A Wild Legacy

by Celeste De Blasis

Genres: Classics; Historical Fiction; Sagas; War & Military; Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

Lexy Culhane follows in stunned silence as her father bundles her younger brothers onto the train in a midnight flight away from the only life they have ever known. It seems impossible to her that her gentle, loving mother could have shot a man.



Despite the shock, Lexy soon grows to love her new home at Wild Swan, the grand horse farm in Maryland run by her formidable grandmother, Alexandria Falconer. It is from Alex that Lexy has inherited her fiery and rebellious spirit, and which eventually leads her headlong into a career as a crusading reporter.



When Lexy meets enigmatic fellow reporter Hawk MacKenna, she feels she has finally found her soulmate. But Hawk's life is shadowed by a mistake from his youth, and still haunted by her mother's actions, Lexy struggles to trust him. When her relentless curiosity about his hidden past comes between them, Hawk leaves for the battlefields in the West and Lexy accepts an invitation from distant relations in England. But when she is offered a chance to stay, she faces a test—can she choose between building a new life in this foreign land, or returning to face the pain, and the love, that she left behind?



Contains mature themes.

Release date: February 15, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Travis Culhane heard the exuberant whoop of excitement and stopped speaking in midsentence, grinning as he turned to gaze across the crowd at his wife.

Though none of their horses was running in this race, Gincie appreciated the beauty and form of the filly that had just won, and her face was alight with approval.

She felt Travis’s gaze as if he had touched her, and she smiled back at him before focusing her attention on the horses once again.

Boston Thaine, Gincie’s great-uncle, observed the exchange between the two fondly. Gincie and Travis had been through so much, caught in the maelstrom of the civil war that had destroyed so many lives. Though they had met when they were both working on the Underground Railroad, guiding runaway slaves northward, when the war came, Travis, a Virginian, had felt honor-bound to fight for his home and thus the rebels. His years in gray had left him with a rare maturity in a man who was only thirty-five and with a limp, vestige of the wound that had nearly killed him at Gettysburg.

Boston was enormously proud of Gincie and of his sister Alexandria Carrington Falconer, for it was Alex and her husband, Rane Falconer, Gincie’s grandparents, who had raised the child to be the entrancing woman she was now. But Gincie burned with her own special fire that went beyond anything that could be taught.

Her hat covered most of her golden-brown hair and shaded her face, and she was too far away in any case for his aging vision to perceive her features clearly, but he knew her grass-green eyes were luminous, her finely etched features alive with the enjoyment of the day.

“We are fortunate to be so besotted with our wives,” Boston said, and he wished Rachel, his own wife of thirty-four years, were with him today.

When someone moved to stand close to her, Gincie started to turn, thinking it was Boston or Travis, but the words stopped her.

“Don’t turn around, just keep watching the track, sister mine.”

Gincie’s first reaction was total shock. She could not have moved if she had had to. It was impossible, unthinkable, but he had called her by name and by their relationship. It was his voice.

“Mark?” His name came out as a mere whisper of sound.

“The very same, and so pleased to see you after all these years.”

Five years it had been since the marauders had come to Wild Swan, the farm in Maryland where Gincie had been raised by her grandparents, five years since Mark had shot Samson, the runaway slave who had found refuge at Wild Swan and had become the guardian not only of the Thoroughbreds bred there, but of generations of children. The war had been drawing to a close, and the invaders had been no part of the military operations, just thieves and murderers scavenging the vulnerable land while the men were gone to war. And Mark had led the raiders to Wild Swan.

Travis, she needed Travis. Her paralysis broke, but before she could utter a sound or take a step, Mark gripped her arm to restrain her. “Do you want your pretty husband alive or dead?”

That was enough to freeze her in place again. “What do you want?” She hated the fear she heard in her voice.

“To share your good fortune,” he said. “I’ve kept my eye on you for some time now. Such a happy chance that brought us both to California after the war, and happier yet for me that you and your husband are so industrious and well connected. What I want is little enough to ensure the continued good health of little Lexy, the twins, and their father, not to mention Boston Thaine and his family.”

A shudder of horror went through her at his specific mentions of her family, and Mark felt it. “Oh, yes, I’ve watched them all,” he said. “It would be impossible to keep them all safe.” Then with sudden urgency, he rapped out his instructions. “Two weeks from today, before the noon hour, at the Russ House in San Francisco. Five thousand dollars. Come alone. Watch the race for proof of what I can do.”

As quickly as he had appeared at her side, he was gone. She caught only a glimpse of him as he melted into the crowd that was surging forward to have a closer look at the race about to begin.

It seemed to be happening very slowly, the horses leaping forward to run the first mile heat for the three out of five that would win the race. She saw their own three-year-old colt, Gold Fire, gleaming bright chestnut. He seemed to get off to a good start, but then he swerved madly, causing one of the other horses to jump and stumble in its attempt to get out of the way before it regained its footing and went on. But Gold Fire was totally out of control and veered toward the inside rail, crashing through it and going down with a high-pitched scream that sounded over the shocked gasps of the spectators.

“Oh, Christ!” Only at the sound of his voice did Gincie realize that Travis had appeared at her side, and then he was crossing the railings, running toward the fallen horse and rider.

Gincie stood absolutely still. Mark had done this, or caused it to be done. Gold Fire had been drugged; she was sure of it. She felt cold seeping into the marrow of her bones. It was murderous proof of what Mark could do to her family.

Tommy, the jockey, was shaken and bruised but otherwise all right physically. But he was distraught over the colt and kept murmuring, “I couldn’t hold ’im, just couldn’t hold ’im.”

There was no question of saving the colt. His right foreleg was badly broken, and he was screaming and struggling to get up. As soon as the track was cleared, Travis put a bullet through Gold Fire’s brain.

Their head trainer, Malachi, did not try to hide the tears in his eyes. “He was excited before the race, but he always was. I should have known this was different.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Gincie said, thinking that Mark was too clever to be found out but feeling compelled to ask anyway. “Was anyone near Gold Fire right before the race, any stranger?”

Malachi shook his head. “Only the usual, but the usual means a lot of people—jockeys, trainers, owners, some of the crowd. You think that…” His question trailed away as he contemplated the idea of someone tampering with the horse. It was not unheard of, but it was rare, usually involved heavy betting, and was a method despised by every honest horseman. Malachi was as honest as his father had been. And his father had been Samson, shot dead by Mark.

Travis studied Gincie’s set face. He did not reject her intimation that someone had interfered with Gold Fire, but, like Malachi, he could think of no reason it might have been done. “The bettin’ on these races just isn’t that great,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense that anyone would go to such lengths to stop Gold Fire.”

Gincie wished she had not wanted to know how Mark had committed the crime; she didn’t want Travis or the others to suspect that she knew it had been done and who was behind it. The evidence of Mark’s continued savagery lay before her. Although the colt had only been dead for minutes, already it seemed as if the red fire in his coat was fading. And the victim could have been Travis, or one of the children, or Boston, or Rachel, or the Thaines’ son Caton, or… the list of people Gincie loved was too long.

The days of dissembling had begun. Mark was her curse, hers to deal with.

“I suspect I just want a reason for this,” she said, her voice trembling. “Gold Fire was too fine to die this way. But at least none of the riders and none of their horses was killed.” With effort, she put more strength into her words. “Tommy, Malachi, neither of you is to blame yourself. We all know this is a dangerous sport, despite all of our efforts to make it safe. Gold Fire was hot-blooded; no one could have held him.”

When Travis put his arm around her to comfort her, she hardly felt it, and when other horse owners began to gather to shake their heads and commiserate with the Culhanes, she perceived their words as nothing more than a swirl of noise. Two weeks, she had two weeks to decide what to do about Mark.

When they returned to La Salida del Sol, their ranch in the Sonoma Valley north of San Francisco, it was all Gincie could do to control her panic until the three children came out to greet them, Lexy holding her twin brothers by the hands.

Gincie’s eyes filled with tears as she watched them come toward her, three matching heads of golden brown hair: Alexandria Abigail—“Lexy”—wiry and tall for her five years, green eyes dancing with happiness at having her parents home again; Kendrick Carrington—“K. C.”—and Taylor Falconer—“Tay”—sturdy little boys of two with the turquoise eyes of their father, though they were not identical twins.

Gincie hugged each in turn, so compulsively that K. C. squirmed and protested, “Mama, too tight!” before he gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

“Why are you crying?” Lexy asked, always direct.

Gincie swiped at her eyes. “I’m not crying, not really. I’m just so glad to see all of you!” To see all of you safe, she added silently, and a chill went through her as she wondered how often and where Mark had observed the children.

It didn’t take long for Lexy to notice that the red colt was not with the returning stock. “Where’s Gold Fire?” she asked.

Travis and Gincie exchanged a look; the temptation to lie, to say that the colt had been sold, was great, but both of them knew the truth would leak out one way or another.

Travis hoisted Lexy in his arms, and the drawl in his voice was more pronounced in tenderness. “Well, little darlin’, Gold Fire had an accident at the races. He bolted and broke his leg. We had to put him out of his misery.”

Travis loved all three of the children fiercely, but Lexy pulled at his heart for special reasons. She was his firstborn, conceived in the last dark year of the war; she looked so much like her mother; and she was such an intelligent, responsible child. It broke his heart to see the sorrow dawn in her eyes before she hid her face against his shoulder with a little sob. She had been raised around Thoroughbreds and other livestock since her birth at Wild Swan in Maryland, and she cared passionately about each animal on the ranch and mourned each loss. But she also had the acceptance that comes to children who live close to the land. Lexy already knew the cycles of life and death.

“We couldn’t let him be in pain, crippled so that he would never run or even walk again. He could not have lived long like that.” Travis rocked her in his arms.

At first Travis thought the loss of Gold Fire and having to tell the children were the cause of Gincie’s abstraction, but he soon doubted that judgment. The ranch had been a place of productivity and solace for both himself and Gincie from the day they had purchased the acres. Because of the diverse nature of their various businesses, coupled with the enterprises they shared with Boston and Rachel Thaine, the Culhanes traveled about the state a good deal, but Rancho de Salida del Sol was always waiting to welcome them home to well-tended livestock and crops.

The spell wasn’t working for Gincie this time. Travis caught her staring off into space, her hands stilled in the midst of some task, and more than once he saw her start as if in fright at the mere calling of her name by himself or one of the staff.

And it was worst of all in their moments alone. They had always loved each other well and kindly, the pleasure of one being the pleasure of the other. But now when Travis touched Gincie in what had been a casual, constant pattern of mutual reassurance, he could feel her stiffen before she made an obvious effort to relax. And though they had always slept intertwined, that was changed, too. Even on their first night home, when Travis was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open and assumed Gincie must surely feel the same, he was awakened several times during the night by her restless tossing and turning. When he called her name softly, she didn’t answer, but he suspected she was awake nonetheless. And though by morning she was sleeping soundly, she was across the bed from him, huddled in her own little space.

He leaned over her and kissed her gently. “It’s time to get up, love.”

Her eyes opened wide, and a little shudder ran through her before she focused on him.

He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “What is it? What’s troublin’ you so? I know it was hard to lose Gold Fire that way, but I don’t think that’s it. Unless you truly do think someone tampered with him before the race?”

He waited for her to answer, and the silence stretched out between them.

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to share the burden. She heard Mark’s smooth threats as if he were standing beside her again, and she saw Gold Fire plunging out of control on the track. She saw Samson dying from Mark’s bullet. Mark would stop at nothing to have his way. It was a terrifyingly small step of the imagination to see Travis dying as Samson had.

She looked up at him with eyes that glittered strangely, a feral green looking more like cat’s eyes than Travis had ever seen them. Very deliberately she pulled his head down and kissed him. “Nothing is wrong.” She vowed to make it true.

Distracted by the seduction of her kiss and the flexing of her body against his, Travis did not notice at first that she had not answered his questions.

She raked her nails lightly over his shoulders and back, her hands asking her own question as they drifted lower to test the readiness of his sex, teasing him sweetly until he forgot the long list of chores that awaited them both.

Gincie wanted him with a ferocity that stunned him.

It was going much too fast, even as his own passion compelled him to follow Gincie’s lead, Travis registered that, and when he entered her, her body clasped him so tightly, the pleasure was near pain and brought him to a swift, wrenching climax as if he were a green boy.

He lay over her, panting hard, knowing she had not taken her own pleasure, but when he started to stroke her into completion, she pushed his hand away. “No, I don’t need… it is enough.”

He rolled off of her and knelt beside her, staring down at her. “What was that about?”

“About loving you and about needing to be up and about before the children come in search of us.” Her eyes did not meet his, and she slipped out of bed and began her morning ritual of washing and dressing as if nothing untoward had happened.

Travis felt abandoned; he wanted to demand that she tell him what in the hell was going on. But he restrained himself with the reminder that marriage did not mean full possession of the other person physically or mentally. It meant accepting what the other offered and making one’s own offerings in return. The war had taught him that. There were things he’d seen and things he’d done that he would never share with Gincie.

“Whatever it is, I’m here for you,” he said, dropping a kiss on her shoulder as she sat brushing her hair, clad in her shift. Her slender body suddenly appeared very fragile to him, and he wanted to wrap her in his arms and slay all of her dragons, but he went on with his own preparations to greet the day.

For a moment, Gincie watched him in the mirror, his hard nakedness beautiful to her in every line, even to the savage scar of Gettysburg that ran from his right hipbone down his thigh nearly to his knee. He had been so hurt then, he had nearly died. As long as she could prevent it, no one would ever hurt him again.

The days passed in a strange haze for Gincie. She endeavored to fulfill the multitude of roles she normally played—wife, mother, and equal partner in the running of the ranch—but all the while, her mind worked frantically to find an acceptable way out of the trap Mark had set.

And in spite of her best efforts, she knew she was betraying her agitation. She caught herself being overly protective of the children, warning them not to wander too far, not to do this or that unless she or one of the ranch hands was with them, until Lexy protested, “I always take care of the twins!”

“I know you do, sweetheart,” Gincie said, holding back tears. “It’s just that I love you all so much, I worry even when I shouldn’t. Mothers do that sometimes.”

But it was obvious that Lexy did not find this a satisfactory explanation, for she too often regarded her mother with a troubled little frown and went out of her way to be so well behaved that it was as if she were taking the blame for the change in her parent.

It was the same with the hands at the ranch. Nervous, short-tempered, and abstracted—this was not the normal behavior of their employer, and the ranch hands began to tread as carefully as Lexy.

Even the horses behaved differently, showing the whites of their eyes and stomping nervously when Gincie’s disquiet communicated itself to them.

And through it all, Travis endured her moods, his eyes so full of patience and love that she thought it would be easier if he railed at her. At night he held her when she wanted him to and let her curl away from him when she could not bear to be touched.

She could not fool herself into believing that Mark would somehow disappear without getting what he wanted. He made sure her feeling of being stalked never lessened. A message arrived with supplies a week after the Culhanes had come home:

Being acquainted with your family in Maryland, it would be my pleasure to call upon you one day soon.

M. Stockton.

Seeming innocuous, it was wholly vicious. Even had Travis read it, he would have been no wiser. But to Gincie, it said plainly that the secret, the bond, was between herself and Mark.

At Wild Swan, little distinction was made regarding the degree of consanguinity. Alexandria had raised her dead sister’s twins, Blaine and Flora, as if they were her own, as she had later raised her granddaughter Gincie. But Gincie had always minded being the daughter of Piety Thurgood Carrington, a woman devoid of kindness. After she had gone to live permanently at Wild Swan at age two, her half-brothers, Mark and Matthew, Piety’s sons by her first marriage, had remained with their mother. Gincie had seen her mother only once more. She had been just seven years old at the time, but she remembered overhearing the woman demanding money from Alex and, in turn, being warned away.

Alex had assured her granddaughter that she did not and never would resemble her mother, but Gincie had never been fully convinced. The feeling of tainted blood flowing in her veins had been heightened by Mark’s treachery at Wild Swan. Now it seemed she would never be free of the curse, certainly never while Mark lived.

It was there constantly, its tentacles slithering into her mind even while she denied it—she would be better off, her family would be better off, if Mark no longer existed, if Mark were dead.

She searched desperately for other options, but nothing served. And thrown back on herself, she wondered if she could do it. To hire it done was out of the question, an invitation to further blackmail.

Death was not an abstract image to Gincie. She had seen it firsthand in Virginia and in all its grotesque power at Gettysburg. More than the sight of it, the smell came to her again, a smell so strong that it became a taste and texture, metal and oil in the mouth, enough to make her stomach heave when she tried to eat.

Travis watched with growing concern, and then with the dawning of an idea that led him off on the wrong track entirely. He did not think she had skipped her last monthly course, but he could not be sure. Perhaps she was pregnant. In light of that, her sudden aversion to food and her mood changes were explicable.

Gincie had had such a hard time giving birth to the twins, he had not wanted her to bear another child too soon, if at all. He was more than satisfied with the three children they had. He and Gincie had both done what they could to prevent conception in the past two years, but he knew of no method except abstinence that worked all the time, and abstinence was not part of their marriage.

Though he wished more than ever that she would confide in him, he could not blame her for keeping her secret until she was sure, until she had time to adjust to the idea. He began to see her strange behavior in light of that adjustment. She would have to face going through another pregnancy and birth in the midst of her busy and demanding life. And they would both have another lively child to care for, if not two more. He sincerely hoped that another pair of twins was not in the offing. K. C. and Tay were enough of a handful.

His mistaken belief made him even more patient and tender with Gincie, and that, paradoxically, made it harder for her. Sometimes she felt so violent inside, she wanted to scream at him and force him to match her own aggression. And then she would feel overwhelmed with remorse, fearful that Mark’s poison was seeping through her to those she most wanted to protect from it.

“I do love you, Travis, more than anyone else in the world. Please, don’t ever forget that.”

She whispered the words in the darkness of the night as he held her, and his arms tightened around her. “How could I forget when I love you no less than that?” he asked, but it was all he could do not to demand that she tell him whether or not she was pregnant. A sudden sharp current of fear shot through him as he wondered if she’d had some premonition, some horrible early sense that she would die this time in giving birth.

“Don’t ever leave me!” The words were harsher than he intended, and his need for comfort penetrated the thick fog of Gincie’s own despair.

“Never, never, never.” She punctuated the words with soft kisses against the hollow of his throat and settled against him so that she could be cradled in his warmth. But even here there was no longer any escape for her. Even here she could feel Mark’s evil, could see his eyes watching them, could sense him gloating over the misery he had already brought to their lives.

There was nothing unusual in Gincie’s announcement that she was going to San Francisco; she and Travis spent a good deal of time there, and Boston and Rachel were always happy to welcome them, so much so that a part of their house was kept in continual readiness for the Culhanes.

Travis was relieved at Gincie’s plan. He had business to attend to in the city but had been afraid to leave Gincie or to suggest she accompany him while he was so unsure of her moods. And he hoped that the faster pace of the city would brighten her spirits.

It was hard for Gincie to let the children out of her sight, but there was no question of taking them to San Francisco; Mark was going to be there. And Travis did not press her to take them, even though he knew the Thaines would have been delighted to see them.

The trip to the city and the first two days there passed in a blur for Gincie, and then, after all the mindless terror, she suddenly felt utterly calm, as if everything were already resolved. She would not let Mark touch her family—not Travis, not Lexy, not the twins, and not Boston’s family. Mark should have died that day at Wild Swan. Instead, Samson had fallen. That image remained as sharp in her mind as if it were happening over and over before her. She could hear her grandmother and Della, Samson’s wife, keening, could see Samson’s blood seeping into the earth of Wild Swan.

She knew what Mark was capable of; she doubted he knew as much about her.

She studied the little pistol as if it were an elegant piece of jewelry. Travis had given it to her when they had first come to California. She had never wanted anything to do with firearms, but her grandfather Rane had insisted she learn how to shoot and to carry a weapon on her missions for the Underground Railroad. She was more thankful for that training now than she had ever been.

When Gincie told her that she had to go out for a short while, Rachel immediately offered to accompany her, the men having already departed for the office where much of their joint business was centered.

Having been able to convince Travis that he was to go along without her, Gincie was not about to let Rachel impede her. “No, thank you,” she said. Her voice was polite, but implacable, and her eyes were steady as she looked at Rachel.

Rachel watched with a puzzled frown as Gincie left the house. She could not be offended. She was certain Gincie’s refusal of her company was nothing personal. Something was troubling the younger woman. The Culhane children were flourishing; Travis and Gincie seemed to be as much in love as ever; and all was well with the various business enterprises. The vital things all seemed in perfect order. It was sad that the prize colt had had to be destroyed after the accident at the races, but despite her tender heart, Gincie was not the sort to brood about the accident for this long.

Rachel considered other possibilities, and a slow smile curved her mouth as she came to the same conclusion Travis had. Perhaps Gincie was pregnant. Rachel could understand how distracting that could be. The birth of the twins had been so difficult. It would be no wonder if she had reservations about another pregnancy, but Rachel was confident that she would welcome the knowledge soon. It was likely Gincie had come to the city to consult a physician about her condition. It explained her strange mood and the fact she looked hollow-cheeked and pale and was eating little. Nor had Rachel missed the concern in Travis’s eyes.

Rachel and Boston had only one child, their son Caton, who lived with his wife, Muirne, and their three children on a ranch in Grass Valley at the foothills of the Sierras. Rachel had always wished she could have borne Boston at least one more child. She doted on her grandchildren—before long there would surely be great-grandchildren to spoil—and she looked forward to spoiling the new Culhane, having now convinced herself that one was on the way.

Creating a new life was the furthest thing from Gincie’s mind. All of her concentration was on whether or not she would be able to end one.

Fleetingly, she wished Mark had chosen a more obscure hotel than the Russ House, but at least it was not the usual haunt of any of the social sets, such as the Virginia City Bonanza Kings and their wives or the railroad magnates, whose members might recognize her. But that was the least of her concerns. She found that she most dreaded that Mark would not be there for their meeting. She could not bear the unresolved threat hanging over her family any longer.

It was repellent to have to ask the desk clerk for Mark Carrington’s room number, obscene to have Mark connected to the Carrington name. She wished he were using “Stockton” as he had in the note he had sent to her at the ranch, but she had known he would feel no need to continue the jest. In his arrogance he was sure everything was going to go as planned for Mark Carrington.

She ignored the clerk’s avid stare and his offer to escort her to Mr. Carrington’s room.

Right to the moment when Mark bid her enter, she feared she would not have her chance, but once she heard his voice, the almost mystical sense of purpose descended on her again.

“My sweet sister, so glad you could attend this little meeting,” Mark said as she entered. He did not rise from his chair.

She took careful inventory of the room before she looked at Mark. “You seem to be able to afford fine accommodations. Have you other schemes, other victims?”

Mark was taken aback by the aggressive contempt in her voice; he expected her to be fearful and compliant, and he spoke quickly to reestablish the dominance he had felt at the races. “You will do quite nicely. Have you brought the money? The more I’ve discovered about the enterprises of Culhane and Thaine, the more I’ve realized how easily you can share the profits with me. Five thousand dollars, that’s little enough to protect your family.”

“Too little,” Gincie said, fighting the wave of rage that he should dare speak the names of the people she loved above all others. “Too little in my mind, and I’m sure too little in yours. You will never stop this. You are a greedy, evil man. It makes me ill that we share blood. You brought death to Wild Swan. You killed Samson.” She needed to state the charges aloud.

She hated him for the blank look and more for the dawning of memory that made him say, “Oh, that big buck. Your grandmother always loved Black people, didn’t she? So did your father.”

Gincie had thought that if there was the slightest chance she could rid her family of the threat of Mark without violence, she would take it. She had harbored a faint hope that, faced with her determination, he would change his course. Now she realized he was as malevolent in reality as she had known him in memory. There was no bargain possible, no half measure that would suffice.

“There are things you don’t know about me,” she said. “I once killed a man for raping me; I killed him with my bare hands. You are a thousandfold worse than he; you threaten my husband and my children. I cannot allow that.”

As she spoke, she drew the pistol and held it steadily pointed at him. At first he was too stunned to react. He had played this scene over and over in his mind, and not once had Gincie strayed from her role of helpless victim. Now it was like watching a mouse turn into a viper, and he could scarcely comprehend it. But the transformation assumed a terrible truth for him as he was caught in the pitiless star