The whole thing had been a disaster, from the moment she’d lied to him about the earrings until the moment his butler had slammed the townhouse door behind her, the force of it nearly knocking her clean off the top step and into the shrubbery on the other side of Montford’s wrought iron railing.
It had never even occurred to her that the Duke of Montford wouldn’t care a whit if all of London saw him . . . saw his . . . well, perhaps the less she dwelled on his masculine bits and pieces, the better. It certainly hadn’t gotten her anywhere so far.
Not only had she failed in her blackmail attempt, but if she’d correctly interpreted that gleam in his dark eyes when he’d dismissed her from his townhouse yesterday, she’d also enraged him, and likely earned herself a powerful enemy. The best she could hope for now was that he had as short of an attention span for vengeance as he did for his mistresses.
She’d feel better once she confessed her foolishness to Franny, but that wouldn’t undo the damage she’d done. The best she could hope for now was that Lord Stoneleigh’s objections to her father would soften as time passed.
Until then, she’d do her best to be a kind, proper wife to him—
“Shall we go on, Miss Thorne? I believe Her Grace is expecting you for luncheon.”
“Yes. I’m ready.” She tapped Sampson with her crop and came abreast of Cosgrove’s horse, a gentle mare named Domino, and they set out at an easy trot, their horses’ tails swishing lazily at insects as they made their way over the next ridge and Montford Park came into view.
She gasped. “My goodness, how lovely!”
“Aye, miss. Aside from Basingstoke House, there’s not another estate in Kent to equal it.”
“No, I should think not.” Of course, the Duke of Montford must have an impressive estate—hewasa duke, after all—but she hadn’t realized how far short her imagination had fallen from the reality until she was looking down upon the house from above.
It was a sprawling estate, but settled so perfectly into its surroundings it put her in mind of an exquisite, creamy pearl nestled into a jewel box of bright green silk.
A valley lay between them and the park, one so lush and green it looked from this distance like a velvety swathe of baize rather than the coarse brown it should have been, given Kent’s dry, hot summer. It must have been fed by a hidden spring or some such, or perhaps a duke’s grounds simply didn’t wilt, no matter what the weather.
Perhaps they didn’t dare.
The house itself sprawled across the peak of the next rise, above Basingstoke House, which was nestled into the valley directly below them. Montford Park was a masterpiece of elegance done in a warm, cream-colored stone, and no doubt it was as lovely inside as out. Why, if she lived there, she’d hardly dare touch her fingertips to the wallpaper, or set so much as a toe upon the carpets. How did one accustom themselves to such luxury? “Such classical lines! I believe it’s in the Palladian style, is it not?”
Cosgrove opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word, the quiet was shattered by the explosion of a gunshot coming from the forest behind them, the deafening crack ripping through the air, tearing a gaping hole in the calm afternoon. The ball shot past her, terrifyingly close to her head, buzzing by her like a deadly insect, disturbing the air by her ear as it whizzed by. “What in the world? That sounded like a gunshot!”
But no, it couldn’t be. It was still several days shy of the twelfth of August. The Duke of Basingstoke wouldn’t permit shooting on his grounds before the season began.
Yet there was no mistaking the sound of a sudden, single discharge like that, the echo of it ringing with such deafening insistence she slapped her hands over her ears. “Some halfwit is out here shooting . . . whoa, Sampson.” The horse, startled by the blast, was dancing nervously beneath her. “For pity’s sake, they might have killed someone!”
“Damned fools!” Cosgrove jerked on Domino’s reins. “They’re behind us, near the edge of the forest. Quickly, Miss Thorne. Down the hill.”
Sampson was pawing at the ground, his massive hooves tearing the sod to shreds, and she laid a hand on his neck to steady him. “There, it’s alright, boy.”
But it wasn’t alright, not in the least, because all at once Sampson let out a shriek that set all the hair on her neck quivering. He lurched underneath her, nearly sending her toppling backward from the saddle, but she seized his mane at the last minute, clutching desperately at the coarse hair as he bolted down the hill with her bouncing atop him, her legs jerking wildly as her feet tore loose from the stirrups.
“S—Sam . . .” She tried to cry out, but her throat had gone so dry with panic she couldn’t catch a breath. The ground flew beneath her in a sudden, dizzying rush, a blur of green and brown and pounding hooves, too quickly for her to think or even take a breath, time enough only to sink her fingers as deeply as she could into Sampson’s thick mane and hold on, hold on as tightly as she’d ever held onto anything, her knuckles going white with the strain.
Because if she fell—dear God, if she fell . . .
A cracked skull, her head split open, her brains splattered over the hillside like the guts of a rotted pumpkin? Broken legs, a broken back, a broken neck? Or all of them at once, the possibilities spreading out before her in a ghastly smorgasbord of tortured limbs as Sampson flew down the hill, still lost in a wild panic, as if the devil himself were after them.
The reins. She’d lost the reins. They must be dragging behind them!
If Sampson’s feet became tangled in the reins, if he slipped on the shifting rocks, ifsheslipped from the saddle that was sliding and bouncing beneath her with each of Sampson’s terrified strides, she was finished.
Dear God, what would become of her father then? And what of Franny? She simply couldn’t leave her brains smeared all over Franny’s hillside! Her friend would never recover from such a ghastly sight, and it would quite spoil the duke’s southern view.
Hold on. There was nothing for it but tohold onuntil Sampson either reached the bottom of the hill—an end point that seemed impossibly far away still—or he wore himself out.
Hold on, that was all she had to do. She could manage it, she was a skilled rider, and experienced with horses, but her teeth were rattling in her head, her backside thumping with one agonizing crunch after the next against the hard saddle beneath her, her arms aching, burning with fatigue already, and the hill was endless, the bottom of it miles away, and Sampson, a stallion who lived to run showed no signs of slowing—
“Runaway horse! Runaway horse!” The shout echoed from behind her, Cosgrove’s voice, hoarse with fear, but she didn’t turn to look,couldn’tturn away from the sight of the hill unfolding before her, the hill that would prove her undoing, the valley beyond it a green ribbon in the distance she could just glimpse between Sampson’s flattened ears.
Oh, why was it so far away still? Surely, Sampson’s wild chase had begun hours ago? Days ago? Her fingers were so numb she could no longer feel them, and Sampson’s mane was slipping from between them, one hair at a time, slipping, despite her struggles to hold on, holdon, her legs shaking, the grip of her thighs around the saddle slackening—
