Pegasus: A Novel Read Free Page B

friends, and tend to his sons, which he claimed was full-time
     work, since they had no mother to take care of them now. Paul von Bingen was pleased
     that his son was so attentive to his children, but he would have liked to see him
     more interested in their land, and learning how to manage it himself one day. At forty-three,
     Nick was convinced that that time was so far off that he had years to learn what he
     needed to know. Nick still felt like a young man. His father was sixty-five and always
     seemed younger than he was as well. Paul von Bingen was still a handsome, vital man,
     but Nick noticed that his father didn’t look well today. He appeared tired and pale
     and was frowning when Nick strode into the library, greeted his father and sat down
     in a chair near his desk.
    “Are you well, Father?” Nick asked with concern.
    “I am,” Paul said, sitting at his desk, and gazing at his son with a somber expression,
     and then he got up and closed the door. Nick could tell it was going to be a serious
     discussion, possibly even a lecture, from the look on his father’s face. He was sorry
     he hadn’t gone riding with Alex instead. This wasn’t going to be fun, but periodically
     he had to subject himself to his father’s speeches about responsibility and obligation
     and what duty and their heritage required of them. Nick knew the main themes of the
     sermon by heart, and braced himself for what was about to come. His father sat down
     at his desk again and seemed to be weighing his words, which was unusual for him.
     Ordinarily, he launched right into a well-rehearsed list of what Nick should be doing
     and wasn’t. Nick had been hearing it for twenty years, and waited patiently for him
     to start.
    “I want to tell you about some things I’ve never discussed with you before,” Paul
     began in a measured tone, and Nick glanced at him in surprise. This was new, and he
     couldn’t imagine what it was. “I was very much like you when I was young. Actually
     I was a great deal wilder than you are, or ever were. You seem to have a fondness
     for pretty women and fast cars, but there’s no harm in that, I suppose. And you’re
     a wonderful father, and a devoted son.”
    “So are you a wonderful father, Papa,” Nick interrupted him with a loving look in
     his eyes. “And you’re very patient about my not wanting to run the estate. I just
     think you do it better than I ever will, and it would be a shame to have me make a
     botch of it, if I took it over from you now.” His father smiled with a wintry expression
     that Nick had never seen before. Something was different today and he had no idea
     what it was. There was a sense of sadness around his father that frightened him. He
     hoped he wasn’t sick. He was growing increasingly worried as he watched his father
     grope for words. “Issomething wrong?” He cut to the chase, and his father didn’t answer, which was unlike
     him as well.
    “When I was twenty-one,” Paul went on, avoiding Nick’s eyes, “I met your mother. I
     was twenty-two when you were born. She was a very beautiful girl, and very young.
     She had dark hair and dark eyes like you, although other than that, you don’t resemble
     her at all.” Nick knew he was the portrait of his paternal grandfather, except for
     the dark hair. “She had very exotic looks, and I thought we were the same age. We
     had a brief and passionate affair one summer when I had nothing else to do, and she
     got pregnant, almost immediately. Later, I discovered that she was just fifteen, and
     she was sixteen when she had you. Needless to say, my parents weren’t pleased. And
     even less so, when they discovered who her parents were. Her father was one of our
     tenants, or actually, his cousin was. Her father had come from the city with his wife
     and children to work the farm with his cousin, which was why I’d never seen your mother
     before. I was besotted with her immediately. Their cousins, our