keep going.
“You’re right. She can’t have gotten farther than this. John’s horse is fast,
but even he must tire, and by now, he must be nearly dead.” It was Lawrence, my
dear husband. Oh, God, it wasn’t fair. Too close, he and his men were too close.
What to do?
“She is close by, I feel it.” Again, it was my husband. “I would swear that I
heard a horse whinny. It was close by, I know it.” I heard another man grunt,
but he didn’t add his opinion. They were coming ever closer. Any minute now one
of them would see us and then it would be all over.
It wasn’t Tempest who gave us away. It was George. He didn’t know what was
happening, and so he scratched at my chest and wuffed loudly. Not that it would
have mattered. They would have found us, impossible not to.
No choice, I thought, tightened my belt more firmly around George, grabbed the
saddle horn, and climbed up into the saddle. We shot from the trees onto the
road like a cannonball.
It was a desperate chase, but I knew that I had no chance. Tempest was heaving
beneath me. It was too much for him, he was slowing. Tears of sheer frustration
slid down my face, nearly freezing by the time they dripped off my chin. I
looked over my shoulder once and could make out my husband’s grim face in the
pale predawn light. I was fairly choking with fear.
But a moment later a horse was beside me. A man leaned over and grabbed me
around my waist. George howled, and the man fell back in his surprise.
“It’s a damned dog,” the man shouted. “She’s got him inside her cloak.”
I heard the men shouting to each other. Soon, too soon, the man was back, and
this time, he grabbed Tempest’s reins, jerking them out of my hands. Slowly, the
man pulled him up. Then Lawrence was on the other side of me. He backhanded me,
knocking me off Tempest’s back. I grabbed George and managed to pull him free
before I hit the frozen ground. I didn’t land on him, thank God.
The breath was knocked out of me. I lay there, looking up in that cold gray
light of dawn, trying to suck in some air. George was barking wildly, flying
around me in circles, trying to protect me. Then he whimpered and climbed on top
of me. I saw Flynt’s face above me.
“She’s alive, my lord,” Flynt said to Lawrence, who was standing right there
beside him and could plainly see for himself that I was alive. “Just knocked
herself silly, that’s all. The dog is all right, finally shut his yap. Just look
at it?sitting on her chest and licking her face. You want me to kill it? I hoped
when you knocked her off the horse, she’d land on the cur and kill it.”
If I could have drawn a breath at that instant, I would have told him what I
thought of him. But I couldn’t do anything, just lie there, wondering if air
would ever come into my body again.
“No, leave her something,” Lawrence said, “although she doesn’t deserve any
kindness from me. I believe she turned into more of an annoyance than she was
worth. Yes, leave her that miserable little cur. The good Lord knows she loves
the animal more than she loves any human being.”
“Ain’t right to love a mutt that much,” Flynt said and spat, missing my face by
perhaps two inches.
“She has nothing else,” Lawrence said, and I hated him more in that moment than
I had ever hated another human being in my life, because he was right.
Lawrence stood over me now, the wind whipping the cloak about him. He was
smiling as he said in such a lovely kind voice, “Don’t fight me, now, madam, or
I will simply let Flynt kill the dog. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I said, sucking in great mouthfuls of air. “I understand.” His smooth
voice had scared me more than being knocked off Tempest’s back.
“You have been a nuisance,” he said. “You have caused me difficulties. You have