“Promise me,” she says, clutching my fingers with a surprisingly strong grip.
“I don’t need to promise. I want nothing to do with her.”
“She might make that hard for you. Women can be trouble.” She gazes at me, a pained expression on her face, and runs the back of her shaking hand down my cheek. “Sometimes you look just like him. So handsome.”
I hate that I have his blond hair and blue eyes. Muriel’s compared the two of us so often. His height. His hands. His short temper, too. She says there’s almost nothing of my mother in my appearance. Maybe my mother is on the inside. The horse-loving side. The part of me that wants to take care of this place and make it a haven, not go out there and destroy everyone and everything to prove I’m a man.
I stand up. “I have to get back to work.”
As I head for the back door, she calls after me, “Be careful, Cassian. Remember what happened to them. It could happen to you, too.”
I yank my boots on and stride across the yard. Talking to Muriel about my father was a mistake. She’s too full of memories and pain, and a twisted sort of respect for that brutal man. I’ve burned every photograph of him that I could find, but I can’t burn his hard, cleanshaven face and the uniform he wore from my mind. Paravel can’t wipe away his legacy by changing a few flags.
I’d hoped that other paying customers might follow Lady Aubrey, but the telephone has stayed resolutely silent. I’m going to have to do something I’m dreading.
I find Charlotte sitting cross-legged in the stables with a saddle in her lap as she cleans it. She takes one look at my expression and gives me a sad smile. “It’s all right, Cassian. I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. I wish I could keep you on.”
She gets to her feet and dusts off her hands. “I know you do. I’ve loved working here, and I’ll miss it.”
I watch her put the saddle and cleaning cloths away, feeling wretched. “If things change, I’ll hire you back in a heartbeat, I swear.”
Charlotte nods and heads out to her car. Now it’s just me and all these empty stables. What the hell am I going to do?4AubreyI ride at Bellerose Stables every day for the next week, and barely cross paths with Cassian Bellerose. Occasionally, I see him across the fields exercising Aster, or in the garden of the adjacent house, shirt off, axe in his hands, splitting logs. There are deep indentations by his hips that point down into his jeans and right at his you-know-what. He should cover himself up. It’s ridiculous. Ostentatious.
Highly distracting.
Cinnamon moves beneath me with her usual grace, soaring the jumps and cantering smoothly around the sawdust arena. Occasionally, I take her into the nearby South Row, the riding path that cuts through Royal Park. I overheard someone say that it used to be called the People’s Victory Gardens under Varga.
At the entrance to the park, there are two empty pedestals that seem like they once held statues. The larger one must have been for Chairman Varga. I suppose people pulled it down when he died. Even the plaque that bore his name has been smashed to pieces.
I slow Cinnamon to a walk and inspect the other plinth. Some of the plaque remains and I can read part of the name: —ld L—en.
—ld L—en? I don’t know who that could be, but then, I don’t know much about the history of the People’s Republic.
I urge Cinnamon into a canter, and we race through the sunshine. South Row runs alongside what looks like it was once a fashionable street. The owners seem to be doing their best to make it like that again. Blistered and faded paint is being blasted away. Broken plaster, splintered wood and shattered paving stones are being ripped out. Wraye’s told me what it was like to live under Varga and see deprivation and hardship everywhere. People seem eager to put that world behind them.
Back at the livery stable, I brush Cinnamon, oil her hooves and turn her out into a field. Then I muck out her stall and clean her tack. I pay the workers here to do all this, like a horsey valet service, but looking after Cinnamon myself is rewarding and gives me something to do. I’m sweating by the time I’m finished with everything.
At the far end of the stable, the black horse is still in his stall. Poor thing, cooped up like this on such a beautiful day. All the other horses have been turned out, but he’s stuck in here like a dirty secret. I wipe my hands on the seat of my jodhpurs and head down to say hello.