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.
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
