forced her hand to remain still.
"His name was Stoner. Richard Stoner," Ethan said flatly.
"So? I'm afraid I don't understand where all this is leading."
"All right. I don't know how else to give this to you except straight. Landry is Conn's middle name. He's used it for years because he was working overseas for a lot of fancy corporations that might have been nervous about dealing with Richard Stoner's son."
The pencil in Honor's hand snapped in two. Blindly she stared down at the broken halves. Slowly she raised her head to meet Ethan's unhappy expression. "Conn Landry is the son of my father's partner?"
she whispered uncomprehendingly. "But why didn't he tell me?"
Ethan leaned forward anxiously. "Honor, you were only a kid when your father and Stoner killed each other during that quarrel. Conn was twenty-three, just out of college and starting his first job with the oil company for which his dad and your father had worked. Leastways, that's what I recall. The scandal hit him pretty hard, I gather. It's not something he talks about, but I heard rumors around the track when the story hit the papers. Racing people talk. Too much sometimes."
"Racetrack rumors," Honor echoed huskily.
"They said—" Ethan halted abruptly, as if searching for the right words and then tried again. "They said Conn was convinced your father had betrayed his. People said he swore vengeance on your family fifteen years ago."
"Vengeance!" A man who liked to tie up loose ends. A man who kept the books balanced. The words went through her head in staccato fashion.
"It's the kind of thing an angry, hurt twenty-three-year-old man would say," Ethan pointed out gently.
"The kind of thing a twenty-three-year-old Conn Landry would say, I suppose," Honor said bleakly.
Ethan was silent for a moment before continuing.
"Fifteen years have gone by. I expect most everyone's forgotten now. I hadn't thought of the story in ages. When Landry bought Legacy and his horse and mine wound up in Humphrey's training stables, somebody remembered that Richard Stoner had had a son who used the name Landry. I kept my questions to myself. Didn't seem like any of my business, after all. Not until you showed up in the picture."
"I see." Honor's eyes narrowed. "And then you started wondering?"
He nodded forlornly. "It was the coincidence of the whole thing that worried me. It didn't seem strange that Conn might have returned to the States after several years and decided to buy a colt sired by the stallion his father had once owned. But when he picked you up at Santa Anita the other day, I started remembering all those stories about how he'd vowed to make your family pay for what your father did to his."
"My father didn't do anything to Richard Stoner! Certainly he didn't betray him," Honor hissed, the old anger welling higher within her. "I always thought there was a damn good chance that Stoner was the one who was smuggling weapons and that my father had the bad luck to discover him doing it."
Ethan held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Please, Honor. I don't know anything more about that end of things than anyone else who was reading the papers at the time. From what little I knew of your father personally, I have to say he always seemed a decent man. He never spent much time around the track, so I really didn't get too well acquainted, but I was under the impression that folks respected him."
"Really?" There was a scathing tone in her voice as Honor remembered the humiliation that her mother had been forced to endure as so-called friends turned their backs on her after the scandal hit the papers.
The fact that her mother had been filing for divorce hadn't lessened the humiliation Mrs. Mayfield had to handle. And nothing could have mitigated the pain Honor had gone through.
"I knew I shouldn't have come here today," Ethan growled in embarrassment. "But I just couldn't stand by and not tell you who Landry really was. You have to make your own decision about
"His name was Stoner. Richard Stoner," Ethan said flatly.
"So? I'm afraid I don't understand where all this is leading."
"All right. I don't know how else to give this to you except straight. Landry is Conn's middle name. He's used it for years because he was working overseas for a lot of fancy corporations that might have been nervous about dealing with Richard Stoner's son."
The pencil in Honor's hand snapped in two. Blindly she stared down at the broken halves. Slowly she raised her head to meet Ethan's unhappy expression. "Conn Landry is the son of my father's partner?"
she whispered uncomprehendingly. "But why didn't he tell me?"
Ethan leaned forward anxiously. "Honor, you were only a kid when your father and Stoner killed each other during that quarrel. Conn was twenty-three, just out of college and starting his first job with the oil company for which his dad and your father had worked. Leastways, that's what I recall. The scandal hit him pretty hard, I gather. It's not something he talks about, but I heard rumors around the track when the story hit the papers. Racing people talk. Too much sometimes."
"Racetrack rumors," Honor echoed huskily.
"They said—" Ethan halted abruptly, as if searching for the right words and then tried again. "They said Conn was convinced your father had betrayed his. People said he swore vengeance on your family fifteen years ago."
"Vengeance!" A man who liked to tie up loose ends. A man who kept the books balanced. The words went through her head in staccato fashion.
"It's the kind of thing an angry, hurt twenty-three-year-old man would say," Ethan pointed out gently.
"The kind of thing a twenty-three-year-old Conn Landry would say, I suppose," Honor said bleakly.
Ethan was silent for a moment before continuing.
"Fifteen years have gone by. I expect most everyone's forgotten now. I hadn't thought of the story in ages. When Landry bought Legacy and his horse and mine wound up in Humphrey's training stables, somebody remembered that Richard Stoner had had a son who used the name Landry. I kept my questions to myself. Didn't seem like any of my business, after all. Not until you showed up in the picture."
"I see." Honor's eyes narrowed. "And then you started wondering?"
He nodded forlornly. "It was the coincidence of the whole thing that worried me. It didn't seem strange that Conn might have returned to the States after several years and decided to buy a colt sired by the stallion his father had once owned. But when he picked you up at Santa Anita the other day, I started remembering all those stories about how he'd vowed to make your family pay for what your father did to his."
"My father didn't do anything to Richard Stoner! Certainly he didn't betray him," Honor hissed, the old anger welling higher within her. "I always thought there was a damn good chance that Stoner was the one who was smuggling weapons and that my father had the bad luck to discover him doing it."
Ethan held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Please, Honor. I don't know anything more about that end of things than anyone else who was reading the papers at the time. From what little I knew of your father personally, I have to say he always seemed a decent man. He never spent much time around the track, so I really didn't get too well acquainted, but I was under the impression that folks respected him."
"Really?" There was a scathing tone in her voice as Honor remembered the humiliation that her mother had been forced to endure as so-called friends turned their backs on her after the scandal hit the papers.
The fact that her mother had been filing for divorce hadn't lessened the humiliation Mrs. Mayfield had to handle. And nothing could have mitigated the pain Honor had gone through.
"I knew I shouldn't have come here today," Ethan growled in embarrassment. "But I just couldn't stand by and not tell you who Landry really was. You have to make your own decision about
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