What Price Love? (12 page)

Through drifting mists, she detected the outline of another string exercising, the thud of hooves reverberating oddly through the damp air. Breathy snorts mingled with instructions and quick
replies, distorted by the fog; reining in a sufficient distance away not to draw attention, she tuned her ears to the chatter, instantly distinguishing the soft burr of her mother tongue.

Instead of easing, her nerves coiled tighter. Lifting the mare's reins, she soundlessly urged the horse into a slow walk, traveling a wide circle around the area where Cromarty's horses trotted and galloped.

She rode slowly to avoid detection, the clop of the mare's hooves submerged beneath the race horses' relentless pounding. The fog was both an aid and a disadvantage; at one point when it thinned she realized she'd ventured too close to the parading horses. Keeping her head down, she adjusted her route to arc around a large copse.

Rounding it, she looked ahead.

On the far side of the copse, wreathed in fog, a lone figure sat ahorse. Black hair, good seat. He was staring intently into the copse—perhaps through the copse at the horses?

He was too far away; she couldn't judge his height and build, yet…

In the instant her heart lifted in hope, the man turned his head and saw her.

Horror speared icelike through her veins.

The man cursed, lifted one arm.

Swallowing a yelp, she ducked, simultaneously clapping her heels to the mare's flanks. A ball whistled over her head, whining eerily through the fog; a split second later, the report of the pistol crashed over her.

Spooked by the sound, by her fear and her urging, the mare shot off, streaking across the green, parallel to the copse.

Past the man, but separated by sufficient distance for Pris to see him as nothing more than a blurred shape through the billowing fog. A blurred shape drawing forth another saddle pistol.

Her heart in her mouth, she swung the mare around the copse, forcing the man, cursing again, to wheel his horse before he could follow.

She headed straight for the exercising string, the horses trotting and galloping disrupted as, having heard the shot, the stable lads reined in.

Pressing low, clinging to the mare's neck, the black mane whipping her cheeks, Pris streaked through the milling horses—straight
through and on across the Heath.

The man on his heavier horse thundered after her.

Harkness. He looked like the very devil and had a temper to match.

Pris felt her heart rising into her throat; swallowing, she rode with hands and knees, urging the little mare to fly.

The mare was nimble and had a good turn of speed. It had been years since Pris had ridden so fast, so recklessly, so desperately, but as the minutes elapsed she sensed the heavier horse falling behind. Easing the pace, she rose up and risked a quick glance back.

Harkness was still there, doggedly coming on. The heavier horse would outstay her mare, and the Heath was immense.

Facing forward, Pris held the mare one notch back from her previous headlong pace and forced her mind to function, to ignore her clamoring fear.

She couldn't outrun Harkness; she would have to lose him.

Somewhere in a landscape that was open grassland with no stand of trees large enough to hide her.

The map in the lending library took shape in her mind. She recalled the wooded estate bordering the Heath to the southeast—dense woodland, not paddocks. Hillgate End, Caxton's home.

It was the closest cover in which she might lose Harkness. Allowing him to catch up with her was out of the question.

The gallant mare responded as she veered southeast and picked up the pace. She eased the horse into a fluid gallop; quick glances behind showed Harkness closer, but he was once again falling behind.

She could almost hear his curses.

Facing forward, her own lungs tight, she urged the mare on.

Sooner than she'd expected, a line of trees rose before her. She headed for them, then swung along the line, searching for a bridle path.

A dip in the land, an area of worn turf, pointed to the entrance she sought. Her eyes locked on the spot.

She was fifty yards from it when a horse man appeared coming out of the woods, blocking the opening.

Pris recognized him instantly.

In the same instant he recognized her.

Her heart leapt again; cursing, she swerved away from the trees,
swinging the mare back out onto the Heath.

The new direction took her closer to Harkness. She inwardly swore; she no longer had breath to spare for words. Desperately urging the mare on, she wondered how much longer her game little mount could last.

The thunder of hooves coming up hard on her right reminded her she had another pursuer.

One glance at him, at the black he once again had under him, and all thought of eluding him fled. Her brothers would have described the black as a good 'un, a sleek Thoroughbred, elegant and powerful, relentless and remorseless.

Much like his rider.

If he caught her and they stopped, would Harkness risk a shot? Worse, would he brazenly approach and accuse her—

She didn't get a chance to evaluate her options; the black drew level, then, ridden to an inch, surged ahead and headed the mare…toward Harkness.

Panic rose; Pris swore and reined in hard, bringing the mare, heaving and snorting, to a plunging halt.

Under exquisite control, the black slowed and circled her.

Pris glanced at Harkness, but he was temporarily hidden by a dip.

Dillon halted Solomon parallel to the mare, a foot apart. He frowned at Priscilla—Pris—not at all liking what he saw.

Her mare was one step from blown, and so was she. She was desperately sucking in air, her breasts rising and falling beneath the thin hacking jacket that was part of her disguise. Her eyes were wide, slightly wild; as he watched, her hair tumbled from beneath her hat and cascaded in a tangle of heavy curls down her back.

Fear hung like an aura about her, and that he didn't like at all.

“What the devil are you about?”

Her eyes, until then staring past his shoulder, shifted to his face. She swallowed. “Nothing.”

When he looked his irritation, she drew in a breath, held it as if seeking strength, then amended, “I was out riding. Just”—she waved—“riding.”

“Do you always ride as if the devil himself were after you?”

She lifted her hat, wiped her damp brow with her sleeve. “I…the mare needed a run. She likes to run.”

A withering retort burned his tongue, then he saw…his blood
turned to ice in his veins.

Reaching out, he plucked the hat from her fingers.

Pris looked up, lips thinning; reaction and more coursed through her as she reached out and tried to grab her hat back.

He anticipated her move and easily avoided her, leaning away, the black shifting back a step.

Dillon didn't look at her, but stared at her hat.

She frowned. “What…?”

He raised the hat brim to his face and sniffed.

Then his gaze lifted and fixed on her face.

Pris's lungs seized. She couldn't breathe. The look on his face, stark, the classically perfect planes stripped bare of even the thinnest veneer of social glamor, the veil of civilization wrenched aside to reveal…something that hungered, that hunted, that trapped and devoured and possessed.

Something that burned in his dark, dark eyes, something primal and ruthless and haunting.

That look was focused entirely on her.

Slowly, without letting her free of his gaze, he lifted her hat, and tilted it so the brim was visible.

She dragged in a breath and glanced—at the deep scallop punched through the edge of the hat's brim, the partial hole ringed by a rusty burn.

Fear congealed in her veins. He touched the hat's crown with one long finger, drawing her gaze in fascinated horror to the nick in the hat's crown.

Shock shivered through her. Harkness's shot hadn't gone all that wide…

Her world was suddenly edged in black.

She heard Dillon swear, felt him press the black closer, sensed him near.

The distant thud of hooves reached them. She blinked; they both looked.

The morning sun had burned off the mists; Harkness was clearly visible as he crested a rise a hundred yards away.

He saw them and pulled up, wheeling his mount in the same movement. With a glare Pris felt even across the distance, he rode back the way he'd come, immediately disappearing from sight.

Eyes narrowed, Dillon turned to her. “Who was he?”

Steely menace colored his tone.

She looked down. “I don't know.”

The word he uttered was very far from polite.

After a fraught moment, he said, the words clipped and tight, “He shot at you.
Why?
”

The question had her looking up, realizing. “I…ah, don't know.”

Harkness had mistaken her for Rus. He'd been waiting—following precisely the same logic she had.

From the look on Dillon's face he knew she knew the answers to both his questions. Turning her head, she stared after Harkness.

Had he realized his mistake? Her hair hadn't fallen until she'd stopped; Harkness wouldn't have seen it, and from a distance, on horse back, dressed as she was, it wouldn't be easy to distinguish her from Rus.

And Harkness wouldn't be expecting
her
to be there, for there to be someone about he could mistake for her striking brother.

Yet if he'd thought she was Rus…Pris looked at Dillon. She knew Harkness's reputation; the man was bad and bold. Why had he so readily turned tail rather than come after Rus?

Dillon had been facing away from Harkness. Her gaze slid to Dillon's horse. The black was an exceptional specimen, tall, with long, elegant lines, and totally, completely black. “Do you often ride him?”

Dillon's eyes remained on her face. “Yes.”

“So he's known about the town?”

He didn't answer, but after a moment said, “Are you saying that man recognized me because of Solomon?”

That was the only explanation for Harkness's abrupt retreat. She shrugged, leaned over, and grasped her hat, twitching to retrieve it.

Fingers instinctively tightening, Dillon held it for a moment, then let her tug it free. Through eyes still narrow, he watched her tuck up her hair, then cram the hat over it. The result was wobbly, but apparently satisfied, she gathered her reins, then looked at him, and inclined her head.

“Good day, Mr. Caxton.”

He snorted. “Dillon. And I'll escort you home.”

Her chin rose; she glanced sharply at him as he brought Solomon
alongside the drooping mare. “That won't be necessary.”

“Nevertheless.” He couldn't stop himself from grimly adding, “You've had enough adventures for one day.”

She looked ahead and made no reply.

He'd much rather she'd ripped up at him. He was tempted to say something to prick her Irish temper; the knowledge he wanted an excuse to rail at her—to release the gnawing, clamorous need to react, to act and seize and wield a right some part of him had already decided was his—held him back.

He'd never felt such a reaction before, had never been even vaguely susceptible to its like. Why she—who aroused so many emotions in him, and all so easily—should likewise trigger such a powerful, almost violent response simply by being reckless, by being in danger, by doing things—reckless things—that put her in danger…

The roiling tide rose, welling at his thoughts. He cut them off, slammed a door on his urges—primitive, he knew, and unlikely, in this instance, to be met with anything but haughty and contemptuous dismissal.

Jaw clenched, he glanced at her, riding easily by his side.

After a moment, he looked ahead. Trust—hers—that's what he was after. Time enough once he'd learned her secrets to introduce her to this other side of him that she and only she evoked.

Provoked.

Riding silently beside him, Pris was very aware of his leashed temper; it rubbed against hers like a hand ruffling fur the wrong way. There was heat there, too, lurking behind the anger, using it as a screen. It tempted her to engage, to let her temper flare and clash with his, but she was simply too weary, too exhausted, to risk such a foolhardy, reckless, and wild act just now.

No matter how tempted.

It was like riding beside a tiger, but…

Harkness had shot at her thinking she was Rus, and he'd been aiming to kill. The realization slid through her, solidifying and growing colder, more icy and sharp with every passing mile.

The mare plodded on. Dillon held his black to a walk; the horse was beautifully schooled. Despite wanting to run, he obliged, and like a gentleman paced neatly alongside the weary mare. Almost pro
tectively.

Very like his master.

The understanding intensified the coldness spreading inside her. She couldn't afford to lean on Dillon Caxton, not now, not yet, perhaps not ever. She didn't know if she could trust him. The events of the morning had brought Rus's plight even more forcefully home. Her twin was in very deep trouble.

The cold had seeped to her bones, to her marrow. She was shivering inside, but fought to hide it. She hunched her shoulders, her arms tight against her body.

From beside her came a muffled curse. Dillon shifted in his saddle; before she could summon the energy to glance his way, warmth fell around her shoulders, then engulfed her.

She stiffened, lifted her head even as her fingers greedily gripped and held the heat to her, the coat about her.

“For God's sake,
don't
argue!”

She shot him a severe glance.

He returned it with interest. “Disobliging female that you are.”

Her lips twitched. Looking ahead, she kept the coat close, savored its warmth, his body heat trapped in the silk lining. Without looking his way, she inclined her head. Stiffly said, “Thank you.”

The horses walked on. The icy chill inside her thawed.