Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

Kate pulled the hood of her cloak farther over her eyes and slunk closer to the wall. Her hand brushed against grit on its uneven surface. Even though she huddled in her cloak, she set her chin. She was not about to surrender Louisa to her husband. No matter what he said or did.

The man on horseback came into view through the mist just as Kate crested the hill. Shreds of fog splashed around his horse’s hooves, like gray, slow-moving seawater. The horse was a gentleman’s beast: a slim mare, gray as the wisps of vapor that clung to its legs. Not Harcroft’s chestnut stallion, then. Reassured, Kate studied the gentleman himself.

He wore a tall hat and a long coat; the tails flapped behind him in rhythmic counterpoint to the fall of his mare’s hooves. Whoever he was, his shoulders were too broad to belong to Harcroft. Besides, this man’s face was covered by a sandy beard. Definitely not Harcroft, then. Not any man she recognized.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t recognize her, or that he wouldn’t carry stories.

Slowly she let out her breath and turned to look forward. If she didn’t draw attention to herself, he wouldn’t notice her. She looked like a servant; she would be virtually invisible to a man of his class.

The mare’s light hoofbeats pattered up the hill. It moved in effortless contrast to the other poor animal, which was still dragging its Sisyphean burden to the summit. But Kate had her own burden to concentrate on. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the horseman pull ahead of the cart. The tails of his coat flapped briefly across the beast’s blinkered vision. A foot or so of fabric; nothing more.

The horse pulling the cart, however, stopped and shied, pinning its ears against its head in a gesture of equine distress. Kate pressed against the wall as the cart’s wooden shafts creaked. Another flap of the coattails in the wind; when the whip cracked again, Kate winced. The carter’s horse did more than that: it let out a frightened cry and reared up on its hind legs. The cart tilted precariously; the hooves thundered down. Kate heard the crashing splinter of wood, and she whirled to face the animal.

One of the cart shafts had split down the middle. The horse was tangled in halter and traces, and no matter how it strained, it could not escape. When frightened, horses ran; and when they couldn’t run—

Kate caught a glimpse of a dark eye rolled back, ears flattened against the long head. The horse’s blinkered gaze momentarily fixed on hers. Crack went the whip, and the horse reared in response. It was so close, Kate could see its iron shoes as it pawed the air above her head. She felt frozen in that moment, as useless as a rabbit cowering in the grass with a hawk plummeting down. Her hands went cold. Her mind moved sluggishly. She might have counted the horse’s ribs, every prominent ridge, as the hooves descended toward her.

And then the moment of fear passed, and practical considerations overtook her disbelief.

She dropped to the ground in a crouch, just as those massive hooves hit the crumbling wall where her head had been. Once, and bits of stone and crumbling grout rained on her head; twice, and flying chips of rock struck her cheek. The animal whinnied and reared again.

Before the hooves could land a third time, someone stepped in front of her. Whoever it was jerked her to her feet—the sockets of her arms twinged in protest. His body pressed against hers momentarily, a brief imprint of hard muscle fitting against her curves. He turned his back to the beast, shielding her from those iron-clad hooves. It was the horseman—the gentleman with the gray mare. He must have dismounted and come to offer assistance.

She had no chance to protest, even had she wanted to, no opportunity to pull away. His hands clasped her waist, and he lifted her up, up, until her palms scrabbled along the top of the wall behind her. She pulled herself atop it, heart thumping, and glanced down. The horseman was looking up at her. His eyes, liquid brown pools, sparkled at her over that shaggy beard, as if this were the best excitement he’d come upon in weeks. For one instant, she felt a sick thrill of recognition.

I know this man.

But he turned away, and that feeling of familiarity slipped through her fingers, as hard to contain as the gritty pebbles on the wall she clung to.

Whoever he was, he had no notion of fear. He turned back to the careening beast. He moved on his toes with a graceful economy of motion. It was almost as if he were leading the horse in a waltz. The man sidestepped another furious stamp of those hooves.

“There now, Champion.” His voice was quiet but carrying. “I don’t want to crowd you so closely, but you’ll never calm down if I can’t cut the traces.”

“Cut the traces!” protested the carter, clutching the handle of his whip. “What the devil do you mean, cut the traces?”

The gentleman paid him no mind. Instead, he made a half turn, and stepped behind the animal.