by Brenda Hiatt
Miss Seaton started, seemed about to say something, but then apparently changed her mind. "We'd best start looking, hadn't we?" she said to Anthony instead.
He nodded. "Carter said Killer took this path." He nudged Cinder toward the track. "It goes straight for almost a mile, then forks. The right fork links up with the main road, while the left heads into a wooded area. I followed the left fork for some way, and Lord Rushford followed the right, but neither of us saw any sign of man or horse."
"Where did you go from there?"
"We came back here— then I thought to seek you out." Telling her his original reason for doing so wouldn't help matters now, so he kept that to himself.
"Let's hurry on to the fork, then," she suggested.
Again they cantered, which brought them to the fork in just a few minutes. Once there, Miss Seaton pulled to a halt to look first to the right, then the left, through the gathering twilight.
"We'll have a three-quarter moon tonight, if the clouds break," he commented as she hesitated. "We can't very well wait for that, though."
"No," she agreed. "Not if there's a chance Lord Killerby or Nimbus may be hurt." Instead of choosing a direction, however, she leaned forward to stroke her mare's neck and whisper into her ear. Anthony tried to catch her murmured words, but only heard the name "Nimbus." Then, she let the mare's reins go slack and waited.
"What are you—?" he started to ask, but she held up a hand to silence him.
"I just want to try something," she said softly. "Give her a moment."
The mare put her head down, and at first Anthony thought she was grazing on the withered grass at the edge of the path, but then she swung her head the other way, as though searching for something on the ground. He tensed, waiting. Surely, Miss Seaton couldn't think—
Suddenly Cinnamon gave a soft whicker, then raised her head and took a few steps down the right-hand path.
"This way," Miss Seaton said to him, an edge of excitement in her voice. "Come, Cinnamon, let's hurry."
Torn between hope and disbelief, Anthony urged Cinder to match the mare's trot. "Do you really think they went this way?" he couldn't help asking.
"Cinnamon seems to think so," she replied with a delicate shrug, her eyes on the path ahead.
"She's a horse, not a hound. Surely you don't think she's sniffed out his trail?"
She spared him a sidelong look. "Horses have excellent senses of smell. They are capable of more than most people give them credit for."
"Yes, yes, I agree —to a point. Certainly, I have great respect for horses, for I rode Cavalry in the Army, but I also know their limitations. How can you trust this mare to track Killer? You said you haven't even owned her for very long."
"No, but I've come to know her fairly well. And she knows Nimbus." The quiet confidence in her voice was oddly compelling.
An instinct for self-preservation prompted him to say, "You knew Nimbus, too. You had to know no one else would be able to ride him the way you did on Monday."
She was silent for a long moment, then said, "My uncle tells me many breeders hire excellent riders to show their horses to best advantage before auctioning them for sale."
"That's true," Anthony admitted, trying to put his finger on why this bothered him more. "But your skill with horses seems to go beyond that of even the best riders I've seen— myself included. And because you are a woman, some men will be easily fooled into believing they can do as well, or better."
"So now I am to apologize for my gender? Or perhaps my uncle should tell potential buyers to disregard it before he will consider their bids?" she asked archly. "Caveat emptor."
He had no ready argument for that. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she was female that made this seem different from what so many others did.
Still, he tried one more time to articulate his objection. "It seems disingenuous to use one's natural skills to that sort of advantage, I suppose."
"You use your own skill at riding to be first in at the kill," she pointed out. "Most of the others on the field have not had the advantage of years in the Cavalry. Is that so different?"
Before he could answer, her mount abruptly stopped. "What is it, Cinnamon?" she asked the mare. "Oh! Lord Anthony, did you know that there is another path here? Look."
He did look, and was just able to see that there was indeed another, narrower track branching off to the left. He'd never noticed it before, and he was willing to bet Rush had missed it earlier, even though it had been full light then.
"Shall we follow it?" he asked, but Miss Seaton had already headed that way.
They followed the faint path for almost two miles through the mist and gloom, passing a dilapidated cottage at one point. Finally, the mare stopped again. Miss Seaton pointed at a clump of trees just off to the side. "Those lower branches are damaged. Do you suppose—?"
Anthony passed her to inspect the branches. "Yes, I'd say they left the path here and crashed through these trees. Something large caused this—and quite recently." He looked more closely and saw a scrap of cloth caught on one or the broken branches. It looked like the same spotted cloth Killer had been wearing as a cravat this morning.
In the dim light, he could find no other sign of his friend, however. "Bring Cinnamon up," he said, unconsciously putting a ring of command into his voice, unused since the end of the war. "Let her nose around and see if she can lead us to them."
Though startled by the sudden authority in his tone, Tessa complied at once, fully aware of the urgency of the situation. As before, she gave Cinnamon her head so that she could nose about in the brush. "Find them," she whispered to the horse. "Find Nimbus. Please."
Despite her protests, she couldn't help feeling responsible for whatever might have happened to Lord Killerby. Lord Anthony had put voice to her doubts in a way she had avoided doing herself, even in her protests to her uncle and cousin. She'd been given a special gift, and she had been using it for profit.
Cinnamon gave an anxious whinny and turned her head to look at her rider. Peering down at the area directly in front of her, Tessa saw the jaggedly broken branch of a thorn tree with something dark on the end. Blood? Her heart beat faster.
"This way," she said, when Cinnamon faced forward again and took a couple of trembling steps past the battered tree. "Let's hurry." And please don't let them be badly hurt, she prayed silently.
After a narrow band of gorse, they headed into a stand of trees and undergrowth that was doubtless used as a covert by some hunt or other. Now their path was easy to pick out, for bushes and small trees had been trampled and broken. Clearly, Nimbus had bolted, too frightened to worry about scrapes along the way.
"Keep an eye to either side, in case Lord Killerby was thrown," she called back as Cinnamon quickened her pace. It seemed almost impossible that he hadn't been, given Nimbus's strength and Lord Killerby's merely competent riding skills. Hadn't he said something during the last hunt about being good at falling? She hoped it was true.
"What's that, up ahead?" Lord Anthony asked sharply from behind her.
She'd been focusing on the brush to either side, but now she looked over Cinnamon's head and saw a barrier of some sort—a ramshackle fence of wood and wire, some of its timbers fallen at awkward angles. Just beyond it, something large lay on the ground.
Cinnamon gave a loud neigh before Tessa could call out, and at once the shape on the ground moved and answered with the call of a hurt and frightened horse.
"It's them," Lord Anthony exclaimed, moving past her. "Killer, are you all right?"
His words were answered by a moan, and Tessa breathed a tiny bit easier. At least he was alive. Had he been killed, she doubted Lord Anthony would ever have forgiven her—nor would she forgive herself.
Lord Anthony stopped at the tumbledown fence and dismounted, rather than risk leaping it in the dark. At his approach, however, Nimbus began to thrash about, clearly struggling to regain his feet.
"Wait!" Tessa crie
d. "Let me get to him first, so I can calm him." She hoped it would be possible. Slipping from the sidesaddle without the help of a block or assistant, she hit the ground with a thump, then hurried to the fence.
When she reached it, she saw that it was not so much a fence as a tangle of wood and wire, sprawling for three or four feet along the ground. No wonder Nimbus had fallen. Hiking up her skirts, heedless of what Lord Anthony might think —or see—she began picking her way through the mess.
"Nimbus, Nimbus, be still," she called in her soothing lilt as she approached the downed horse. "Everything will be fine."
Was it her imagination, or did Nimbus's answering whinny hold a note of relief? A moment later she reached his head and ran gentle hands along his neck, murmuring hushing sounds. He stilled, and she called softly to Lord Anthony that he could come up now.
She heard him scrambling over to his friend, who still lay moaning on the ground a few feet away, while she examined, mostly by feel, Nimbus's situation. He lay partly on his side, and she feared from his inability to rise that one of his legs must be broken. When she gently felt down his length, however, she discovered that his right hind leg was caught in some sort of snare. At once she set to work to free him.
"Talk to me, Killer," Lord Anthony was saying urgently to his friend. "Can you talk to me?"
"Anthony? Is it you?" came a weak reply. "I . . . I think my ankle is broken. You may say 'I told you so,' if you wish."
"I'll save that for later. Right now, we need to figure a way to get you back to the lodge so that a surgeon can have a look at you. Is anything else hurt?"
There was a pause, then Lord Killerby said, "No, just bruised, I think. Except for poor Nimbus. He won't have to be put down, will he? This was more my fault than his, you know."
When Lord Anthony didn't respond, Tessa said, "It's too soon to tell, but I don't think his leg is broken. I can't seem to undo this snare, however."
"Will he let me approach?" Lord Anthony asked.
"Yes, he's calm now." She put a hand on Nimbus's neck, just to be sure.
His shape loomed up in the dark, then he knelt beside her. She reached out with her other hand and caught his, so that she could guide it to the offending snare. It was somehow an intimate act in the concealing darkness, and she had to steel herself against the thrill that went through her at the contact.
"Ah, it's a rabbit snare." The tremor in his voice told her that he must still be fearful for his friend. "I just need to twist this bit this way, and . . . there. It's off. We should move away before you let him try to stand."
"Thank you," she said. "Get back to Lord Killerby, and I'll handle Nimbus now."
He rose and moved away, leaving her feeling oddly bereft. Shaking off such a foolish notion, she focused her attention on the horse. "Come, then, Nimbus, let's see what you can do," she said encouragingly. Half rising, she tugged gently on his reins.
Nimbus rolled onto his chest and then, with a convulsive effort, heaved himself to his feet. "Good boy!" she exclaimed. "Now, stand still while I see how you've fared."
The horse stood obedient as an old nag as she ran her hands along his neck, withers, sides and legs. There was a long cut on his left flank that made him flinch when she touched it, but at least none of his legs were broken. She breathed a sigh of relief, then guiltily remembered Lord Killerby.
"How is he?" she asked.
"He won't be walking back," Lord Anthony replied, "but I'm pretty sure he'll live— won't you, Killer?"
"Yes, I'll be fine." His voice was a little stronger than it had been when they arrived. "How is my horse?"
Tessa couldn't help smiling at his concern for the beast that had injured him—but was just as glad Lord Anthony couldn't see her smile. "No breaks, but a nasty scratch that may have to be stitched."
"Can he walk?" Lord Anthony asked.
She led Nimbus forward for a few steps, and though he favored his right foreleg, he seemed able to move fairly well. "Yes, I believe so, if we take it slowly."
"Then our first task will be to get all of us to the other side of that damnable thing that used to be a fence. Killer, you'll have to use me as a crutch. Up with you, then." The authority was back in his voice.
With a last, whispered command to Nimbus to stay still, Tessa hurried over to the two men. "Let me help," she said. It was the least she could do.
"I've got him," Lord Anthony replied brusquely, but then Lord Killerby stumbled as the taller man, stooping, tried to move him forward.
Tessa stepped up in time to keep him from falling, then inserted herself under his other arm. "I'm a better height to be a proper crutch anyway."
Anthony grunted, but didn't protest, and together they were able to help Lord Killerby through the tangle of the fallen fence to the horses waiting on the other side.
"I don't suppose we dare let anyone but you ride Cinnamon." There was no mistaking the cynicism in Lord Anthony's tone.
"That's not true at all," Tessa said, stung. "In fact, I was going to suggest that Lord Killerby ride her, while I lead Nimbus. Cinnamon is perfectly good-tempered —and not just with me. You saw my uncle on her, remember?"
Lord Anthony nodded. "My apologies, Miss Seaton. If Mercer Emery could ride her, I've no doubt anyone can."
She couldn't resist a chuckle at her uncle's expense. "My point exactly. Let's get this sidesaddle off of Cinnamon, then I'll remove Nimbus's saddle so Lord Killerby can use it. I hope it wasn't damaged —I didn't think to check."
The operation of changing saddles took some time in the dark, but at last the mare was fitted with Nimbus's— thankfully operational —saddle and the sidesaddle was set atop the injured horse, though of course Tessa wouldn't be riding him. Then they had to get Lord Killerby to his feet again.
"You're both being far more patient with me than I deserve after my idiocy today," he said as he slowly hobbled toward Cinnamon with their help. "I'm terribly sorry to put you to such trouble."
"As Lord Anthony has pointed out, I hold a share of the blame as well," Tessa said, another pang of guilt assailing her. Lord Killerby really was a nice man, and didn't deserve a brute like Nimbus. "You'll have to mount from the right, to spare your left ankle."
Mounting from the wrong side was awkward, of course, but with Tessa and Anthony pushing from below, he was finally able to throw his left leg over Cinnamon's back and settle himself in the saddle. "There! I'd have sworn ten minutes ago I couldn't have done that. You're better than a tonic, Miss Seaton."
She knew he was only trying to make her feel better, but it helped a little, all the same. Then Lord Anthony put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him in sudden alarm, sure he was about to lambast her for her part in this crisis. To her surprise, however, she could see his teeth flash in a smile.
"You really are a most capable —and kind— young lady, Miss Seaton," he said. "Thank you."
Confused and suddenly breathless, she could only nod. "I'll . . . I'll go get Nimbus," she said when she found her voice.
The big bay was still standing quietly where she'd left him. Carefully, she led him through the tricky remains of the fence, made more difficult by his limp. Lord Anthony mounted his gray, and they slowly headed back the way they'd come.
After just a few minutes, however, it became obvious that Nimbus could by no means match even the walking pace of the other two horses.
"You two had better go on," Tessa said. "Lord Killerby needs a surgeon for that ankle, and the sooner the better."
"Don't be absurd, Miss Seaton," Lord Killerby protested, though his voice was weak again. "We can't leave you out here alone in the dark and mist. Suppose it turns to rain?"
Tessa looked up at Lord Anthony imploringly. "Please. I refuse to be the cause of any more pain tonight. If the weather worsens, I can take shelter in that cottage we passed earlier. I'll be fine there."
He frowned down at her for a long moment, then nodded curtly. "Very well. I'll get him back to the lodge as quickly as pos
sible, then I'll come back for you. Come on, Killer. Gallantry demands celerity."
With a last worried glance at Tessa, Lord Killerby nodded and the two men headed back to the path at a fast walk. Tessa watched them go with relief, feeling that she'd done what she could to alleviate the trouble she'd caused. And now she wouldn't have to push Nimbus faster than he could comfortably go, either.
"Come on, then, lad," she said to the bay, leading him forward one trembling step at a time. Their progress was painfully slow, for every few yards Nimbus insisted on stopping to rest his leg and she thought it best to allow it, if he were not to be permanently lamed.
The mist turned into a drizzle. It would be at least an hour before Lord Anthony could return, for Lord Killerby would be unable to trot, as that would jar his ankle beyond endurance. She only hoped he would not faint before they reached the lodge, for she hadn't liked the sound of his voice when last he spoke.
Lord Anthony's last words to her before they'd started off, however, had been immensely comforting. Over and over, she replayed them in her mind. Capable and kind, he'd called her. There was nothing loverlike in the words, of course, but his tone had indicated honest approval. It meant far more to her than she would have expected.
Before she could reach the cottage, the drizzle increased to a small but steady rain. At their next pause, she took the opportunity to wipe off Nimbus's cut with her petticoat and the clean rain. She was relieved to find it really was just a scratch, long but not deep enough to need stitches.
Though she tried to distract her thoughts by concentrating on Nimbus, she could not help wondering what she and Lord Anthony would talk about when he returned.
If he returned.
She had just sighted the cottage ahead when she heard the sound of hooves coming toward her along the path, and a moment later Lord Anthony came into view, carrying a shielded lantern. He was riding Cinnamon rather than his gray, but dismounted as soon as he reached her. "Slow going, I see."
"Yes, I'm afraid it is going to take half the night to get him back to the stables, for he needs to stop every few steps. I've decided to stay here and let him rest for a while. Please don't feel you have to remain out here with me, though I would appreciate it if you could send a note to my father to keep him from worrying."
