Shasa held his breath, but even in his suspense he could appreciate what a magnificent sight they made, horse and rider, thoroughbreds both - the mare with her forelegs folded up under her chest and her ears pricked forward, soaring away from the earth, and Isabella leaning back in the saddle, her back arched and her young body supple and lovely, long legs and fine thrusting breasts, red mouth laughing and her hair flying free, sparkling with ruby lights in the late yellow sunlight.
Then they were over and Shasa exhaled sharply. Isabella swung the mare down to where he stood at the corner.
'You promised to ride with me, Pater,' she scolded him. Shasa's instinct was to reprimand her for that jump, but he prevented himself.
He knew she would probably respond by pulling the mare's head around and taking the jump again from this side. He wondered just when he had lost control of her, and then grinned ruefully as he answered himself.
'About ten minutes after she was born." The mare was dancing in a circle and Isabella flung her hair back with a toss of her head.
'I waited almost an hour for you,' she said.
'Affairs of state --' Shasa began.
'That's no excuse, Pater. A promise is a promise." 'It's still not too late,' he pointed out, and she laughed as she challenged him.
'I'll race that old banger of yours down to the stables!" And she booted the mare into a gallop.
'Not fair,' he called after her. 'You have too much start,' but she turned in the saddle and stuck her tongue out at him. He ran to the Jag, but she cut across north field and was dismounted by the time he drove into the stableyard.
She tossed her reins to a groom and ran to embrace him. Isabella had a variety of kisses, but this type, lingering and loving, with a little bit of ear-nuzzling at the end, was reserved for when she badly wanted something from him, something that she knew he was going to try to refuse.
While he pulled on his riding boots she sat close beside him on the bench and told him a funny story about her sociology professor at varsity.
'This huge shaggy St Bernard wandered into the lecture theatre and Prof. Jacobs was quick as a flash. Better that the dogs should come to learning, he said, than learning should go to the dogs." She was a natural mimic. As they left the saddle room, she hugged his arm.
'Oh, Daddy, if only I could find a boy like you, but they're all so utterly dreary." 'Long may they remain that way,' he wished fervently.
He made a cup with his hands for her to mount, but she laughed at him and sprang to the saddle easily on those long lovely legs.
'Come on, slowcoach. It'll be dark soon." Shasa enjoyed being alone with her. She enchanted him with her mercurial changes of mood and subject. She had a quick mind and quirky sense of humour, to go with her extraordinary face and body, but Ste alarmed him when she showed flashes of that restless refusal to coneentrate for long on a single topic. Sean had been like that, needing constant stimulation to hold his interest, easily bored by anything that could not keep the same breathless pace that he set.
Shasa was amazed that Isabella had lasted out a year of university studies, but he was resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to graduate. Every time they discussed it, she was more disparaging of the academic life. Make-believe, she called it. Kids' stuff. And when he reed, 'Well, Bella, you are still a kid', she bridled at him. 'Oh, Daddy, you don't understand!" 'Don't I? Don't you think I was your age once?" 'I suppose so - but that was in biblical times, for God's sake." 'Ladies don't swear,' he remonstrated automatically.
She attracted admirers in slavish droves, and treated them with callous indifference for a while and then dropped them with almost feline cruelty, and all the time the restlessness in her was more apparent.
'I should have been stricter with her right from the beginning,' he decided grimly, and then grinned. 'What the hell, she's my only indulgence - and she'll be gone soon enough." 'Do you know that when you smile like that you are the sexiest man in the world?" she interrupted his thoughts.
'What do you know about sexiness, young lady?" he demanded gruffly to cover his gratification, and she tossed her head at him.
'Wouldn't you like to know?" 'No thank you,' he refused hastily. 'I'd probably have a hernia on the Spot." 'My poor old Daddy." She edged the mare over until their knees touched and she leaned across to hug him.
'All right, Bella,' he smiled. 'You'd better tell me what you want.
Your heavy artillery has demolished my defences entirely." 'Oh, Daddy, you make me seem so scheming. I'll race you down to the polo grounds." He let her lead, holding his stallion's nose just behind her stirrup all the way down the hill. Nonetheless, she was flushed with triumph as she pulled in the mare and turned back to him. 'I had a letter from Mater,' she said.
For a moment Shasa didn't realize what she had said, then his smile iced over and he glanced at his gold Rolex wristwatch.
'We'd better be getting back." 'I want to talk about my mother. We haven't talked about her since the divorce." 'There isn't anything to discuss. She's out of our lives." 'No." Isabella shook her head. 'She wants to see me - me and Mickey.
She wants us to go to London and visit her." 'No,' he said fiercely.
'She's my mother." 'She signed away all claim to that title." 'I want to see her - she wants to see me." 'We'll talk about it some other time." 'I want to talk about it now. Why won't you let me go?" 'Your mother did things which put her beyond the pale. She would exert an influence of evil upon you." 'Nobody influences me - unless I want them to,' she said. 'And what did mother do anyway? Nobody has ever explained that." 'She committed an act of calculated treachery. She betrayed us all - her husband, her father, her family, her children and her country." 'I don't believe it." Isabella shook her head. 'Mater was always so concerned for everybody." 'I cannot, and will not, give you all the details, Bella. Just believe me when I tell you that if I had not spirited her out of the country, she would have stood trial as an accessory to the murder of her own father and for the crime of high treason." They rode up to the stables in silence, but as they entered the yard and dismounted, IsabelIa said quietly, 'She should have the chance to explain it to me herself." 'I can forbid you to go, Bella, you are still a minor. But you know I won't do that. I'll simply ask you not to go to London to see that woman." 'I'm sorry, Daddy. Mickey is going, and I am going with him." She saw his expression, and went to him quickly. 'Please try to understand. I love you, but I love her too. I have to go." They drove up to the house in the Jaguar without speaking again, but as he parked the car and switched off the ignition, Shasa asked, 'When?" 'We haven't decided yet." 'I tell you what. We'll go together some time and perhaps we could go on to Switzerland for a week's skiing or Italy to do some sight-seeing. We might even stop in Paris to get you a new frock.
Lord knows, you are short of clothes." 'My dear father, you are a crafty old dog, aren't you?" They were still laughing as they went arm in arm up the front steps of Weltevreden. Centaine came out of her study door across the lobby. When she saw them she snatched the gold-rimmed reading glasses off her nose - she hated even the family to see her wearing them - and she demanded, 'What are you two so merry about? Bella is wearig her triumphant expression. What has she talked you into this time Centaine\didn't wait for an answer, but pointed to the huge banana-shaped package almost ten foot long, wrapped in thick layers of brown hessian, that lay in the middle of the chequered marble floor.