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“The first of his offspring began running about four years ago, and even though they inherited all his physical characteristics, none of the colts and fillies were anything to write home about. It seemed as if they all ended up with his lack of drive.”
“So what does this have to do with Devil’s Gambit?” Tiffany asked. Her blue eyes mirrored her worry. Despite her arguments to the contrary, she was beginning to understand what Zane was hinting at.
“I’m getting to that. All of a sudden, less than two years ago, when that year’s two-year-olds and three-year-olds hit the track, look out! Overnight, King’s Ransom was producing some of the fastest horses in Europe.”
“That’s not impossible,” Tiffany said uneasily. She felt a sudden chill and shivered before getting up and walking closer to the fire . . . to Zane.
“But highly improbable. It’s the same principle as what’s happening here with Moon Shadow, in reverse. Just as a good stud won’t go bad overnight, the reverse is true. A mediocre stallion doesn’t become the greatest stud in Ireland by a fluke.” Zane was looking up at her with his magnetic gray eyes. He knew that he had Tiffany’s full attention. Her glass of wine was nearly untouched, her troubled blue eyes reached into the blackest corners of his soul.God, she was beautiful.He swirled his drink and stared into the amber liquor, trying to still the male urges overcoming him.
“I own a mare that I bred about five years ago to King’s Ransom,” Zane continued. “The colt that was born from that union was just what I expected—a solid horse, a plodder, but nothing that would compare to his recent foals. I rebred that same mare to King’s Ransom three years ago, and the resulting filly has already won two races and come in second in another. This horse is a full sister to the first.”
Tiffany’s dark honey-colored brows drew together pensively as she tried to remember what it was about King’s Ransom . . . Vaguely she recalled a conversation with Dustin. Dustin had been going on and on about King’s Ransom and his ability as a sire. At the time, it hadn’t seemed all that important. Dustin was always raving about one horse or another—comparing his current favorite to the horses he and Tiffany owned.
“It might be worth it to breed one of the mares, say Felicity, to King’s Ransom,” Dustin had insisted.
“But the cost of shipping her would be prohibitive,” Tiffany had replied. “The insurance alone—”
“I tell you, that stud’s got what it takes!” Dustin had been adamant. “He could sire the next Devil’s Gambit!”
Now, as Dustin’s words came back to her, Tiffany paled. If what Zane was suggesting was true, then Dustin must have been involved! “I . . . I don’t believe it,” Tiffany said, taking a sip of her wine and trying to ignore the chilling implications running through her mind.
This was absurd. Ludicrous. Her relationship with Dustin had always been solid, and after Ellery’s accident it had been Dustin who had helped her over the rough spots, given her his ear, offered a strong shoulder to cry on.
“Believe it, Devil’s Gambit is siring foals and King’s Ransom is getting all the credit. Your horse is being used, Tiffany!”
She squared her shoulders and trained disbelieving eyes on Zane. “I don’t know why you came here,” she said. “If it was to trick me into selling the farm, then you may as well leave now. All of this—” she moved both arms in a sweeping gesture meant to encompass everything that had transpired between them “—has been a very entertaining show, but I don’t believe any of it. You’re wasting your breath.”
Zane pursed his lips together in frustration. With a frown he got up, crossed the room and picked up his briefcase.
“God, Tiffany, you don’t make it easy,” he muttered as he set the leather case on the wooden desk and silently wondered why it bothered him so much that he had to prove himself to this woman. He could hardly expect that she would believe his story without proof. After snapping the case open and extracting a white envelope, he handed the slim packet to her.
With trembling fingers Tiffany opened the envelope and extracted a faded photograph of a black stallion.
“This,” he said angrily while pointing at the horse in the photo, “is a picture of King’s Ransom. He looks a lot like Devil’s Gambit, don’t you think?”
The resemblance was eerie. Tiffany couldn’t deny what was patently obvious. Even though the photograph was old and faded it was glaringly evident that the stallion’s size and conformation were incredibly like that of the dead horse.
Zane reached inside his briefcase again. This time he took out the manila envelope he had given her the night before. It still contained the photographs he had insisted were those of Devil’s Gambit. Tiffany might have believed him last night except for the fact that the white stocking on the horse’s foreleg was missing.
“Are those two horses the same?” he demanded. His jaw was rigid, his gaze blistering as he searched her face.
She studied the photographs closely. A cold chill of dread skittered down her spine. The horses were nearly identical, but definitely not one and the same. Only by placing the photographs side by side was Tiffany able to discern the subtle differences between the two horses. The slope of the withers was different, as was the shape of the forehead. Only a professional would notice the small dissimilarities.
Tiffany closed her eyes against Zane’s damning truth.
“Are they the same horse?” he repeated, his voice low.
Slowly, she shook her head.
Zane set the pictures on the desk and expelled a heavy sigh. Finally, he had gotten through to her! He poked a long finger at the more recent photograph. “This,” he said, “is the stallion that’s supposed to be King’s Ransom. I say he’s Devil’s Gambit.”
Tiffany swallowed against the dryness settling in her throat. Here was the proof that her husband had lied to her, that her proud stallion was still alive, that everything she had believed for four years was nothing more than an illusion created by her husband.Devil’s Gambit and Ellery were alive!“How did you know?” she finally asked in a forced whisper.
He rubbed his hand over his chin and closed his eyes. “I didn’t really know, not for a long time. I guess I became suspicious when the second foal, the filly, exhibited such a different temperament from her brother.”
“When she started racing as a two-year-old, I was certain she was the fastest horse on the farm, though her bloodlines weren’t nearly as good as several other horses.”
He walked over to the fire and looked into the golden flames, as if searching for easy answers to his life. “I didn’t think too much about it until I got to talking to several other owners who had noticed the same phenomenon on their farms: all of King’s Ransom’s latest offspring were markedly different from his first foals.” Zane smiled to himself, amused by a private irony. “No one was really asking questions—all the owners were thrilled with their luck, and of course, King’s Ransom’s stud fees have become astronomical since the latest colts and fillies have begun racing.”
