurt; it hurt in a different way, too, in my belly, and deep, deep inside me.

“I like a strong body. You’re not soft, Nialla, or gaudy. You’re neat and smooth,” he told me. I’d stopped ranting and was whimpering softly because I couldn’t resist him. And I hated him, more than I’d hated Marchmount, because Rafe knew exactly what he was doing, and that sick old man hadn’t been able to help himself. Rafe didn’t need to blackmail women into sleeping with him…

His lips were traveling around my body now, teasing, nibbling, arousing me, robbing me of my hatred with sensations that left me no room for anything but the touch of his fingers, his lips. I began to shiver, wondering where he would caress me next. Closer those prowling fingers came to the ultimate goal, and suddenly his hand gripped me there. Released me. And began to trace a delicate random pattern, until I was almost wild.

Surprisingly, he stopped, shifting back to my breasts and beginning the incredible sequence all over again, until I was trembling. Until I wanted more of him. By the time his fingers had returned to that throbbing portion of me, my legs separated of their own volition. My body arched, seeking his, reacting with a knowledge beyond my consciousness.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured encouragingly. My arm was free now, free to encircle his smooth muscled back, to pull him closer to me.

His hands were gentle again. Why was he waiting? I knew what was coming next; why was he putting it off? His lips moved back to my breast, and I cried out with disappointment. He fastened fiercely on my nipple, and I strained toward him, my back arching.

“Nialla? May I, Nialla? May I show you what it’s like?”

“Oh, Rafe, please. Please!”

A pillow was thrust under my hips, and his smooth silky body was no longer warm against me. His hands gently held my legs apart. I became aware of a gentle pressure against me, a slow, gradual filling of that aching emptiness. A filling that was a pain-pleasure so intense I cried out for the joy of it.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, no. No!” I grabbed at his legs to hold him within me, trying to impale myself more deeply. He filled all of me, it seemed, with a throbbing warmth.

He shifted again, and I tightened my legs. When he chuckled, I opened my eyes and saw that he was stretching out above me, his legs carefully placed to the sides of mine, where I’d not been burn-marked. His weight lay lightly, warmly along me, and he kissed my lips softly, almost gaily, all that time that glorious strength filled me.

He began to move so gently I wasn’t first aware of the rhythmic sliding. And I began to move, imitating him, sensing approval in the way his kiss deepened. The pulse of his rhythm began to increase. Like Orfeo, the thought occurred to me, when he is facing a jump. His body began to tremble, too, as I clung to him, heedless of sores now, aware only of that thrusting, pulsing rhythm, again and again. Unbearably increasing to a tempo that threatened to split me. And it did, into a bursting, shivering height, totally unconnected with anything but Rafael Clery within me. Somewhere in the blaze, I heard his triumphant, “Oh, my God. My God!”

I came languidly out of nowhere into a reality where sensation was again possible, and he had not left my body. I was glad. He had bent his head to my breast so that his hair fell across my shoulder. I kissed his head, my lips falling against that awful scar. “Thank you, Rafe.”

“Nialla, don’t.” But his “don’t” was gratitude. Slowly he raised his head and looked at me, his eyes dark with emotion and a plea.

“I don’t want to be engaged to you anymore, Nialla Donnelly.”

“I’d no intention of holding you…” He consigned my intentions elsewhere with an expletive and put a hand over my mouth. “I want to be married to you. Then I can really make love to you; I want to teach you how to make love. I want to get you well so I’m not inhibited by burns and scrapes and scars. Because you were made to be loved, often and well, and I want exclusive rights. God!” And he threw his head back, grinning with a sort of savagery. “I could almost thank Marchmount. Don’t you dare tense up, Nialla Donnelly. He’s past history. I’m your present and your future.”

“Sure, Mr. Clery.”

He looked at me with a gladness in his eyes and face that made my heart leap. Then he kissed me, a kiss as different from any I’d been given as… as my two horses. His mouth was tender on mine, almost reverent. Which is ridiculous, because you can’t combine passion with reverence… no, not passion… sensuality… no! Neither. The kiss was a total commitment, the spectrum of the shades of loving, exacting an unreserved response from me. Later, I’d look back on that moment and remember that I became Nialla Clery then, signed, sealed, and delivered by that kiss.

It was such an incredible luxury to be cosseted and comforted that I protested volubly when Rafe left me. He was so beautiful as he stood by the side of the bed, so unselfconsciously male, grinning possessively down at me.

“Dear heart, there’re things to do… a doctor’s appointment”-he ticked them off on his short, sensitive fingers-”so we can get Wassermanns”-this said with a comically lascivious smirk-”I want to call the vet about Orfeo… and feed us.” He bent over, one hand gently cupping my breast. “You may not be aware of it, but it’s nearly one of the clock, and you haven’t had anything since that steak last night.” He gave me a squeeze. “I want to feed you up a little. You look positively transparent, love.”

He picked up the phone and ordered, mentioning items and glancing at me for confirmation. I was too quiescent to argue. I felt so light, lazy, and languid.

“Start thinking about what was in the car, Nialla,” he said as he walked with quick steps to the bathroom. “I’m ready to eat insurance men who displease me. However, in the interest of the devious underwriter mind, itemized lists, down to the peanut-butter jars”-and he swung around the door to grin at me-”always impress. Looks good when they run up statistics. I wonder what the death rate on peanut-butter jars will print out next year.”

The shower came on hard, depriving me of his conversation. I squinched down under the sheet and saw the bloody spots. Looked at my arms where the cinder burns were enlarged with smears of drying blood. I sat up, but there was no sign of my clothes. Surely my bra and pants had survived. I couldn’t…

“I’ve got to get you some clothes, too. My bride comes to me as she is… stark naked. And”-he paused in his toweling to point a stern finger at me-”no nonsense.”

“I can’t be nonsensical, Rafe,” I said meekly, covered to my chin with sheet. “All my clothes were in the station wagon.”

“I thought as much.” He scrubbed at his hair as he walked to the bureau, opening drawers to pull out various items. He threw me another shirt, then pulled on shorts. I hated to see him covered when I was just getting used to him. “You take a size eight? Thirty-two bra? Padded? About six-and-a-half shoe?”

I stared. He’d only seduced me, not measured me. Or did those sensitive hands have inbuilt calibrators? Probably.

“No big thing. I’ve been married twice, love, and bedded many more-” He broke off. “Does that worry you?”

“I haven’t had time to worry about it,” I replied truthfully. “Should I?”

He gave me one of those charismatic grins. “No, love. You shouldn’t. But you will, because it’s in the same category as remembering not to think about the camel’s left knee.”

“You read Isak Dinesen?”

“Worry about that, then. It’s more constructive!” He was shaving when room service knocked on the door. He stepped into his pants on the way to the door, grinning at me. Although I was decently covered, he kept the man out of the room, wheeling in the cart himself.

The moment I caught a whiff of the coffee and grilled ham, I realized that I was famished. To think I might never have to open another jar of peanut butter! Rafe finished shaving before he joined me-in three minutes-and quickly consumed the omelet he’d ordered for himself.

“I hate to leave you, Nialla,” he said as he shrugged on an elegant white linen jacket, checking his pockets for wallet, keys, and such miscellany. “You’re not to answer the phone or the door while I’m gone. Promise?”

All the uglinesses that had been dispersed by Rafe’s lovemaking and his presence crowded in on me. It undoubtedly showed in my expression, for he came striding across the floor and held me in his arms.

“Promise?”

I’d’ve promised anything with Rafe Clery’s arms around me, his smooth lemony-expensive-smelling cheek against mine.

“Sure, Mr. Clery.”

Warmth and security left the room when the door closed on him. I heard him try the knob.

“It’s locked, all right, Nialla. Keep it that way!”

The phone didn’t ring, and no one knocked. The chambermaid didn’t even scratch to enter either room. I ate slowly to make time pass, and when I couldn’t swallow another sip of coffee, I had to find something else to occupy me.

When I got up to go to the bathroom, however, I was awfully wobbly. My legs were a sight, my arms, my chest, and when I angled the medicine-cabinet mirror, so were my shoulders. Sitting on the toilet, I managed to sponge off the worst. I finger-brushed my teeth with his toothpaste. (For a bride, I was a bust as far as dowry, but my teeth were good.) There was a small bottle of shampoo in his kit, so I could get rid of the singe-stink in my hair. How could Rafe have stood it? Clean, my hair also showed the various lengths more. I groaned. Over my ears I could see the red roots showing. I was a mess!

And Rafe Clery had made love to me. Said he was going to marry me. Dispassionately I surveyed myself in the full-length door mirror. From knee to breast I was unmarred, unless I made a quarter-turn and you saw the vertical red streak. Though my body looked the same, boyish, I looked at it differently. A man had loved it, caressed it, possessed it.

I sighed for that man’s absence, as I put on his shirt. And then my weakness betrayed me. I kind of crept back to bed, bloodstained sheets and all.

I must have dozed off, because suddenly the sound of the key in the lock had me bolt upright, scared stiff. Rafe entered, package-laden, grin-wreathed.

“Orfeo’s okay. I got the check from the State Fire right here, but you’re not to sign a release yet. This is for the car and the trailer, top prices, too. Haworth didn’t give me any jazz. Dice’s been stuffed with lamb kidneys, and Jerry-you remember him?-is bringing up our trailer because the vet says we can move Orfeo. That hoof’s sore, but he can stand a trip. You’ve a hairdresser’s appointment in twenty minutes, a doctor’s in an hour, and I’ve lined up a minister-”

He broke off his monologue to look at me questioningly.

“Sure, Mr. Clery.” What else could I say? So I dressed in the clothes he’d bought and took pleasure in the way the green silk molded itself to my hips. He put other pretties away in the drawers and closet, allowing me a passing glimpse at pants, dresses, a lightweight coat, sandals, Weejuns that matched his, pale green Capezio slippers that were the same shade as the dress.

“There’s a good saddle-and-boot man in East Norwich,” he was saying, and stopped. “You’ll be living on a horse farm in Syosset, did you realize that? Gawd, girl, you don’t know much about me, do you?”

“Yes, I do. You’ve been married twice, divorced twice, in jail, been a jockey, in a war, you fight dirty, have a bad temper, did crazy irresponsible things in your misspent youth-and you’re doing them still-but you’ve a good reputation on the show circuit, and you’re a fine rider, besides which I find you to be kind, sensitive, intelligent, well educated, well bred…”

“Hey, you’ll ruin my carefully built public image!” He put his hands lightly around my waist, squeezing as he grinned at me, a little sheepishly.

“I know more about you than you do about me,” I went on, worried.

He gave me a little pull, tilting his head to one side so that our mouths met and my body rested against his. I could feel the pulsing of him and kind of sagged, wanting him urgently. He set me back on my feet quickly, his eyes wide and kind of surprised.

“Enough of that now. We’ve got other things to do… first.”

Then he took my left hand and slipped a ring on the third finger. I gasped in astonishment, for the stone was an emerald.

“You wouldn’t expect a small-town jeweler to have such good taste,” he said in a sort of deprecating way. “However, if you prefer diamonds…”

“I hate diamonds. They’re so cold. Oh, Rafe, this ring is just perfect.” The setting was old-fashioned, and the stone, that deep rich green that only a good emerald has, was bracketed by two smaller chips. “We could have the stones reset.”

“No!” And I clutched my hand and ring away from him. He grinned, sure he had pleased me, slipping his fingers under my chin to kiss me lightly.

“Come on,” he said then with mock impatience. “I want you clipped around the edges, my proud beauty.”

He supervised. The poor beautician was both nervous and amused. The net result was a hair style that looked deliberate. Pixie feathers about my face, the back layered, fire damage completely erased.

The doctor checked me over far too thoroughly, prescribed therapeutic vitamins, tranquilizers, the pill, told me my hemoglobin was too damned low, and promised to rush the Wassermanns. His final advice, which he delivered caustically, looking squarely at Rafe, was for me to get rest, undisturbed rest. I liked him.

The clerk at the license bureau had ridden in the Ladies’ Hunter Hack Class, or so she told me as she filled out the forms, alternating between beams and clucks of sympathy over my losses. When Rafe left me in the Austin-Healey to take the prescriptions” into the drugstore, weariness began to overwhelm me again.

“That junk’ll be sent to the motel, dear heart. Now,” Rafe said as he returned, “for a very brief look at the beasts, and then back to bed with you. For some of that undisturbed rest.”

Orfeo looked about the way I felt, limp. But he brought his head up and wickered as I stepped in beside him. Dice uncurled himself from his nest in the straw, talking quietly in his throat, respecting the sick-stall atmosphere.

I heard Phi Bete’s demand for attention. She’d been moved to the stall opposite. She pawed, tossing her head. The moment I spoke her name, she stopped her noise, blowing softly through her nostrils, as if reassured.

Someone came charging down the loft ladder. “Who’s there? What’s going on? Oh, Mr. Clery. I was just getting down some hay, Mr. Clery.”

It was one of the men I’d seen with the Tomlinson stock. He looked at me, nodding embarrassedly as he continued more slowly down the ladder. His glance took in my scabby burns, my hair, dress, shoes, and lingered on the ring. His hand went to the hat brim.

“Hope you’re better, ma’am? Scared us, passing out like that last night.”

“Thank you. I’ll be fine.

“The black’s better. Took some mash this morning, but he wasn’t interested in the hay. He’s drunk plenty, and I keep his pail full and cool. Mare’s been shedding, and she’s a mite off her feed, too. And I ain’t left them alone a minute.” He pointed to the loft. “I heard you right away.” I looked at Rafe, feeling all the more apprehension at such vigilance. Then it was all too much.

“Jerry’ll be here in about an hour, Mac. He’ll spell you. Feed the cat?”

“He’s been eating all day, Mr. Clery.” Mac was disgusted.

“Seen Pete?”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t. He’ll turn up soon. Always does.”

“Ask him to call me at the motel, would you please?”

“Sure thing.”

Rafe guided me out, settled me in the car, companionably silent all the way back to the motel. He didn’t talk all the time, after all. As we entered the lobby, the desk clerk beckoned. He handed over to Rafe a white drugstore sack, which clanked.

“You haven’t seen us,” Rafe said sternly, one hand passing over the clerk’s. Judging by the motion of the man’s fingers, our privacy premium had been paid.

The bed had been made up, the room-service table was gone, and there were flowers around-white flowers and a bouquet of sweetheart roses with silver-dyed spikes of something or other accenting the pink.

Rafe grunted when he saw the offerings and gave me a gentle shove toward the bed.

“Sack time, Nialla.” He took a negligee set from the drawer. Evidently he preferred me in green? He gestured at my dress, and I obediently took it off. He’d said “sack-time,” and he meant it, for his hands were impersonal as he helped me into the soft silk gown. Gown? It barely reached my thighs. He threw back the bed covers and yanked out the tuck at the bottom so the sheet wouldn’t drag against my sore feet. When he had covered me, he drew the blinds.

“I’ll be right next door, Nialla.”

I was almost disappointed that he left me so, but a weariness overcame me that I couldn’t fight.