The Horsemaster's Daughter

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They watched the herd until the sun lay low across the island, plunging toward the bay in the west. Eliza stood and brushed herself off. Some of the ponies looked up, but settled back to their grazing or resting when she and Hunter started along the path. About halfway to the house, she turned into a thicket bordered by holly and red cedar.

There in the middle of the clearing stood a weathered gray stump. Carved on the trunk was the name Henry Flyte, d. 1853, and, encased in sealed glass, a painstakingly copied verse Hunter recognized from The Tempest:

“Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.”

The image of Eliza Flyte, giving her father a solitary burial and marking the grave with the weird and beautiful verse, tore at his heart. The peaceful wonder of the afternoon had gone. “You should leave this place,” he said. “Make a new life somewhere else.”

She made her way back to the path. “You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I have riches beyond compare, here on this island.”

“And you’re content to live here for all of your days.”

Just for a moment, a secretive look flashed in her eyes. “I—yes,” she said hastily. “Why would I want anything else?”

“Because you’re human,” he said, speaking sharply. He wasn’t certain why she made him angry, but she did. “You don’t belong with a herd of horses. You belong with other people.”

“People like you?” She sent him an insolent, sidelong glance.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“I might just choke on all that Virginia charm,” she retorted, flipping her plaited hair with a toss of her head.

She made him want to stay long after common sense told him it was time to leave. Hunter watched the struggle between Eliza and the stallion with a mixture of admiration and hopelessness. There was something to be said for being stubborn enough not to give up, but how long should he let her keep denying the truth? The difficult battle of wills might go on for weeks, months, maybe even longer.

Enough was enough, he decided two days later. It was time to end the charade. He found Eliza and Finn easily enough. All he had to do was follow the stallion’s piercing, bloodcurdling scream.

They were on the long south beach, the one shadowed by the tallest dunes. Hunter was not surprised to see the horse up on his hind legs, his open mouth working furiously. Below him, Eliza looked helpless, yet curiously unafraid.

The stallion’s front hooves raked the air. Then he came crashing down mere yards from the woman. Up he went again, and down. Hunter imagined he could feel the ground shaking. A tight, nervous fear clutched his chest, but he told himself he’d only infuriate them both if he interfered. Though Eliza had made no progress with the horse, she had convinced Hunter that Finn would not hurt her.

The tantrum continued for a few more moments. Hunter waited on the dune until it subsided. Then the stallion planted his front hooves in the sand, and the woman reached out and touched him. The silent, familiar ritual gave the false impression that the horse was hers to command. But when she looped her soft rope over his head, he exploded again. He shook his head like a wet dog and started foaming at the mouth.

Eliza waited patiently, then started the ritual all over again. The crazed eyes of the stallion tracked her every move. The horse’s nostrils quivered and his muscles twitched. Yet after a while, Hunter realized the horse was standing his ground rather than going away. The next time Eliza put the rope around his neck, he pulled his head back but kept his feet firmly planted.

This was different, Hunter realized, lowering himself to the sand and forgetting his purpose. Something was changing, even as he watched. The stallion clearly didn’t like the rope, but the woman had somehow convinced him to bear it.

She went to his side, touched him gently along his neck and cheek. The horse stood frozen, alert but not alarmed. Eliza put the halter where the rope had been. She loosely placed it around his neck. Finn trembled, then broke away in a sweeping, athletic feint.

Hunter’s hopes plummeted. Enough, he thought, getting up.

But then the horse stopped and turned back toward Eliza. As if she had bade him, he walked to her and stood placidly while she touched him all over, head and neck and sides and flanks. His chestnut hide quivered beneath her small, questing hand, and he kept his bright stare fixed somewhere out beyond the waves. But he let her slide the halter over his muzzle and ears.

Then she tugged on the rope. The horse snorted and snapped his back, kicking up sand. Eliza let go and waited for him to calm down. He made a rumbling sound in his throat and dropped his head. She picked up the rope and positioned herself in front of him.

The horse gave a deep sigh, dipping his head in relief and surrender. The air between horse and girl seemed to tingle with electricity, yet the tension had a different quality now. Like a wave of wind through the marsh grass, an ineffable softening came over Finn’s body; he was visibly giving himself over to Eliza. This time when she started to walk, the stallion gave a nod of his noble head and followed. Hunter stood aside to let them pass. He knew he would never forget the sight of the black-haired girl leading the huge stallion along the path to the burned-out barn and paddock.

By magic, Finn had been transformed from savage to docile.

No. Not by magic. The girl had done it. The stallion’s madness had been cooled by the horsemaster’s daughter.

Eliza’s back and shoulders ached, but she felt warm all over with pleasure in the work she had done. Leading the stallion to the round pen, she felt a rare and welcome lifting of the spirit. It was a good feeling, clean and pure, that rose and spread through her. She had found a way to understand this horse, had managed in some small part to penetrate the scrambled rage inside the confused animal’s head.

Like all of his breed, he was not made to be alone. He was a social animal, born to live in a herd. Instinct had driven him to seek out her company. She had simply opened the door, and he had stepped through.

She entered the pen, noting that the stallion’s withers tensed when they passed the wooden slats. The voyage across the sea had involved a pen, and that structure was part of Sir Finnegan’s fright and confusion.

She had no recollection of the one time she had voyaged across the sea. According to her father, she had been only weeks old, and nursed by a Danish woman en route to Maryland. Her father spoke little of the past. Secrets lurked there, she knew, and if Henry Flyte had kept them in his heart, he had had his reasons. She just wished he had told her about her mother before he died.

In the middle of the pen, the stallion flicked his ears in nervousness. Though he stood still, he swung his head from side to side occasionally. He had come a long way from the fearful animal on the scow, though.

“Well done, Miz Flyte,” said a low masculine voice. Hunter Calhoun stood outside the pen, watching her and the stallion.

She felt his approval like the warmth of the sun, and it meant so much to her. She’d had no idea that she was so hungry for this…connection. For months she had lived alone in the wilderness, content with her animals and books, never thinking she needed anything more. Yet the way Calhoun made her feel, with his words and the soft look in his eyes, made her realize how desperately lonely she had become.

She wondered if he could tell she was blushing. “Still intent on shooting him?” she asked in a teasing voice.

He walked into the round pen, latching the gate behind him. But instead of going directly to the horse, he walked over to Eliza. She was unprepared for what he did next. He reached out with great strong arms and grabbed her by the shoulders. His fierce embrace held not warmth, but intensity and desperation.

“I didn’t want to shoot that horse,” he whispered into her hair. “I surely didn’t.”

Frozen by amazement, Eliza simply stood there in his embrace. The stallion ignored them both, tugging indolently at a tuft of grass. Eliza’s eyes drifted half shut, and just for a moment she thought of nothing at all. She merely let her senses turn on, much as a wild animal’s do, taking in the essence of this creature holding her so tightly. The finely woven linen of his shirt felt cool and smooth against her cheek. The fabric smelled lightly salty from the sea air. His hair, long enough to brush his collar, held the clear golden color of the sun. And his skin was scented with a strangely evocative combination of sweat and salt.

His hand moved. Slowly, feeling its way, it skimmed upward over her back so that his fingers found the nape of her neck and pressed there. She felt almost compelled to tip back her head, baring her throat, completely vulnerable to him. Soft heat swirled through her, and she felt such a terrible wanting that it frightened her. Summoning all her self-control, she resisted the warm pulse of her body’s needs and shoved him away.

“I told you I could help this horse,” she said.

He took a step back. “I didn’t believe you could break him, until I saw it with my own eyes.”

She drew herself up, disliking his choice of words. “My father called it ‘gentling.’ Breaking a horse is a savage, dangerous practice.” She watched Finn with a welling of pure affection. “It was a matter of gaining Finn’s trust. He has no idea what patience and dignity and respect are, but he needs them just the same. A horse doesn’t lie, Mr. Calhoun. Not ever.”

“Humans lie all the time.” He leaned back against the fence. Across the circle, the big chestnut horse browsed in a clump of clover. “Finn could have gone anywhere on this island,” he said at length. “And the only place he wanted to be was with you.”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not black magic,” she said testily. She gestured toward a lean-to at the end of the paddock. “There’s a scythe in that toolshed over there. You can get started on the bigger pen. It’s best to have you working nearby so he can learn who his owner is. You need to clear that field, and later see about fixing that lower fence rail. It’s almost rotted through.”

He fixed her with a narrow-eyed stare, his earlier gratitude gone. “I don’t take orders.”

“I didn’t think you would. You probably aren’t even used to doing work.”

The blisters on Hunter’s hands rose before noon, and burst before one. The sun burned through the clouds and beat like a hammer of fire on his bare head as he worked. He was no stranger to this sort of labor. He had wanted to tell her that. But she wouldn’t have believed him, for she considered him a lazy planter who amused himself by racing horses. Or a bungler who maimed himself with a hammer. Best to show her who he truly was. She seemed the sort of woman who believed her eyes more readily than her ears.

From the corner of his eye, he watched the stallion in the adjoining pen. The animal stood calmly in the shade. She had put soft leather hobbles around his forelegs, and he tolerated them as he had the halter.

Hunter tried not to wonder where Eliza had gone and what she was doing. But it was all he could think about. She had amazed him. In a world that held very few surprises, she had surprised him. Her bond with the horse seemed so natural. Hunter had watched with his own eyes as the barrier separating human from horse had melted away. He had seen, between girl and stallion, a touch so intimate that it was like the touch between two lovers.

Why did her manner with the horse make her so attractive to him? Hunter pondered the question as he worked, heaving scythed plants up and over the rail, his movements as methodical and regulated as a tobacco worker’s. It left his mind free to think about Eliza Flyte.

With no sense of vanity or even gratitude, Hunter knew he had loved some of the most extraordinary belles in Virginia, so a barefoot island girl should not stand out in the pantheon. Yet in her own way, Eliza Flyte was extraordinary too. She was not pretty, but clear-eyed and dark-haired in a way that commanded attention. She wasn’t charming. Raised by a mysterious man in the middle of nowhere, she lacked the refinements of a well-brought-up lady. She dressed poorly and spoke oddly, and yet she was the most compelling woman he had ever met. There was something about her that he recognized. Suddenly, a part of him emerged that he had never been able to bring out before. Her freshness felt brand new, made him feel brand new.

In the years after returning home from the University of Virginia, Hunter had been treated to a variety of women. As the elder son of the master of Albion, he had regularly reviewed a bright parade of eligible ladies all vying for his favor. Some of them were willing to do more than flirt. Some of them were prettier than a girl had a right to be—particularly Lacey Beaumont.

Fair-haired and merry-eyed, she had captured his heart and held it for longer than he should have let her. Long enough for him to convince himself that the match—arranged years before by their parents—was founded on love and trust, and that their vows actually meant something.

Disaster was the crucible that melted their marriage. Lacey had taught him the painful lesson that even the brightest love could not transform the world. Perhaps a deeper love would have held them together through the years of struggle after Albion had failed. Perhaps not. Hunter would never know. What he had begun to suspect, as time marched on and his heart grew icy and hard, was that true love was an illusion. A hoax made up by poets and dreamers.

Out here, on this wind-torn island where breakers crashed and willets wheeled, he seemed far from all the intrigue and entanglements of the past. He found that he liked being out here, on the edge of everything, where earth and sea and sky met and the lines blurred. The hugeness of the sea put his own world into perspective. Perhaps that was the appeal of the island. Perhaps that was why Eliza Flyte stayed here, her back squarely turned on the world.