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  Turning to her father, Denise said softly, “Papa, I’m sorry.”

  “We have a guest,” he reminded them evenly.

  “I apologize also, Papa,” Margaret said, as she placed one hand lightly on his forearm. “Shall I discuss the showing of the horses with Mr. Maguire?” Although she was suspicious of men, Margaret still loved her father and had ways of calming him during moments like these.

  “A reasonable conversation would be nice,” Alastair returned derisively.

  Margaret squared her shoulders and turned away from her family. As she walked stiffly across the room it occurred to her that she should not have taken such pains with her appearance tonight. It appeared that her plan had not affected Hunter Maguire the way it had previous callers. But then, Hunter was no like the other callers. She suspected he had come to bargain for more than a stallion.

  He was to remain with them for one week. At the end of that time, Margaret would see that he had completed his business and was on his way home.

  Alone.

  She approached him now and spoke in a cool, stilted tone as she stopped before him. “Mr. Maguire, you must forgive my brief lapse in manners. My sister and I became engrossed in conversation and I have neglected to welcome you to our home.”

  Hunter’s face betrayed nothing, but he was surprised. She acted as though they had never met before and yet, her first greeting as she had turned to him with a haughty, regale air, certainly had a purpose; to shock him? To drive him away? Either or both were more than likely based on her frigid bearing right now. Anxious to see how she would proceed, he said, “I understand, Miss Downing.”

  “Pap informs me you are in the market for a good stallion, Mr. Maguire.”

  “There was a time when you called me Hunter.”

  A slight frown creased her forehead as she pointedly ignored his statement. “We have some excellent stock to show you. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Will I, indeed?” A pleasant surprise would be a nice change, he thought.

  “We have a particularly fine mare as well,” she added, continuing in her businesslike manner. “Would you care to see her?” She kept her tone cool but pleasant enough, feeling strongly that the conversation was going well so far.

  A hint of humor developed in Hunter’s eyes. “I bought a fine mare here a few years ago. “Do you remember?”

  Margaret raised her glass, the best way she could think of to break eye contact with him in that moment.

  “But at the time you wanted me to choose another,” he teased.

  She remembered, all right, but Margaret did not want to. Remembering was painful. Her shoulders stiffened visibly before she lower her glass to a nearby table. “You should have taken my advice,” she returned coolly, “that little mare gave us an exceptional foal. Perhaps you would like to purchase her stallion. He’s an excellent two-year-old.”

  Hunter felt stung again. She was being deliberately distant but this time, he could see a spark of the young girl he had known. She was reacting toward him with an air of authority but, still, he could see her intensity when she spoke of the horses. That had not changed, he was certain. She was too rigid to appear exuberant, but there was something there that he remembered.

  Tipping his head to one side he asked curiously, “Should I take your advice about the stallion?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And of men?” he asked, frowning as her body stiffened in reaction.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she muttered, turning pointedly away to retrieve her glass of sherry.

  “Do you also consider yourself a good judge of men?” he pressed.

  Margaret’s eyes frantically darted toward the dining room. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said heatedly. “I must see about supper.”

  Hunter reached out to touch her forearm, wanting her to stay. But Margaret snatched her arm away obviously scalded by the brief touch. The icy stare she sent him momentarily distracted him from his course of questioning. What the hell? That quick glare was something to be reckoned with…something darkly meaningful. Suspicious, he asked, “Why are you running away?”

  Margaret reacted with a semblance of a laugh. “Don’t be silly. I’m going to see if our meal is ready.”

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  “I have.”

  He shook his head. “Not honestly.”

  “Mr. Maguire, a silly question hardly deserves an answer.”

  “Was it silly?”

  “I thought so.” She started to turn away again.

  His eyes narrowing, holding her attention as he set his own glass aside, he crossed his arms over his wide chest. “I am interested in hearing more about your ‘sensible’ attitude toward men.”

  Margaret’s complexion turned a livid, heated pink. “It’s very bad manners to eavesdrop on private conversations!”

  “I’m sorry, Margaret,” he offered sincerely, “but your conversation was hardly pitched to remain private and I must admit to being curious.”

  “I once heard of a boy who was curious about a rabbit trap,” she said evenly. “He could have lost more than his finger.”

  He grinned in obvious admiration. “Well done, Miss Downing.”

  “I thought so.”

  So she could still give as good as she got, he thought with something akin to pride. “Perhaps I should return to the subject of horses,” he offered.

  She nodded her head stiffly. “Perhaps you should.”

  “Very well, then,” he drawled. “You wouldn’t have an inkling as to what happened to mine this afternoon, would you?”

  “You really must excuse me,” she said coolly and this time, with a hearty laugh, he let her go.

  Margaret hurried through the dining room, her eyes scanning the table to make sure nothing had been forgotten. Only four places had been set. Florence and Jennifer would take their evening meal in the kitchen. She made a mental note to see that both girls went to bed after their supper as the hour would already be late.

  Entering the kitchen, Margaret silently prayed that Anna was ready to serve the meal. The end of their supper would signal the ending of the evening and Margaret had already grown weary of being in the company of their guest.

  Seeing Anna spoon small peas into a bowl, Margaret asked, “Is the meal ready, then? Shall I take the platters through?”

  Anne did not care to be rushed and frowned as she nodded toward the platter heaped with thinly sliced lamb. “Take that and the potatoes. I’ll bring the rest.”

  “Will you call everyone to the table, please?” Margaret asked and earned a glare from the older woman. “We have to do this properly, Anna,” Margaret insisted. “We don’t want to embarrass Papa.”

  “Always trying to please Papa,” the woman muttered as she placed a shoulder against the swinging door and disappeared into the dining room.

  Margaret sighed wearily and lifted two large platters of food before following. Why did Anna always have to be difficult, she wondered? And the woman always seemed to choose those moments when there was a lot to be done or a lot at stake.

  Sometimes Margaret thought that she alone was responsible for seeing to all that needed attention at Treemont.

  Arranging the platters carefully on the table, just as Anna was returning from announcing dinner, Margaret heard the soft voices of Florence and Jennifer as they bade Hunter good night. Her eyes scanned the table once again, noticing that the meat fork was missing. Whispering a soft expletive, she turned and raced back into the kitchen.

  When she returned to the dining room, Denise was seated and her father and Hunter were patiently standing behind their chairs.

  Margaret placed the fork where it belonged, but before she could touch her own chair, Hunter was there behind her, pulling it back from the table and waiting politely for her to sit. Somewhat flustered by this attention, she smoothed the back of her skirts with both hands then she gracefully sank to her place. “Thank you,” she murmured softly
, her eyes darting to her sister even as she reached for the linen napkin beside her place setting.

  Denise smiled brightly and Margaret frowned.

  From his place at the head of the table, Alastair looked at his eldest daughter and then at his friend. They were seated to his right and left, facing each other, and he wondered if the tension he could feel in the room would be a breeding ground for indigestion.

  “Margaret has been telling me you have some very good stock for sale at the moment, Alastair,” Hunter said as he speared a slice of lamb from the platter and placed it on his plate.

  “Indeed. We have several young stallions and one older fellow for you to inspect,” Alastair said, accepting the platter of meat from the younger man. “The older horse is the only one of the lot we know to be true.”

  Margaret’s eyes snapped up to her father’s. “You’re not speaking of Pride, Papa?”

  Alastair looked at her briefly before attending to the matter of filling his plate. “He’s the only young stallion we have at the moment that has been put to a mare.”

  Margaret lowered her fork to her plate and braced both forearms on the table edge. “You can’t mean to sell Pride?” she asked anxiously.

  “He’s to be offered for sale along with the others,” her father returned firmly.

  Maggie bit her lip, fretting. She loved all the horses but Pride was special. He was worth a dozen of the others and Treemont needed the foals he would produce. Surely her father understood that? Still, Margaret knew she could not argue the matter here in front of others. She would discuss the future of Pride when she and her father were alone.

  Hunter had watched the interaction between father and daughter very closely. Clearly, Margaret was shaken by her father’s announcement about this particular horse. He wondered if her reaction was due to a particular attachment to the animal or to the fact that a decision had been made without her knowledge. Since Margaret gave the impression that she was in control of a great many things, it would surely hurt her pride to have something like this announced without her prior agreement. On the other hand, Hunter could understand strong emotional ties to certain animals and, as he stared across the table, the look he gave Margaret was one of compassion.

  Raising her eyes from her plate, Margaret encountered the dark eyes of their guest and immediately decided she had somehow betrayed too much of herself and her feelings. He seemed to be offering pity and that was something she wanted from no one; particularly this man.

  Wanting to discharge the uncomfortable moment, Margaret straightened her spine and smiled at her father. “In any event, I believe we should reconsider selling any of the horses to Mr. Maguire, Papa,” she said tightly. “He seems to misplace them.”

  Alastair lowered his fork and frowned.

  Hunter threw back his head and laughed.

  CHAPTER 7

  Hunter now understood Alastair’s worry over Maggie. Obviously the woman was riding roughshod over the household and no one was stopping her. Someone should have taken her in hand years ago, but then, just a few short years ago Maggie had been a sweet, laughing, fun-loving girl. She hadn’t yet become Margaret the ice princess and war-monger.

  He mulled over what could have happened to the Maggie he had known. She certainly hadn’t come to bring him breakfast in bed.

  Swinging his long legs over the side of the bed, Hunter stretched, twisted his torso, and got to his feet all in one fluid motion.

  It was still dark outside as he padded across the room to retrieve his breeches and a plain white shirt. He wondered if any of the household would be about. Actually he hoped to have a quiet moment to sip some coffee before he was forced to face a whole herd of Downings. He had been pondering the changes in his friend’s family for a portion of the night and now, as he quietly left his room and traversed the wide corridor toward the winding staircase he concluded that the girls, with the exception of Maggie, had retained their pleasant and appealing natures. The question that now remained was that of one small scar and how it so dramatically affected Margaret’s disposition. Somehow, in his gut, Hunter knew there had to be more to this so-called ‘accident’ than he had been told.

  He had seen much about Maggie the previous evening that he did not remember and only snatches of the young woman he had known. She was now stiffly in control, while she had once been wonderfully carefree. She now smiled coldly, but he remembered laughing warmth. She now tried to avoid him whereas, in the past, she had continuously sought him out. But the wit was still there and the intensity of emotions, as witnessed by her fervor when talking about the horses. Her passions appeared to have been channeled in a different direction, while once she had turned to him with the hope of youth. She could obviously run the household as if she had been born to order troops about, but he sensed no happiness in her and he intended to find out why. He wanted to see Maggie laughing and smiling and affectionate again.

  The housekeeper was in the process of laying out a multi-course breakfast when Hunter entered the massive dining room. He smiled apologetically at the woman who was busy setting platters on the sideboard.

  “My apologies. I hope I am not disrupting your plans? I’m an early riser.”

  Anna Crosleigh was a thick-waisted woman of perhaps sixty who possessed an unpleasant manner. Hunter had sensed that she disliked him during his previous visit and he sensed it again now. She was unfriendly and unsmiling. He recalled Alastair explaining that he kept the woman employed only because she worked like a horse and seemed to like it that way. Well, as far as Hunter was concerned, a good day’s work did not compensate for having to suffer her rudeness. On the heels of that thought, he considered that perhaps Maggie had been associating too much with Anna! But the smile that formed on his lips was not one of humor.

  “Things is ready,” Anna said before hastily leaving the room.

  Hunter was pouring his first cup of coffee when he heard the sound of running feet and, sighing, he frowned. Obviously he was not to have a few moments alone with his coffee and his thoughts.

  In the next moment Jennifer charged headlong into the room, executing a well-controlled maneuver that prevented her from bouncing into him or the sideboard. “Good morning!” she chirped, grinning up at him while she reached for a plate. “Are you up to facing the wicked Downing girls today?” She helped herself to a slice of freshly baked bread and a substantial slice of smoked ham before turning toward the table.

  Hunter smiled as he took his coffee to the table and sat at the place he had occupied the previous evening. “I can tolerate some better than others,” he responded lightly.

  The girl sat opposite him and reached for her knife and fork. “I’m glad you get up early,” she said as she began cutting into the meat. “Now we can chat.”

  Hunter suppressed the urge to laugh and raised the cup to his lips. “And what would you like to chat about?”

  “Well,” she drawled and then swallowed. “I should tell you that Denise feels very badly about last night. She told me so when I went to wake her this morning.”

  “Denise need not feel badly.”

  “She said they were not very polite; that she and Margaret had another argument. But then, Denise and Margaret are always arguing.”

  “Really?” He raised a dark brow in question.

  Jennifer nodded her head and leaned toward him, her scowl intense. “Denise is the only one who stands up to Margaret,” she confided.

  Hunter leaned back in his chair and drew a small cheroot from his pocket, curious as to what and how much this child knew. “Why is that, do you think?”

  “No one else would dare defy Margaret. We always do as she tells us, until her back is turned, and then we let her go her own way.”

  “Is that what you do, Jennifer? Do you also let Margaret go her own way?”

  Jennifer studied her fork as a frown cross her cherubic face. “Sometimes Margaret is nice to me, but not much anymore, so I just leave her alone. She used to be fun, but not since
the accident.”

  Hunter got to his feet and moved to the sideboard. As he returned with the silver coffee pot in hand, he asked, “What sort of accident was it?”

  Jennifer shrugged as he took his seat. “I don’t know. Anna told me I was not to talk about it.” She chewed thoughtfully on a wedge of ham for a moment, considering. “I don’t think Denise and Florence know either. Some man hit Maggie and left that scar on her face, but I don’t know why someone would do such a thing. He must have been a beast, don’t you think?”

  “An ogre,” Hunter said quietly.

  “I’d bet you’ve never hit a woman.”

  He smiled in return. “Never. Nor would I.”

  “I knew that!” she declared with confidence before taking up serious study of her now empty plate. “I don’t remember when you were here before but Margaret used to talk about you a lot.” She raised her eyes to study his. “She was quite gushy about you, really.”

  Hunter laughed. “Gushy?”

  A smile lit up her eyes at his reaction. “You know…silly. Like older girls get sometimes when they talk about boys?”

  “Yes, I believe I know what you mean.”

  “Time to get ready for school, Jennifer,” a quiet voice announced from the doorway.

  Two pairs of eyes turned in that direction and Hunter’s expression turned to disbelief when he saw her. The vision of loveliness of the evening before had vanished, only to be replaced by a severe and unfeminine specter. Today Margaret had pulled her glorious hair back severely and her attire was that of a stable hand. He could not imagine anyone putting a rough plaid shirt and stiff dungarees next to a woman’s delicate skin, but she had done just that. And he was taking this fashion statement of hers as a direct challenge.

  “I’ve had Pride turned out into the paddock so you can see him running free,” she said as she picked up a cup and saucer.