“Yes, of course.”
She watched the riders spring forward and kept her eyes on Warwick. He was crouched low over the horse and had leapt to the lead along with another.
“Go, Warwick!” the family screamed.
“That’s it,” Ash said from beside her. “Easy to start.”
“Faster, Zach!” the Earl of Raine roared.
They were thundering along the straight across from them, then would take the bend and head to where they stood at the finish line.
“My stomach hurts,” Dorrie said. “Come on, Warwick!”
“Did that inside rider just check him?” Cam roared.
“It’s a race; that’s what happens,” Wolf said.
“No one touches my little brother and walks away!” Dev thundered.
They turned into the straight, and Warwick was still neck and neck with a rider, but another was gaining. Soon Warwick was between them.
“I knew that horse was slow,” the Earl of Raine said. His brother was at the rear of the field.
“Dev, did that man strike Warwick with his whip?” Eden shrieked.
“He did,” Dev said in his best growly voice. “Go, little brother!”
She held her breath and grabbed the two arms closest—one was Somer’s, the other Ash’s—and held on.
“Go, Warwick!” Ash roared.
Warwick eased forward, and the man to his side raised his whip again and hit Warwick in the shoulder, but it did not stop him. His horse surged ahead, and he reached the line first.
“He won!” She hugged Ash hard, then turned to hug Somer. Then she was running along with her family onto the racetrack.
“You!” Dev thundered when the riders brought their horses back to the start line. “Hit my brother!”
“You need a sound thrashing for doing that to my little brother,” Cam said at the same time.
“Gutless bastard!” Eden shrieked. James had an arm around her waist and was holding her back.
The two men had dismounted and were soon surrounded by angry family members.
Warwick rode up, dismounted, and ran into the melee too.
“Christ what a family,” Dorrie heard Ash say as he stepped into the fray that was now unfolding before him. She noted even the Earl of Raine was here, and his brother, who had dismounted.
“’Ere, don’t you come at my Barry like that,” a large-chested woman said. “All’s fair in racing. If your noble blood can’t handle it, don’t ride.”
“It is not fair to whip a man just because he is winning,” Dorrie said.
“Soft bloody nobles,” she muttered.
“Soft, is it?” Somer said. “Who won the race then?”
The woman braced her fists on her hips and glared at them as the argument and pushing and shoving continued behind them.
“He cheated,” one of them said, rather unwisely to Dorrie’s mind, as the Sinclair sisters would take no such slur on the character of their little brother.
