In the Brief Eternal Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

vegetables and lemon cake. None of the four wasted
time on conversation as they filled their plates. After being in
the raw weather for most of the day, their appetites were mighty
and the Squire spent a pleasant hour enjoying his meal, drinking
further, and successfully pushing from his mind the fact that he
was going to have to disappoint the duke and he was not looking
forward to it.
    They were just satisfying the final twinges
of hunger with the lemon cake when St. James returned to the
conversation of the Squire's filly. “You have other plans for the
filly besides selling her, Squire?” he asked. He had pushed himself
back from the table and, unlike the others, a great deal of the
food remained upon his plate. He refilled his glass, for the fourth
time, the Squire counted, and now sipped from it steadily.
    A boozy bloke, for all his elegance, the
Squire thought. Not that he could hold that against the fellow,
being a rather boozy bloke himself. “Well, miduke. It's Lizzie that
I'm concerned for. She doesn't wish to sell the horse.”
    The duke raised his brows. “Was I mistaken in
believing the point of my visit today was to be, if I were
satisfied, the acquirement of this horse? Bertie, is that not what
you understood after speaking to this man last night?”
    Bertie lowered his glass. “I told you all I
knew, St. James.”
    The Squire drew himself up in his chair. “If
that be true,” he pronounced, “he would have told you of it being
an iffy proposition, miduke.” He took a hearty bite of lemon cake
and when he spoke again, several crumbs sprayed out and down his
immense stomach. “That horse is the only means I have of securing
my daughter's future.”
    St. James was half slouched in his chair. His
glass made a steady journey from table to mouth. “Indeed, that is
what Bertie conveyed to me. What is your daughter's desired outcome
for this horse, may I ask.”
    The Squire lost some of his stiffness and his
hand again found his own glass. He had every appearance of a poker
player settling in for the real play that may well take him into
the wee hours of the morning. “She wishes to rent the filly out to
you, so to speak. You breed her to your stud and receive the foal,
but she keeps the filly. For a fee, of course.”
    “Of course. And your desired outcome? Does it
differ from your daughter's?”
    The Squire took a heavy swig that emptied his
glass. “Indeed, miduke. It does.”
    St. James rose from the table, refilled the
Squire's glass and his own. Bertie and Ryan demurred. Then the duke
returned to his seat and his attention back to the Squire. And his
gold eyes were now half-hooded as though already in deep thought.
“You may begin, Squire. Tell me your concerns for your daughter and
I will endeavor to come up with a solution that you may live
with.”
    The Squire took a moment to look at the faces
about him. Young Ryan, a slight frown of perplexity upon his face
as he followed all of the conversation. Bertie, whose blue eyes met
his with impassive reassurance. And St. James, whose half hooded
eyes revealed nothing, who lazed in the chair, his legs stretched
and crossed in luxurious languidness. The Squire hunched a little
defensively in his seat, his only seeming comfort the regularly
refilled glass in front of him. With a feeble gathering of courage,
he said to St. James, “I don't much like you. I've heard enough
about you even in this far-flung region of the realm to know that
you are more devil than saint you are titled.”
    “Indeed, I have never denied it,” St. James
returned.
    “I did not know it were you I would be
dealing with. Your man, friend, whatever he is, failed to include
that bit of information.”
    “Indeed, if you have other takers you prefer,
I do not see them here before you.” St. James lost his air of
languidness as he sat abruptly forward. “Come, Squire. Need I sum
up what I have surmised and which you are now so reluctant to put
into words? It is your daughter's