Рита Браун - Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by American Artist, Inc.

Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Lee Gildea, Jr.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Rita Mae.

Let sleeping dogs lie : a novel / Rita Mae Brown ;

illustrated by Lee Gildea, Jr.—First edition.

pages ; cm

ISBN 978-0-553-39262-3 (hardcover : acid-free paper—ISBN 978-0-553-39263-0 (ebook) 1. Arnold, Jane (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. Fox hunting—Fiction. 4. Virginia—Fiction. I. Gildea, Lee, Jr., illustrator. II. Title.

PS3552.R698L48 2014

813’.54—dc23 2014030600

Image on this page copyright: © iStock.com/ © Lindybug

Jacket design: Victoria Allen

Jacket illustration: © Peter Malone

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Cast of Characters

Some Useful Terms

The Jefferson Hunt Club

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Author’s Note

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE HUMANS

Jane Arnold,“Sister” is Master of Foxhounds, MFH, of The Jefferson Hunt in central Virginia. In her early seventies, she’s strong, bold, loves her life, the people and animals in it. Like many people who live a deep life, she endured a terrible loss, her son, which ultimately taught her to cherish life, especially the simple things.

Shaker Crown,the hunt’s long-serving huntsman, is loyal, reliable, mostly quiet. He and Sister are two peas in a pod when it comes to hunting philosophy.

Gray Lorillard,retired from a powerful accounting firm in Washington, D.C. He grew up in central Virginia and even when working in D.C., would come to the old home place on weekends for hunting. He’s smart, handsome, judicious. As an African American man in his late sixties he has a broad overview of how things really work. He’s in love with Sister and she with him.

Sam Lorillardis Gray’s younger brother. A wonderful horseman, a Harvard graduate who threw it all away thanks to a long tango with the bottle. Dried out, he works for Crawford Howard. He and his brother share the old Lorillard house with its lovely graveyard embracing two hundred years of Lorillards and Laprades.

Mercer Lapradeis the cousin of Gray and Sam. He’s a successful bloodstock agent. His family has closely worked with an important family of Thoroughbred breeders, the Chetwynds. He, too, has hunted with The Jefferson Hunt since childhood. (Children and grooms ride in the rear, a hunting tradition that allowed latitude where social customs at the time did not.)

Daniella Lapradeat 94 can run her son crazy. Proud, imperious, so proud that when she married in 1940 she kept her maiden name as her husband lacked social cachet. Her sister, Gray and Sam’s mother, took her husband’s name, Lorillard, being less enchanted with social standing. Graziella Lorillard has passed on. Daniella is triumphantly alive.

Walter Lungrun, M.D.,Joint Master of foxhounds, is a relatively new Master often amazed at what one must learn and do. His medical reputation is skyrocketing, his riding is much improved, and he loves Sister, has since a child. Walter is the outside son of Sister’s late husband. Mr. Lungrun never knew or never let on if he did. Sister didn’t know until shortly before tapping Walter to be her Joint Master. Made her love him more somehow.

Phil Chetwyndowns and runs Broad Creek Stables, a Thoroughbred breeding operation that has ridden the ups and downs of that most daring of employments since the 1870s. He grew up with Mercer and his cousins. Loves Mercer, teases him incessantly, and vice versa. They’ve made good money together, too.

Betty Franklin,as Sister’s best friend and a good twenty-five years younger, is also a whipper-in, honorary, which means she isn’t paid. She is a kind woman and a good one.

Anne Harris, “Tootie”lives with Sister, taking night classes at UVA. She left Princeton to be with The Jefferson Hunt. Her dream is to become an equine vet and to be a whipper-in. She is sweet, determined, and shockingly beautiful. She is also African American, born to one of the richest men in Chicago who can’t fathom why anyone would want to work outside or with animals.

Crawford Howardis probably as rich as Tootie’s father and equally as stubborn and egotistical. When Sister did not choose him to be her Joint Master he flew off in a huff and started an outlaw pack that seems to be spectacularly unsuccessful. With all the faults of a self-made man and many of the virtues, he is a force to be reckoned with. He cares a great deal about young people and their education and gives generously.

Ben Sidellhas been sheriff of the county for three years. Since he was hired from Ohio, he sometimes needs help in the labyrinthine ways of the South. He relies on Sister’s knowledge and discretion.

Kasmir Barbhaiya,widowed and in his midforties, moved to central Virginia to be close to his college roommate after his wife died. He is impossibly rich, having made his fortune in pharmaceuticals in India. He is generous, loving, helpful, and finally able to think about truly living again. He’s also a very good rider.

Edand Tedi Bancroftare in their early eighties, ride to three hunts a week, and are dear friends of Sister’s. The Bancrofts and Sister have seen one another through desperate sorrows as well as many joys.

Sybil Fawkesis the Bancrofts’ daughter and the other Jefferson Hunt whipper-in. Always impeccably turned out and beautifully mounted, there’s nothing she can’t do on a horse. She’s divorced and her two sons are close to grown.

Penny Hinson,DVM, takes Tootie with her on Mondays. She likes the young woman, loves her patients.

Alida Dalzell,from North Carolina, comes to central Virginia on a foxhunting vacation and to rethink her career. Perhaps tipping over into her forties, she is flat-out gorgeous, and better, she can ride and adores hounds.

Jane Winegardner,MFH of Woodford Hounds in Lexington, Kentucky, is a dear friend of Jane Arnold, so this Jane is known as O.J., the Other Jane. An inspired Master, a natural leader, she gets things done and makes riding Thoroughbreds look easy.

Ginny Howardis O.J.’s hunting buddy; married to a man who knows horses as well as his wife, she hunts with his support. She has insight into people that she usually keeps to herself except for O.J.