Ring of Fear

9

I was managing to swallow soft scrambled egg at brunch (we got up at a scandalous ten o'clock) when Dennis phoned on the intercom to say that a Mr. Michaels was at the gate, and could he come in?

Jim Michaels did have another suit-or rather a second pair of pants and a seersucker jacket. He got far enough inside the house to feel the air-conditioning, and sighed with relief. Then he exhibited real dismay at interrupting our meal.

"It is Sunday," Rafe said, ushering him to a chair and urging him to try the cornbread with his coffee.

He accepted with a grin, which faded when he saw my throat.

"I'm a walking fingerprint gallery," I said in the un-projected tone that put no strain on my throat.

He nodded, but his expression was a little fierce.

"Can you identify the assailant?"

"It has to be Caps Galvano."

His eyelids dropped briefly, and he sighed again. "Which means, Mrs. Clery, that you didn't see his face?"

"Who else could it be?" Rafe asked caustically.

Michaels shrugged. "A would-be rapist, a purse-snatcher, take your choice."

"It was him," I said. "He said if I thought I was safe behind a high fence with dogs, I was wrong. He said I'd never be safe unless I paid him. His breath was concentrated garlic."

"It was Galvano, Michaels, because Galvano is the only one who knows what the blackmailer told Nialla." Rafe was becoming impatient with the detective's caution. "For Christ's sake, Michaels, does she have to be murdered before the cops take action?"

Michaels looked uncomfortable and smoothed back his already well-groomed hair.

"You ought to know the handicaps under which police operate these days, Mr. Clery. However, Galvano has been positively identified by half a dozen people. He was definitely at the Sunbury fairgrounds. He also forgot to wipe all his fingerprints off the station wagon when he tried to frighten Mrs. Clery's gelding. It's a blurred print, but it's his."

"Then you believe me?"

"I always have believed you, Mrs. Clery," Michaels replied in a rather grim voice, "but belief is not admissible evidence. And it doesn't help me find the guy. He's at an advantage there. You're stationary, he's not. We've got to catch him, and we've either got to have proof positive-like fingerprints on the blunt instrument used on Pete Sankey-or Galvano's confession."

"Speaking of being stationary, Lieutenant, Louis Marchmount has been on the run, with a bodyguard. A Stephen Urscoll admitted to us that Louis Marchmount has been paying extortion. To Caps Galvano."

Michaels nodded. "Some eighty thousand dollars, to be precise. I keep busy."

Rafe whistled in surprise at the sum involved, and then almost pounced. "Then why in hell is Galvano threatening Nialla? With eighty thousand dollars, he ought to have skipped to one of the Latin-American countries by now! Particularly when he has very carefully arranged his own death to get the grass ring off his back."

"I admit that baffles us, too, Mr. Clery. Eighty thou for a man like Galvano is good bread. Enough to buy a fake passport for a dead man. He certainly can't afford to spend freely, because that would attract notice. And he can't afford to do that."

"He does attract attention," I whispered. "He stinks as if he hadn't changed clothes in weeks, and his breath is vile."

"That's not a criminal offense, Mrs. Clery," Michaels said with a glint in his eyes. "Were you aware, Mrs. Clery, that Mr. Marchmount was visiting near Sunbury?"

I shook my head too hard; it hurt my neck.

"We saw him first Monday night, at a distance, in the Charcoal Grill at Sunbury," Rafe said, "but that was the first we knew he was there."

"So it is conceivable that Galvano had been tracking Marchmount and then saw Mrs. Clery…" Michaels paused, rubbing his lower lip thoughtfully. "However, this is where motive falters. Mrs. Clery was not Mrs. Clery then, I understand, and candidly in no position to pay any extortion…"

"If he'd take peanut butter," Rafe said with such a bland face I wanted to smack him.

Michaels gave a fleeting grin. "I suppose we have to assume that Galvano indulged in malicious mischief while waiting to nail Marchmount, then."

"Whatever the reason, Michaels"-and all humor vanished from Rafe's face-"we've had enough of this kind of trick or treat. Marchmount has, too. Will you kindly arrest that bastard before there's a third death? Marchmount's or… Galvano's."

"There is a third death, Mr. Clery. Whoever was in that car in California. But as I said, we have to find him first, Mr. Clery," Michaels said wearily. "If he hadn't broken with all previous associations, that wouldn't be so difficult."

"Apply to the nearest racetrack and ask?"

"Quite. But unless we can force him into the open..," Michaels raised his hands, palms up, expressively.

"He'll have to, to collect," Rafe said. "He's got two possible sources of income-Louis Marchmount and Nialla. True, we've told him to shove it, and so, in effect, has Louis Marchmount. But Lou collapsed last night"-Michaels nodded, as if this were not new to him-"You know? Good. So that rules him out as a source of revenue for the greedy Galvano. And leaves us-Nialla."

"As you said, Rafe, I've had about enough of trick or treat." My voice came out in squeaks, and my incautious vocalizing hurt. I put my hands to my throat, a little scared and more than a little angry at the trend of their talk.

"Understandably, Mrs. Clery, but this time we can control the action."

"Nialla, honey, he may come near you, but he won't ever touch you again!"

I looked from one man to the other, not knowing which I despised more, and in that silence we all heard a car braking to a tire-stripping halt. A shrill voice was raised in vituperation, and then two people came clattering up the stairs. The door was flung open, and there stood Wendy Madison, her eyes round with anger, her face suffused with blood, and every inch of her thin body involved with her fury. Dennis, his face white and scared, stood behind her.

"Tell this… this… effing bastard that he's fired," she demanded. "Tell him right now, Ralph Clery!" She whirled and slapped Dennis across the mouth. It wasn't the first time: I now saw other marks on the boy's face. "There, you effing bastard. You'll never disobey an order from me again."

"That's enough, Madam, and Dennis is not fired. He was acting under my orders. No one was to pass that gate without checking here."

Wendy Madison stalked into the room, trembling with fury, straight up to Rafe, as if she meant to slap his face, too. Then she saw me, and before I knew what she meant, she'd swooped down, waving something wildly above her head, and slapped me with stunning force across my face.

"You bitch, you little gutter whore! I'll have you-Owww!"

Her hand was sweeping back to strike me again when Rafe caught it and twisted it behind her back so swiftly that she let go what she was clutching, and glossy photographs rained on the floor.

"Madam, I'll break your arm, mother or not, if you don't control yourself." He had her pinned in a chair. She writhed and tried to hit at him, until he gave her arm another little wrench. With a cry she bit her lip and sat, her back arching to ease the strain on her arm. "No one speaks to my wife that way. No one. Especially you."

"Just wait, Ralph Clery. Just wait until you've seen those photos. Then we'll see how we speak to your wife."

Rafe didn't ease his hold on her an inch, but he craned his neck to look at the photo nearest him. I knew what they must be! I think I knew the moment I saw her waving them as she entered. I wanted to die!

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Rafe said with utter disgust and annoyance, letting his mother go. "And you fell for them?"

Wendy Madison's jaw dropped. His reaction took away all her impetus.

"Fell for them?" A glance at me stoked her anger again. "I'm supposed to pay twenty thousand dollars to keep them from being circulated. I'm supposed to pay because you… you horny dwarf… married some cheap…"

Rafe's hand curled on her shoulder so fiercely that she cried out and shot him a glance full of fear and surprise.

"Madam, if you ever even think of my wife in those terms…"

"Ralph, you're hurting me." And tears began to fall from her brimming eyes. She was very sincere. Then her attitude changed to misunderstood and abused innocence. "You're brutal and unfeeling. I'm being blackmailed! Forced to protect the family name, all on account of your… latest wife." She didn't need to use foul language when she could inject such venom into a simple noun.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Michaels shift, and Rafe gestured him curtly to be quiet.

"Exactly what happened?" Rafe demanded in a cold, hard voice.

"These…" She gestured to the strewn photos. I couldn't eyen look to see how many had fallen face up… came special delivery… through the mails"-and that obviously doubled the outrage-"with a note. If I didn't wish to have them circulated, I must be prepared to pay twenty thousand dollars."

"Where's the note?"

Wendy Madison's eyes flashed. "That won't tell you anything. Block printing on cheap pad paper." Then her face crumbled again. "Ralph, I can't have my name linked with your… wife's… in this sordid manner. I'd be ruined socially. Give me the twenty thousand dollars"-her eyes blazed as anger overcame fear of disgrace-"because I most certainly am not going…"

"Madam…"

She winced as his fingers dug into her shoulder again.

"Really, Ralph"-and I winced to hear the whine in her cultivated voice-"she's your wife. You married her. I didn't. I didn't even know about it, and then, when I try to put a good face on it, give a reception for her, introduce her to my closest friends…" She dabbed at her eyes again, emulating distressed virtue.

"If you really need a scapegoat, Madam," Rafe said, and scooping up the photos, shoved them under her nose again, "look at the man involved. Because I can assure you, Nialla is blameless."

I wanted to die. We should have paid the man yesterday. How could Rafe do this to me?

But when I heard Wendy Madison's gasp of stunned and incredulous horror, heard her moan and knew that there was nothing feigned in that piteous cry, I was almost glad.

"Oh, no," she cried, half-doubled in anguish. "Oh, no, it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Oh, no. Lou wouldn't." Suddenly she straightened, her face wiped clear of expression. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. "They're fakes," she said with the absolute certainty and fantastic dignity of one who has perceived a truth. "Obviously retouched fakes." She rose, in regal dismissal.

"Burn them."

"Hold it," Rafe said, standing in her way. "You're not going anywhere yet. First you will make Nialla profound apology for your insults."

I couldn't see her face, but even the muscles in her slender legs tensed. Rafe just kept looking at her. If he ever looked at me that way… She turned slowly, like an automaton not wound tightly enough, and her face was a strained caricature of the courtesy she was forced to perform. "I apologize for my hasty words."

I nodded my head once, twice, my slapped cheek stinging as if her reluctant words physically impacted on me.

She turned again, desperate to leave, but now Rafe took her by the arm and escorted her, willy-nilly, back to the chair.

"Now, Lieutenant Michaels, here's your opportunity to catch a murdering blackmailer."

"Lieutenant Michaels?" Her voice was no more than a whisper, as pained a whisper as I'd been forced to use. This second shock sent color flaming to the roots of her blonde hair. One hand on her throat, the other clutching the chair arm, she slowly turned her head toward Jim Michaels.

"Your precipitate arrival, Madam, prevented me from making an introduction. May I now present Lieutenant Detective James Michaels of the Sunbury Police."

"Police. Oh, my God, Ralph, the police mustn't know."

Michaels inclined his head in silent apology for the fact that he already did know.

"Extortion threats are best handled with police assistance, ma'am," he said in a quiet voice. The woman looked absolutely shattered.

"The police! Oh, my God."

Rafe strode to the bar cabinet and poured a stiff drink, which he gave her. She knocked it back in a dazed fashion and then seemed to get a second grip on herself.

"Mrs. Madison, if you will cooperate with us, we will see that…"

"But he's threatened to send the negatives to the newspapers and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar…" And she began to rock back and forth in the chair.

"Mrs. Madison," James Michaels went on, still in that quiet calm voice, "those negatives would never be printed even if they did reach a publisher's office. The newspapers and magazines are very cooperative in these instances, believe me. What is more important is to apprehend this man before he victimizes anyone else. Before he does more harm." Michaels gestured toward me, and for the first time, I think, Wendy Madison saw the marks on my throat, and her eyes widened.

"He attacked her?"

"Yes, Madam. He tried to kill Nialla at Charlie's place yesterday."

Her hands went out to Rafe appealingly. "I need protection," she said in a breathless whimper. "Ralph. I'm totally unprotected up there. There's only John and Pres. You've got to let me stay here. You've got the fence, the dogs."

Rafe took her hands down. His face… his face showed the most awful lack of expression. "You'll have ample police protection." He moved back, away from her outstretched hand.

Michaels quickly started to assure her that she would be guarded night and day, but she didn't seem to hear him, still begging Rafe silently for sanctuary in this house.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay in your own home, Mrs. Madison," Michaels told her.He could afford to be kinder. He wasn't related to her. "The extortionist will be calling you now that his little… bombshell has been delivered. You'll have to stay home. We'll arrange for a wire tap to trace the call, have men guarding you night and day.,." He noticed the rise of her eyebrow as his words and meaning penetrated her fear. "… and a policewoman in your room. There won't be any chance of your being-ah-hem-having any personal dealings with him."

"A burglar-alarm system was installed in the house sometime ago, Lieutenant," Rafe said, disregarding any attempt of his mother to get his attention. "There's also a trained private investigator."

"This Urscoll fellow?"

"Ralph, how could you?" Her protest was a shocked wail.

"You can dispense with the nose of outrage, Madam. Two… three… men have already been murdered, my wife has been physically attacked, and Lou Marchmount driven to the edge of insanity. If…"

"Lou? You mean, that man has already approached Lou?"

Rafe stared at her with incredulity. "Why did you think Marchmount hired Urscoll?"

"Why, to keep his second wife-that awful Lorette person-from besieging him with her hypochondriacal demands."

"And you believed him?"

"Of course, I'd believe Louis Marchmount. Why should I ever doubt his word?"

"You were quick enough to doubt my wife's honor," Rafe replied harshly. For the first time fury broke through the icy coldness with which he had been treating her. "And quick enough to call those pictures 'fakes' when you thought Lou was involved. For God's sake, Madam, don't be so naive. You know Marchmount's reputation…"

"You mean, those photos were real?"

"No, ma'am, they're not," Michaels said rather forcefully. "Good fakes, yes, but fakes they are. Our lab can blow them up and show where the heads were stripped in. Clever, but the joins are there."

"As I said earlier, Wendy"-and Rafe made her name into a cold, hard epithet-"Nialla is not to blame for the insidious position in which you now find yourself."

"Then all his talk about ruin and persecution wasn't…" Wendy Madison shut her mouth with sudden discretion. She rose again. "I want to get out of this ridiculous position. How do I cooperate with you, Lieutenant? Ralph, you will have the courtesy to call your brother Michael instantly and tell him to come at once. Lieutenant, I want these photos destroyed. I don't want everyone gawking…"

"I can't destroy evidence, Mrs. Madison, but I assure you that all discretion will be used to protect Mrs. Clery."

"Mrs. Clery?" She was stunned, and looked around at me as if I'd no right to be discussed at all.

"And Mr. Marchmount," the lieutenant added diplomatically. But as he escorted her to the door, his attitude toward her had changed. Rafe was gathering up the photos quickly.

Dennis, I realized, had disappeared some time ago. I wondered in a sick fashion if he'd had a good look at those poses when she'd been brandishing them about. But Michaels had said they were obvious fakes. How had he known? How obvious? Had he just said that? I wished- no, I didn't wish. No! I didn't ever want to see them.

"Nialla," Rafe's voice recalled me from the grotesque push-pull. "I won't be long."

I numbly gestured acceptance, but the moment he was out the door, I wanted to cry out to him to come back. He was leaving me alone.

"Get a grip on yourself, Nialla," I whispered out loud. Garry's in the house. I could hear her quick steps, and then she started down the stairs, moving more slowly then, as heavy people do. When I saw her face, her brows puckered in an angry frown, I realized that she'd heard everything, and I looked away, anywhere but at her.

"I can't pretend I'm deaf and didn't hear a thing, Miss Nialla." Her voice reached me because I couldn't unhear. "Madam's gone too far this time. Storming in here like it was all your fault and speaking to you in such a way. It was all I could do to keep quiet. Anyone'd think you'd arranged the whole thing to put shame on her. Now, you just sit quiet till Mr. Rafe gets back. Imagine, someone with spit enough to try blackmailing the Madam. No wonder that poor Mr. Marchmount took to drugs with that hanging over his head. Well, Madam won't see his heels fast enough, I reckon. Good thing, too. I only hope Dennis didn't stay?" I shook my head. "There, there, you poor child. Why, you look dreadful. You're as white as a sheet. A cup of tea? No, maybe you need some of that brandy!"

I shook my head, pointing to my neck.

"Yes, of course. I was forgetting. I'll just make you something nice and cool. That'll make you feel better, and you can forget this whole terrible thing." With that she marched out of the room.

Just as if a drink or a cup of tea would, could, put everything to rights. I leaned my head back against the couch, feeling drawn and quartered and strengthless. Would to God Mrs. Garrison had some magical potion. I wished I'd been consumed in that barn fire. I wished I had been strangled the day before. I wished I'd never let Rafe talk me into going to dinner that first night. But I'd been so tired of peanut butter… If only I'd refused-even that second time-and just packed up and left the grounds, prize money forfeited and everything. Pete Sankey wouldn't be dead…

"If you're feeling sorry for yourself…"

I gave a convulsive leap, crying out in surprise before I realized it was Rafe. One look at the awful expression on his face, and self-pity was the furthest thing from my mind. He looked a hundred and two, every line in his well-used face graven deeply. His eyes lacked even a touch of blue.

"Anyone'd think you'd arranged the whole thing to put shame on her." Mrs. Garrison had pointed to the wrong woman.

"Actually, I was thinking that a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich would taste damned good about now," I said, taking a deep breath. "And trying to figure out how Lieutenant Michaels could sound so sure that those pictures were fakes."

Rafe blinked suddenly, a slight frown creasing his brows still more, but the color came back into his eyes and his jaw relaxed. I'd managed to surprise him, too.

"For one thing," he said, coming across the room, "the girl so lewdly portrayed was very gaudy. Not at all neat." There was even the faintest suspicion of a smile at his mouth. "Which the lieutenant wouldn't necessarily guess. But you are five-foot-four, my dear heart, and that girl was an Amazon."

I was suddenly consumed with fury. "Then how could anyone…"

Rafe roared with laughter at my reaction. "Shock value. If Wendy Madison had thought twice, she'd have realized it, too. All she saw were the faces and the postures." He turned serious again and gathered me into his arms, his eyes blue and oddly sad. "You've been at the more serious disadvantage, my dear, because you knew Lou Marchmount had raped you and there was just the possibility that there had been a photograph taken."

"Oh, Rafe, if I should ever have to testify…"

He pulled my cheek against his and held me tightly, reassuringly.. y

"If that should ever happen, you simply do not tell the whole truth. Lou Marchmount is in no condition to contradict you. And I sure as hell will gladly perjure myself on the score of your virtue."

He held me away, framing my face with his hands, looking deep into my eyes.

"Because, dear heart, you are." He gave me another long searching look and then lightly kissed my cheek-the one his mother had struck.

I wanted to say something, I knew I was supposed to say something, and it wasn't connected with his mother, but I didn't know what it was he expected of me. Then all of a sudden Mrs. Garrison came bustling in from the kitchen, and the moment was shattered.

"Don't you ever ask for peanut butter and jelly here, Nialla, or we'll lose the best cook in Nassau County," Rafe said in a hurried undertone.

Mrs. Garrison's notion of therapeutic food turned out to be raspberry sherbet, which went down easily, coolingly, and I could actually taste it.

Rafe filled a mug of coffee for himself and settled down to the Sunday papers with an air that clearly said, "At last!"

There appeared to be two copies of The New York Times, one each of lesser Sunday editions. For kicks I turned to the society pages. And there we were. Only it was just Rafe and me. I appeared to be hanging on his arm, the very model of the blushing bride, while Rafe was beaming directly into the camera with fatuous pride. He hadn't been, but that's the way the shot came out. There was only a caption with our names, listing Rafael Clery as noted sportsman and horse breeder. We weren't the only bridal couple who'd been feted, I noticed, glancing at the long columns headed by studio portraits of faces fresh or stern under misty veils. The datelines were all the "right" ones from East Hampton, south to Roanoke, north to Boston, with a few San Franciscos, Washingtons, and New Yorks to leaven the rise.

The group picture appeared in several of the Long Island papers: somehow the counterfeit grins looked genuine, and the general impression was of society enjoying its "in" tribal customs and rites, graciously consenting to make their festivities known to the lesser breeds.

The Long Island papers ran some background material on Rafe. (They bloody well had nothing to say about me, except to mention that my father was the late Russell Donnelly, noted trainer. Bess Tomlinson [Mrs. Augustus] was given as matron of honor, also the fact that I had used her family veil. A Gerald MacCrate, sportsman, had been the groom's best man. The ceremony had been private.) Rafe graduated from the University of Virginia? With honors, no less. And he'd been a captain in Korea? I hadn't known that either. Nor that he'd earned a DSC with a cluster.

Rafe evidently believed in reading every word of the news fit to print. He made a lot of noise, too, turning pages, but whenever I glanced around mine, it was an absentminded, not attention-getting-irritated rustling. At one point he got up, took some black bound books from the breakfront desk, and busied himself making notations.

This placid sabbatical scene was interrupted by the phone. I’d been so absorbed in an article on the emergence of pop art and its primary perpetrators that the sound lifted me up out of the sofa like an elevator.

"Hey, your nerves are shot," he said solicitously as he rose to answer it. "Sure, Dennis. You can let Michaels in anytime."

The detective refused coffee, even iced, when he arrived, but a few minutes in the air-conditioned house seemed to revive him. I was glad I didn't have to go outside today.

"I've got surveillance for your mother, Mr. Clery, and the phone tap is set up, so you don't have to worry about her."

"Thanks." Michaels grinned slightly at Rafe's caustic comment.

"I checked in at Nassau County Hospital, but Louis Marchmount is in no condition to be questioned. I've also arranged for a relief man for that private investigator, because"-and here Michaels exhaled deeply-"I'm not the only person who'd like to speak to Marchmount. Someone tried to get in to see him on Saturday morning. In fact, he was so adamant that the hospital guard had to assist him off the premises." Michaels grinned at me. "Both the guard and the nurses' aide at the desk remembered that he had a very bad case of halitosis."

"There!"

"More important. They identified the mug shot of Galvano."

"Saturday morning?" Rafe asked.

"Yes"-and Michaels was grim again-"with plenty of time for him to get to the show and attack Mrs. Clery. How he knew where to find you is not clear."

"The Austin-Healey is distinctive," Rafe remarked. "There're plenty of places on the main road for him to watch for it if that was his game."

"I had a talk with Urscoll."

"And?" Rafe urged politely, because something was troubling Michaels.

"Well, he confirmed what you told me. Said it's only a matter of time before Marchmount is carried off by a heart attack. The excitement of apprehending the extortionist might be the fatal stroke, which is the only reason why Urscoll's company went along with Marchmount's demand. Urscoll said he was awfully worried, because the man's memory is failing. He said he did all he could to prevent Marchmount from becoming excited and getting hold of any drugs. But…" Michaels shrugged.

"What I don't understand," Rafe said, "is how, if Urscoll was so eager to guard Marchmount, Galvano could have picked him for eighty thousand dollars?"

"One man can't guard another every minute of the day," Michaels said, rising. "I've got to get back."

"Don't envy you the trip in this heat."

"Oh, it's not so bad." Michaels grinned smugly. "I borrowed one of the traffic helicopters. That's why I have to get back before the millions swarm back into the city."

"So, how do things stand?"

"We… you… wait, I'm afraid."

"With Erskine handling the local protection?"

Michaels nodded, an odd gleam in his eyes. "He seems very keen on helping."

"Yes, the good, jovial, up-for-reelection Sheriff Erskine would."

"I really have to work through the local authorities at this juncture, Mr. Clery."

Rafe gestured, absolving Michaels. "Standing guard is one thing Erskine's men ought to do well. They even went to college on it."

Michaels stared at Rafe a moment and then guffawed heartily.

"We've only to wait until the blackmailer gets in touch with Mrs. Madison, now. And if he's as desperate as he acts, that oughtn't to be too long," he said as he reached the door.

I wished I could feel as confident as Michaels sounded. But I did trust him.

The hot air was like a furnace blast as the door closed. Helicopter or not, I didn't envy the weary detective his trip.

Rafe snatched up his paper and settled in the couch, beside me, our thighs touching lightly, our shoulders brushing now and then as Rafe turned the pages of his newspaper. The light contact had the effect of… of what? Not possession, really. More. "I'm here because I want to be."

I sneaked a sideways glance at my husband's profile. He was too absorbed in his article to be aware of my scrutiny. I hadn't had too much opportunity to really look at him, what with his habit of being attached to me all the time. He wasn't handsome, certainly; he didn't have to be, with those compelling blue eyes. There was character in the straight sweep of his jaw, the firm chin, the well-shaped wide lips, the aquiline nose, the slight bulge of the brow; he'd be even handsomer in a few years. I was close enough to notice the fine lines under and at the corner of his eye, the few bristles his razor had missed that morning, and the fact that his sideburns needed trimming. Would he let me do it?

This Sunday's quiet, read-the-paper routine was so "married" to me-something I remembered from childhood as part of a Sunday's inevitable order. Mother reading the papers beside Dad on the sofa, with the Sunday symphony rolling through an otherwise silent scene.

Suddenly Rafe swore under his breath and reached for the accounts books he'd abandoned when Michaels came in. He did some rough figuring on the margin of the newspaper and swore again. The numerals, written in a bold hand, were plain to read: $7,578.98. He swore again and closed the open book with a slap, tossing it negligently to the footstool.

Fragments of conversations on loss and margin, shares depreciating, came back to me, coordinated with Rafe's continuous interest in news items and stock-market pages. And I correlated a few other facts-like this comfortable house, Mrs. Garrison, three men in the stables, new horse trailers, and such. $7,578.98 was a lot of money. "Did you lose that much on stocks in this recession?" Rafe regarded me with mild surprise. "Oh, the seven thousand? That's that electronic company Paddy Skerrit's touting. There's a piece here about a copyright-infringement action they've launched against a rival company that got the government contract they were hoping for. The stock's down now, and it may drop further."

"Can you afford to lose that much money?" "Dear heart, I haven't 'lost' it yet. The company's sound. I've generally had good luck in the electronics field. Bought into Xerox when it first went public"-and there was a twinkle in his eyes-"despite what I was told. Why?" He looked at me squarely, a sort of waiting look.

"Well, it's just that… well, there's that insurance money, and the rest of the funds, if you were at all worried…"

"God bless you, Nialla darling," and he gathered me into his arms, pressing his face into my hair, even then remembering to be careful of my neck.

I've heard of "heart swelling," and mine certainly did then.

"Dear heart, you simply haven't got a clue, have you?" Something amused him; laughter rippled in his voice as he rocked me back and forth in his arms.

"A clue about what?" I didn't want him laughing right then. I wanted him as serious as I felt.

He held me a little from him so he could look down into my eyes. His were dancing with devilment.

"Maybe it's just as well you don't know."

"Know what? I guess ten thousand dollars doesn't seem like a lot to you…"

He realized what he'd done and hugged me tightly again. "It is a lot of money, Nialla, but I really don't need it. That's a paper loss and doesn't particularly affect my income."

"Income?"

"God love us, it is an innocent." He sighed and explained succinctly that, due to the perspicacity and ruthlessness of several ancestors, he had a large private income which, due to some equally perspicacious investing of his own, he had increased. "Money tends to beget money, Nialla, and I'm in the bracket where an occasional loss saves me taxes." He looked deep into my eyes again, the slight upturning smile of his lips engagingly boyish. "I do really appreciate your offer, dear heart, but I'd rather you"-and he kissed me lightly-"had money of your own."

"You're rich, then, aren't you?" (Gawd, that sounded like an accusation, didn't it?) "In spite of what you said about the acres being mortgaged?"

He frowned in surprise. "When did I say that?"

"Wednesday. Or did you mean"-I broke off and then realized I'd better continue-"a moral mortgage?"

"A moral mortgage?" He seemed startled. "Because Wendy Madison lives in the house next door? Yes." And a shadow of the awful expression I so hated crossed his face. "She has the right to live in that place until her death, but the property is mine. Grandfather Herrington stipulated it was to go to the first male issue of his three daughters." He looked beyond me to that desperate distance in his life which had been so bleak and miserable, and brutally lonely. "I wasn't exactly what Grandfather or Mother had in mind as Lord of the Mansion, so she's welcome to it."

"It isn't a mortgage she holds over you, Rafe, it's blackmail. Did you ever think of it in those terms?"

He looked at me suddenly, his hands sliding around me. "Not until this morning, dear heart. I guess that's what albatrosses are-blackmail by conscience."

Then he began kissing me, starting out with a sort of an apologetic pressure of lips on mine. But the gentleness quickly gave way to a mutual inflammation.

"Nialla?" His soft query was right in my ear as his hands began to caress my body urgently. I'd got mine under his shirt, caressing the warm smooth hide of him. He felt so good. But when I tried to disentangle us so we could go upstairs, he held me tightly. "We can't be seen. The couch is high-backed." He chuckled as he unbuttoned my shirt and released my breasts from the bra. "Mrs. Garrison?"

"Gone! I wanted you to myself for the rest of the day. Got any more objections?" He said it, half-teasing, half-irritated. Was I being coy?

I pulled him to me, slipping my hands inside his pants, inside the cotton briefs, all the time straining my breast against the exciting rough texture of his shirt. He turned rough suddenly, rousing me so deftly that my need of him was not a whit less than his. Rafe was unbuckling his belt when the sound of banging on the front door penetrated our absorption.

The language Rafe used as he hastily buckled his belt and yanked his shirt down appalled me, but I felt exactly the same way.

"I'll get rid of whoever it is," Rafe vowed as he pounded across the floor. Had he kept his shoes on all that time on the couch?

I made an effort to cover myself, just in case. And I glanced at the back of the couch to be sure I wasn't visible, but I couldn't even see the front door, so I relaxed, praying that the caller could be summarily dismissed and we could take up where we'd been so rudely interrupted.

"Dennis, if…"

"Mr. Clery, the west meadow's on fire!"

"Christ!" Rafe's single explosive curse was followed by an incoherent stream of invective.

"Jerry's called the fire department and gone on ahead with Albert."

"Where in hell were the dogs?" Rafe demanded, as he seemed to be wrecking a piece of furniture.

"They were loose, Mr. Clery, but in this heat, it could be spontaneous.".

"Spontaneous, my…" I heard the unmistakable sound of a revolver chamber turning fast. "Okay, okay. Jerry bring shovels?"

"And brooms and wet blankets."

"Good. Nialla, just in case, don't you dare leave this house. I don't know how he could have got in, but don't you leave this house. Check all the doors and the windows. I'll throw the night latch on this. You go up to our room, stay by the phone. No one can get up those stairs without them creaking. First creak that doesn't call you in my voice, you pick up that phone and dial 999."

He was out of the house and then shaking the door handle. It was well and truly locked.

I was trembling, but not from lust anymore. I got my clothing reassembled, suddenly cold in the air-conditioned atmosphere. I checked the front door myself, and every window on the first floor, the back and side doors, and shoved chairs under the handles as an added precaution. I'd heard that worked.

Then I went upstairs and did those windows, peering out and not seeing much because of the trees that surrounded the house. There were black clouds far off to the west. It could rain.

By the time I got back to our room, I was exceedingly unhappy about this new development. I wished I'd gone with Rafe. Anything was preferable to sitting here, waiting, like a tied kid. The west meadow afire? The grass was dry and sere. But…

I touched my bruised throat. Galvano was not supposed to be after me now. He was supposed to be phoning Wendy Madison and extorting from her for a change. And all the guards were up at the big house, protecting her.

I dialed 999 said asked for the police station.

"This is Mrs. Rafael Clery." (Gawd, I sounded like the cat's pajamas with that erratic break in my voice.) "Our west meadow is on fire." (That sounded even worse.)

"Then call the fire department, lady."

"I did, but the fire could have been deliberately set, and I'm alone in the house. You see, I was assaulted yesterday at… at…" (I couldn't very well say Charlie's place, could I?)

"Who is this?"

"This is Mrs. Rafael Clery, Nialla."

"Good God, lady, why didn't you say so in the first place?"

The connection went dead. I had told him who I was.

"Mrs. Clery…" Sheriff Erskine's unmistakable baritone leaped out of the earpiece and forced me to hold the phone a few inches from my deadened ear. "What's this about a fire at your place?"

"The west meadow's on fire. My husband and the men are there. But I thought you should know…"

"But… but we've got the Herrington place staked out." He sounded aggrieved.

"I realize that, Sheriff, but, well, is it possible for you to investigate here?"

"Are you alone in the house?" He was furious now.

"Yes, but the place is tightly locked up. I checked all the doors and windows myself."

"Then you stay there. Forest, I want…" And the connection was broken.

Your kindly police force is mobilizing. Relax. Help is on the way!

Relax?

I sighed and thrust the ends of my shirt into my shorts. Damn it!

"This is Mrs. Rafael Clery."

That had a very satisfactory sound to it.

It wasn't a creaking I heard; it was a tapping. I froze so solid I could hear the pulse of the air-conditioner turning on in the basement. Did this house have a basement door? One I hadn't locked?

I crept to the staircase. Nothing! I went down a few steps, still hearing that tap-tapping, rhythmic, insistent, demanding. I got down far enough to see the front door and the porch. There wasn't anyone there. I went to the kitchen, but halfway across it I couldn't hear the tapping.

It was louder in the hallway, and louder still as I crept back up the stairs, over the creak.

As I came level with the second story, I saw Dice at the dormer window of our room, tapping the pane with his nose.

I rushed to throw open the sash. "Dice, you scared me to death!" One overhanging beech limb swayed up and down. He'd taken the upper route. He wouldn't come in. He weaved in and out, more garrulous than I'd ever heard him. I peered as far as I could over the roof, but the ground below was invisible. The air was suffocatingly sultry. "Rafe send you to keep watch? Come on in, boy. Come in."

He ran a few steps down the roof, prrrowwing agitatedly. He must have smelled the meadow fire. I glanced up now, but this room faced east, and the meadow fire was to the west… Then why was I seeing a thin plume of smoke! A thin plume? From a meadow fire?

I wondered later that I hadn't tripped over Dice as we took those stairs in a mad plunge down. Dice's excited prancing didn't help as I fumbled with the double latch, double-hatched, double-damned door. The phone began to ring. I got the upper half open. To hell with the bottom, although I scratched my thigh on the brass weather-stripping as I vaulted over.

The pebbles of the drive made me excruciatingly aware that I had no shoes on, but I merely took to the grass, following Dice. He didn't need paths, and led me through the beeches and under-plantings to the back of the stable.

I could hear the sirens on the highway. I could hear, more acutely, the kicking and whinnying of fire-scared horses. And the dominant piercing note of Orfeo's bugling.

I remember grabbing a sheet from the drying rack, and I guess I grabbed the pitchfork as I raced past the manure pile. And stopped. Because the fire was not in the stable. It was outside. Someone had heaped hay and straw in the fifty-gallon oil can used as a water barrel for the roof drains. More smoke than fire. Not that it mattered to Orfeo, because the smoke, blowing in his window, was sufficient to start him going. The fire had been deliberately set to lure me here.

The meadow blaze had been started to draw the men from the house and the stable. How had Galvano got past the gate? The dogs? Where was he now?

Dice leaped to the small barred window at the back of Orfeo's box, wriggling to get his hips through the bars. The frantic gelding was plunging and kicking, shrieking with fear. The whole stable was in an uproar.

I shoveled manure into the barrel. The stench was incredible, but the sheer sopping wet mass would put out the fire.

I hefted the pitchfork, ready to commit a little mayhem myself with it when I found Galvano. I tried not to think of Orfeo's terror. He was in no present danger, whatever he thought.

Galvano'd got rid of the men, probably watched them leave so he could be sure I was alone in the house. Had he tried to enter and found it locked? Probably. But if he'd seen the windows locked and closed, how had he planned to lure me out with smoke? The phone! It'd been ringing as I climbed over the door hatch. He could've called from the stable phone in the tack room. The intercom dialing system was printed beside the receiver.

I picked my way back to the front of the stable, wishing I'd had wit enough to put sandals on. And there was no way for me to peek into the tack room from the outside of the stable rectangle. The windows were small and high and impossible to reach because of the dense foundation plantings. I started for the main archway and halted. That would be the route Galvano expected me to take.

I raced around the stable again, wincing as I passed Orfeo's stall. From the sound of it, he'd' angled his kicks at the stall door now. It wouldn't last long. The upper hatch was open, and the bottom was nowhere near as substantial as the doors in G-Barn.

I pressed myself against the wall of the pasture gate, easing my way carefully forward until I could see the tack-room door. He had to be in there. That was where the phone was. And he must be expecting me through the main arch. Or had he gone up to the house to check?

I had to catch him now. A sudden ripping of wood close by told me that very shortly the yard would be full of frightened horses! Horses. I glanced quickly at the tack-room door and darted around the corner, keeping low. I peeked at the first box. Bay heels lashed at the door. Which one was Sadie? I flipped the hatch lock free and ran on. Loose horses would bring Galvano out and the men back! Gray hooves battered the next door. Praying that this wasn't Maisie, I waited for the next kick and then slipped in as fast as I could move. The gray had her head down for another go when I grabbed the loose halter rope and jerked her head up. Flipping the end over her neck, I managed to jam it through the nose-band ring on the other side. This must be Sadie. She was calming with a human near her.

Wood was splintering all over the yard now. I turned the mare, vaulted to her back, nearly spiking her with the pitchfork, and then kicked her out of the stall, just as the bay in the first box erupted into the yard, with Maisie on my right charging to freedom a second later.

I had headed the excited Sadie toward the tack room when hell really broke loose. Orfeo splintered the last cross-piece of the hatch, banged hysterically about in the box a moment more, and tore into the yard just as the skinny figure of Caps Galvano emerged from the empty stall on the other side of him. He collided against the flank of the fire-crazed horse. Behind the gelding streaked the mighty Eurydice, his tail enormous, every hair of his spine as erect as a porcupine's fighting crest. I couldn't imagine what Dice thought he'd accomplish by chasing after Orfeo. But then, I wasn't all too sure what I was trying to do, having the devil's own time keeping my seat on Sadie's smooth bare back (how in hell had knights managed lances?) without skewering myself or the mare. The sweat pouring down my face half-blinded me as well.

As it was, the dogs made the "capture." Orfeo, witless as all horses are when fire-scared, came thundering back to his own stall in time to knock Galvano down again. Rafe and Dennis, legs pumping, arms flailing, narrowly missed the bay's stampeding exit as they came through the arch. Maisie had found her way out the pasture door, and Orfeo, Dice gamely a jump behind, crashed after her. I remember thinking that there was nothing impeding his use of that off-hind now.

Rafe and Dennis got to Galvano before the dogs were thoroughly roused by the blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Sadie kept rearing, and I got a round-about glimpse of Jerry's arrival, but Rafe bellowed at him to investigate the fire. Dennis appeared to be trying to protect Galvano from Rafe's flying fists when a bullhorn blasted the confusion. The staunch defenders of law and order had arrived, stopped by the electronically sealed gate.

Albert was now clinging to Sadie's bridle, yelling to me something about the pitchfork. I nearly skewered him, but he wrenched it from my hand. Then Dennis was shouting at me to get off so he could let the cops in.

And really, the whole scene was unbelievable. And got more so. There was Albert, like some diabolic gnome, holding a pitchfork inches from Galvano's chest as the man lay groaning in the dust; Dennis riding like a centaur out of the yard; and Jerry coping with the unwieldy bulk of a foam extinguisher, demanding to know where the goddamned fire was.

Rafe caught hold of my wrist, jerking me half off my feet and into Orfeo's stall. He flipped me over his knee. and proceeded to pound my bottom with a hard and merciless hand until I begged him to stop.

"I told you to stay in the house, Goddamnit, Nialla."

"You love me. You love me. You love me," I screamed at him from the straw, weeping with joy and pain.

He grabbed me up and began shaking me, his face a blur of soot-streaked white, his blazing eyes my point of focus.

"You ever, ever disobey me like that again, Nialla Clery, and I will wear the hide off your ass with a crop."

"You love me. Say it. You love me!"

He stopped shaking me, glaring ferociously.

"Of course I love you!" He roared it louder than the bullhorn. "Why in hell did you think I married you, you witless woman?"

He was dragging me out of the stall just as Sheriff Erskine heaved himself out of the first squad car.

"Mrs. Clery wasn't harmed, was she?"

"Harmed?" Rafe snapped the word out so violently Erskine backed up hastily. "No, she's not harmed!" Then Rafe took a deep breath and a tighter hold on my wrist, pulling me past Erskine to where two troopers were hauling the dazed and bleeding Galvano to his feet.

Before anyone could interfere, Rafe had grabbed Galvano by the jacket front.

"What in hell were you trying to do to my wife… you…"

Galvano started screaming for hell, the cops tried to peel Rafe's hand loose, stepping on my bare feet because Rafe had not let go of my wrist, and there were all these heavy bodies crushing me.

I'm not sure how everyone got untangled, but then Galvano was sobbing out that he hadn't been doing anything wrong. Rafe yelled louder that he was a murderer, a pyro. Only the troopers got Galvano into the police car and jack rabbited off.

"Now, just a goddamned minute there, Clery," Erskine started bellowing, because Rafe transferred his fury to Erskine, but Dennis and Jerry intervened. "You cool off or you'll get served with assaulting an officer."

"Berserk" was the only word for the expression on Rafe's face. I was sick with fear. And staggering, started to fall. Fainting!

I didn't, but it had the desired effect, Rafe even caught me before I hit the ground.

"Nialla! Nialla! Now, look what you've done, you goddamned fuzz head. Jerry, get Bauman here!"

Rafe practically raced to the house with me, all the time Erskine bellowing his ineffectual, "Now, just a minute there, Clery," in our wake.

It seemed advisable to come to my senses the moment Rafe laid me on the couch so he'd think of something else besides his quarrel with the Sheriff. I groaned and waggled my head, but I couldn't look Rafe in the eye after pulling such a stunt. I caught glimpses of Erskine's pale face, though. Was he scared of swooning women, or had he just realized what a beating I'd saved him?

At any rate, by the time Bauman arrived, everyone had calmed down, and sane conversation was possible.

I was one mass of bruises and lacerations. I wasn't very comfortable lying down either, but I could hardly explain that to the doctor. However, he did bandage the worst cuts on my feet and put something aromatic on my incipient bruises, all the time scolding me for being such a goddamned fool. I couldn't defend myself at all because the screaming excitement earlier had rendered me mute. So I lay wan, tired, and disgustingly smug while the others hashed over the events.

Michaels was contacted and had advised us he was returning immediately. Suddenly a stickler for the forms of law, Erskine said he could charge Galvano only with trespass, arson, and assault and battery. I had perjured myself with a nod to the fact that J recognized him as my attacker in the stable.

How he got on the property was a trifle embarrassing for Rafe, because in an effort to get Wendy Madison back in her own house quickly, Rafe had unlocked the side gate, leaving it unlocked while he and Michaels drove her home. Galvano had evidently been hiding on the grounds, seen his opportunity, and taken it. He'd made it to the west meadow and set the dry grass afire. When Rafe and the others arrived, with the dogs, he'd hightailed it up to the house. Only it was locked. So he'd set the barrel fire and phoned me to be sure I knew the peril in which my horse was. What he intended to do when he'd captured me, we never knew. I don't like to speculate.

Michaels landed in the charred west meadow, and his arrival cleared everyone out of the house. The thunder I could hear outside was nothing to the storm in my husband's face. My fanny began to smart, and I slipped my hands over it protectingly, trying to make myself very small in the couch as he loomed, Big Chief Lightning Eyes, over me.

"All right, Nialla Donnelly, you've been getting away with murder, but the crisis is now over, and you, young lady, are going to behave yourself. If you ever disobey a direct and reasonable order from me again, and if you ever pull another stunt like that stagy faint…" Then his grim expression softened, and he was sitting on the couch and pulling me into his arms, his hands roughly tender. "Of course I love you, Nialla Clery."

"But you never said it."

"Did I have to?" he demanded fiercely, looking deeply into my eyes. "It's so easy to say." His lips twisted bitterly.

I thought of two discarded wives, Amazons who'd been anything but economical. I thought of his mother, and I wanted to kill her and them. Instead I held his soot-smeared face in my hands and tried to iron out the bitter lines with my fingertips.

"No, it's not easy to say, Rafe Clery. If you mean it and it's all you have to offer."

"All you have.."." The twist in his smile straightened out. "If you do mean it, Nialla, say it?"

In his eyes was that unexpected vulnerability and wariness that I'd glimpsed before, and an intense yearning that had nothing whatever to do with physical lust. In the second I had this clear view to the core of a complex personality, I experienced an elation, a humility, and a womanly wisdom that made me simultaneously maternal, wanton, and sad.

"I love you, Rafe Clery. I love you very much in many ways I didn't know a woman could love a man. I fell in love with you when you walked into the stall beside Orfeo. I hated every woman who had ever ridden in that car and worn your scarves. I nearly cried when you walked out of the stable after dinner like an operatic Prussian. And after we rode together that morning-as if we'd done it all our lives-I hated myself because I was so damned inadequate for you. No,, you shut up and listen. It was absolutely indecent of you to appear in that excuse of a bathing suit you wear. It was a dirty, dirty trick, Rafael Clery, and I only just realized that you knew exactly what you were doing to me, even then…"

The smile in his eyes, on his lips, was real, and his hands seemed to move with joy on my body as he swung me around, cradling my head on his chest in the crook of his arm. My voice was coming back, but still breaking now and then, and he cuddled me, with this idiotic smile on his face.

"I damn near flipped," he said, low-voiced, "when I realized you'd been raped. I thought I'd do something wrong and spoil any chance of waking you up again."

I laughed, suddenly very sure of myself with this man for the first time.

"Then you didn't realize I gave up the moment you sat down on that lounge like some damp eunuch?"

He threw his head back, laughing. "Damp eunuch? I'll eunuch you," he said with a growl, but I held him off. "You will have the courtesy to hear my declaration of love and affection all the way through."

His eyes remained brilliant with laughter and love, but his face was a mixture of astonished delight.

"Then you waltzed up to me with that girth, and that clinched it! Ooops, I'm doing it now!"

"I love you, I love, love you, Nialla," he crowed. "I was so afraid that it was only gratitude you felt…"

"Gratitude?" I sat up so fast I almost clobbered him under the chin. "For the misery you've put me through the last few days, wondering if you married me only because you felt some responsibility for Russ Donnelly's orphaned kid, or because you wanted to own Orfeo."

His face was abruptly grave. "When I saw you from the stands in Sunbury, Nialla, on that sorrel, I was positive I knew you. And I couldn't imagine who I knew who rode like that or who owned that gorgeous sorrel mare. That's why I came to G-Barn. I had to find out who you were." His smile was ineffably tender as he stroked my cheek. "I didn't know it, but I was hoping to find a gawky redheaded tomboy I'd seen on an old show horse in Agnes du Maurier's pasture. She told me to keep my cotton-pickin' hands off her trainer's daughter for at least ten years. I was pretty bitter right then-I'd just paid through the nose to get rid of Amazon Number Two. You know how Agnes talked, blunt and to the point. She'd a few choice remarks to make about my life and habits, and wound up giving me some stringent advice. I've never been sorry I took it. Her final words went something like this: 'And the next time you pick a wife, pick one who rides, one you can mount without a ladder. Don't pick a shower, pick a winner. Like that nice kid down there.' And she pointed toward you."

"You mean, you didn't make that up… about waiting for me to grow up?"

He shook his head slowly. "I don't bother with social lies."

"You mean, you knew who I was all along?"

He shook his head again, ruffling my hair. "No. I was looking for red hair, remember? But after we rode that morning, I had my suspicions. Your father taught you a lot of his distinctive style, Nialla. I almost asked you flat out, the morning after the fire, only…" He hugged me very hard, his lips moving softly against my cheek. "God, Nialla, I can't believe my luck."

It was so very magical to be held close, knowing I was really safe, with his arms locked around me, our tired bodies comfortable, our minds attuned. I've no idea how long we might have stayed that way if Jerry hadn't come running up the front stairs, knocked urgently on the front door.

"Jesus, can't I ever have you to myself?" Rafe released me reluctantly.

"Boss, we've caught all the lose stock but… Orfeo. And, boss, he's in such a state I can't get near him. You know damned well Albert won't help, and Dennis… well…"

"Have you located him?" I asked, amazed at how revived I was when I got to my feet.

"In the jump pasture, ma'am, and we can't get near him."

"He hasn't hurt himself?"

"Gawd, no." Jerry sounded disgusted.

"And the cat?" Rafe asked.

Jerry swore under his breath. "He's sitting on the stone fence laughing. Honest, boss, he's sitting there laughing!"

He probably was, if I knew Dice. But that meant that Orfeo was really okay.

"Rafe, we really ought to get him in."

"I brought the hackamore and a rope," Jerry said, holding them out helpfully. "There's one helluva storm ready to break, too."

"Get your shoes on this time, Nialla."

One was under the couch, and I finally located the other under the end cushion.

By the time we started for the jump pasture, the sky was completely black with thunderheads, roiling and growing if you glanced up at them. Orfeo wasn't usually bothered by thunderstorms, but…

"We can put him in the orchard pasture shed overnight, Nialla," Rafe said as we half-trotted, half-walked along. "Jerry says the smoke smell in his stall is very noticeable. The rain may wash it away, but a night in the orchard shed won't hurt him. A night in a smoke-filled stall might."

Lightning crackled open the sky above us; thunder rolled a peal a few heartbeats later. But we were at the jump pasture, and the flare outlined Orfeo midfield. When the thunder died away, I called him and saw the magnificent head turn. A cat's complaint wafted across the storm-silenced field. I called again, and almost cried out with relief as the horse began to move toward us.

"Now, if that thunder'll shut up…" Rafe said as we ducked under the fence slats.

I kept calling encouragingly to Orfeo, walking slowly to meet him, Rafe at my side. Thunder rumbled much too near, and the black gelding tossed his head, whinnying sharply. He began to trot, Dice veering to run beside him, and Orfeo bent his head briefly to check on the cat. Fifty feet from us another clap of thunder sent him shying away, galloping off at a tangent.

I waited until the thunder died and called him again. Almost as if he recognized that I was the only safety in this darkening, terrible-noised world, Orfeo wheeled back, racing to me, showering my legs with cut turf as he slid to a halt.

For a horrible instant I thought Rafe might move too swiftly to secure the gelding. I ought to have known better. Rafe still considered Orfeo my horse, and only I had the right to manage him.

I got the hackamore over the gelding's nose, up over his ears, talking to him quietly. Orfeo snorted restlessly, the pre-storm tension swirling around us.

"You'd best ride him back, Nialla," Rafe said, and laced his fingers to give me a leg up.

On sudden impulse I shoved the bunched reins at Rafe.

"I can't sit. On him or anything, you damned sadistic wife-beater. You ride him."

Rafe gave me such a look I shall never forget, and then, as if he was afraid I'd change my mind or something, vaulted to the gelding's back like a circus rider. Instantly he was stroking the startled gelding's neck, crooning to him, letting him accept the weight of an unfamiliar rider. Cautiously he took the reins, making contact with Orfeo.

Thunder boomed, lightning crashed, illuminating Rafe's exultant face. Orfeo pivoted, not from the unaccustomed rider, but away from the sound. Rain pelted down, huge, heavy globbets of water.

I stepped back. "Go on, Rafe. I'll follow." Dice brushed against my legs, meowing with distaste for the rain, and then plunged in mad leaps across the pasture to the fence.

"The gate's over to the right, Nialla. About ten feet."

"Gate?" I demanded, laughing. " 'Fraid of a little bitty fence, steeplechaser?"

"I love you, Nialla," Rafe shouted above the thunder.

I saw him lean forward, watched Orfeo move out, lift into a canter in a few strides.

There was more than one fence in the path Rafe took to the perimeter of that pasture. And lightning obliged as they took the double hurdle. They were dark shapes across the storm-black field at the broad water jump. I could feel the beat of speeding hooves through the soles of my sandals as Rafe headed Orfeo toward the pasture fence. Orfeo squealed as he tucked his hooves under him and soared over. It was an expression of surprise, not fear or fright, as if he approved of the fearlessness of his rider -as much as I did.

I trotted after them, lifting my face to the sky to be washed in the torrents that fell, warm and soft.

Dice reached the shed before me and was already ensconced on the rafter above the two straight stalls. He was licking himself furiously, growling displeasure at the soaking.

Rafe was wiping Orfeo down with clean straw as the gelding lipped hay from the manger as placidly as if he hadn't been hysterically insane with fear a scant hour before. I arrived in the shed's open end just as lighting flashed and thunder cracked.

"Easy, lad," Rafe soothed Orfeo's restless dancing. "My God, look what swam in!" And he went right on tending the gelding.

Well, I couldn't fight that. Didn't want to. I got into the shed and began to wipe rain from my arms and legs, wringing out my shirttails before I sagged wearily into the bedding of the other stall. And rose up with a pain-filled gasp. I really couldn't sit on anything, especially straw.

"What's the matter?" Rafe asked.

"You wife-beater. You miserable sadistic brute."

A bunched horse sheet was launched at me, accompanied by his pleased (damn him) chuckle. "Try this!"

I spread the sheet, doubled it after a moment's close thought, and then carefully settled down again.

"Did you see how he took that pasture fence, Nialla?" Rafe asked, his voice excited, as he couldn't restrain his enthusiasm any longer. "He’s fantastic. He’s incredible. And you're right about the speed in him. Good thing I know every inch of this farm, or we'd've come a cropper. And responsive? No wonder you can ride him with a hackamore. He's like a goddamn cutting horse. And I knew it! Ask Ted or Steve. I kept telling them all this horse needed was the right handling. You are a white witch, my dearest. A proper white witch."

A gust of wind whipped rain on my legs, so I scooted back into the stall. Lightning outlined Rafe coming toward me.

"Where are you?" His hand connected with my ankle, and then he flopped over on his back beside me, tiredly, reaching for my hand. "That's some storm. Well," and he exhaled deeply-"no possibility of that meadow fire smoldering with that drenching. Probably clear the stench from the stable, too. Couldn't you have found anything better than manure to douse that fire with, Nialla?"

"No." I couldn't have cared less. I was tired, my feet stung, my butt smarted, my throat throbbed; but Rafe was lying beside me, and all I could feel was his hand on mine.

"Did I really hurt you?" Rafe asked suddenly in a penitent voice.

"Yes. No."

He propped himself up on his elbow, grinning down at me in the gloom, and lifted my hand to his lips.

"Yes and no?"

"Yes, because it did hurt. No, because the hurt didn't matter because I knew you wouldn't have whaled me so if you didn't love me."

His eyes glittered as his hand dropped to my breast, slid inside the wet blouse and bra, gently exciting me.

"A good thing I admitted my fatal passion for you before I rode Orfeo, huh?"

"Mmmmm." I turned toward him eagerly.

He made an abrupt movement upward. "Let's get back to… No!" And he was back beside me again. "No one can interrupt us here, by God, and I've been aching for you all day." His hands were busy with my shirt, but no busier than mine. The wet shorts tore, and I giggled, struggling with his. But our wet skins were touching at last, and I could rub my palms up and down the smooth hard muscles of his back, down to his waist and around. Suddenly his fingers dug into my buttocks. I gasped, and he gave me several sharp little slaps. Incredibly aroused by that, I seemed to go mad, desperate for him, infuriated by his delighted chuckle for my wanton response. He was slapping me again, but now he was within, his lips fastened on one breast as I arched my back, straining to him.

Thunder and lightning were all around us, and in us. Fire and noise were part of the storm that seized us both and drowned individuality into one single, fused entity.