His Lordship Possessed

“Why would you have to hide that?” I demanded. “From what I’ve read everyone adored him—you.”

“Everyone but your parents, and that story will have to keep for another time. Wait.” He picked up my pendant from the floor and set it on a table near me. “Count to ten after I leave, put this on, and don’t take it off unless you need me.”

“Why?”

“Things have changed now that I’m . . . never mind.” He opened the door and hurried out.

I slowly counted to ten before I put my pendant back on, drew a deep breath, and then bowed over, concealing the powder behind my arms. “Please . . . help me,” I called out in a strangled, frightened voice. “I’m throwing up . . . blood. I think I’ve been . . . poisoned . . .”

I had to keep that up for several minutes until the brute who had brought me to the room from the garden stepped in and scowled at me.

“What’s all this?” he demanded, peering at my face and then straightening. “Where did you—?”

I hurled the scented powder in his face, shoving him aside and darting past him through the door. As he coughed, I slammed the door shut and engaged the locks.

He began immediately swearing at me and hammering on the door’s inside panel, but I didn’t linger to hear his poor opinion of me. I ran down the hall to the servant’s stairs then took them to the first floor, where I stood in the shadows until I saw the guard there rushing upstairs. Then I ran round the corner and fled to the deliveries door.

It refused to open at first, but then the knob gave way and I was outside. I scanned the grounds to look for other guards and saw the coast was clear.

Bunching up my skirts and running across the lawn put me in view of the house, but I felt sure I had another minute or two before Powder-face and Dredmore’s other hooligans came after me. I made it to the stables and darted inside, stopping long enough to listen for a moment and glance out. Lamplight flicked against the side windows of the house, descending from the second to the first floor.

I turned and dashed to the stalls, where five black horses were watching me with some interest.

“All right, which one of you has a white star?” I went to the center stalls, avoided a nip from a cranky- looking mare with a white stripe, and then found the gelding, a placid-eyed fellow who nuzzled my fingers looking for a treat.

“Saves you for the ladies, does he?” I glanced at the saddles hanging on the end wall before I took down a bridle from a post peg and unlatched the stall door. The gelding dipped his head as I bridled him, and only gave me a mild look of surprise when I tossed a blanket over his back.

“Sorry, no time for anything else,” I told him, and climbed up the side of the stall to swing onto him. The only times I rode horseback were when I dressed as a native male, so I was used to sitting astride. For his part the gelding turned his head as if to inspect me. “For God’s sake, just pretend I’m a man.”

I guided him out of the stall and rode him to the double doors, where I reached up for the latch pull. Dredmore had installed a mechanized opener, the wheels of which whirred as four telescoping bars pushed open the big doors. Through them I saw the indistinct shapes of two men halfway between the stables and the house.

“Now let’s make a run for it.” I thumped my heels into the gelding’s sides, and he trotted out with a sedate, fastidious trot. “I said run, my lad, not mince.”

After two more insistent thumps, the gelding reluctantly stretched his legs and galloped across the lawn away from the manor and across the clearing that led to the cliffs.

I reined in the gelding when I reached a grove of cypress and took cover there to watch for Dredmore’s men. When the horse became restless, I stroked his neck. “I know, George, first time you get a decent rider and now you have to wait. You don’t mind if I call you George, do you? You look like a George.”

George snorted and dropped his head to crop some grass.

I rode horseback often enough not to be sore, but one already tender portion of my anatomy made me acutely aware not only of how daft I’d been, but why women were rarely seen in public the day after their weddings.

“I’ll wager he isn’t suffering,” I muttered to the gelding as I watched several men riding Dredmore’s other horses gallop past. “I imagine he’s swaggering about and bragging of his conquest and feeling quite the master of all he surveys. I should have set fire to that damned hovel of his before I escaped.”

Once the posse had disappeared over the next hill, George and I came out of the cypress and went in the opposite direction, toward the first spread of pasturelands that surrounded the city. The gelding perked up as soon as we were in the clear, and I eased off the reins to let him have his head.

“Go on,” I said as he went into that mincing trot again. “This is probably the only chance you’ll ever have to really run.”

George seemed to understand me and took off in a long, elegant lope that gradually increased in speed until we were fairly flying across the pastures. I glanced back now and then, but no one appeared behind us. Dredmore’s men were too accustomed to dealing with ladies, I imagined.

I stopped the gelding twice: once to water him at a spring-fed trough in a cow pasture, and the second time just within sight of the city’s streets. George had proven himself a worthy steed, so I abandoned my initial plan to turn him loose outside Rumsen and instead rode him through the back alleys to Halter’s, a small stable near my flat that I often frequented.

A few minutes after I rang the service bell, John Halter came out of the barn in his shirtsleeves, his penders still hanging round his hips. “We don’t open ’til dawn, so you can . . . sod me, Miss Kit? That you?”

“No, John, it’s not me.” I handed him the reins and dismounted. “It’s just George here. Say hello to my mate John Halter, George.”

The gelding blew out some air.

“Morning, George.” John gave his neck a few gentle slaps. “So why is this big fellow getting me up out of bed before I’ve had m’tea?”

“Last night George wandered away from home and has since become lost,” I said. “You can tell by the sadness in his eyes.”

“Bugger looks right happy to me.” The stablemaster frowned. “Where’s George’s home, then?”

“That would be Morehaven.”

John swore softly.

“I’ve watered and rested him. He’ll need a rub and some feed, and his master will pay you when he comes to collect him.” I hesitated. “He’ll likely have some questions, John.”

“Then I’ll let George answer what he can.” John sighed. “You’re not here, Miss Kit. Best you go on home.”

Chapter Two

From John Halter’s I did go home, arriving at my door a few minutes before sunrise. I scowled at the row of wardlings nailed above the entry before I went inside and bolted the door behind me.

Glancing down, I saw how my night’s adventures had reduced Bridget’s beautiful gown to little more than a bundle of dirty rags. I stank of horse sweat and my own sweat, and something else.

Beneath it all, I smelled of Dredmore.

I was distracted from my dark thoughts by looking at my bare forearm. Dredmore’s men hadn’t found my pendant but had relieved me of all my other, borrowed jewels before locking me up; hopefully Bridget’s husband could use his influence to get them back, because I could never afford to replace them. A suspicious little trickle between my legs made me crane my head round, and I saw spots of blood on the back of my skirt.

Reminders of more things that could never be taken back.

I ran to my bath, tearing off the gown before I grabbed my sponge and stepped into the tub. The cascade doused me in frigid water as I scrubbed myself all over, washing away the sweat and the blood, the dirt and the