She picked up her skirts and ran toward the man. He didn’t notice her until she grabbed his arm and shouted at him, “Stop it, you fool! How dare you strike that poor animal? By all that’s holy, you should be thrown off a cliff. You should be gutted like a trout, you miserable beast, er, fish.”
The peasant jerked around, baring blackened teeth in an astonished grimace at the sight of a well-dressed young lady, her face red with fury.
Realizing that she’d spoken in English, she paused and gathered suitable blighting words in French. “Whatever are you doing, you wretched creature? I demand that you stop beating this poor animal.”
“You demand, my pretty young lady?”
“Just look what you’ve done.” Flecks of foam dropped from the mare’s mouth, and ugly red blood streaks crisscrossed on her head and neck. Kate moved to the horse to quiet her, but the peasant blocked her way and shook the stick in her face. “It’s my horse, Missie, and I’ll give the beast the beating she deserves. Kicked me, she did, the mangy creature.”
“You probably deserved the kicking. You probably deserve much more. And if you fed her properly she wouldn’t be mangy. You should be shot.” From long experience with facing Sir Oliver, ranting and waving his cane at her, she now felt no fear. She, quite simply, wanted to kill him.
The peasant pulled up short at this attack from the foreign lady and narrowed his eyes at her speculatively. He licked his lips and looked meaningfully at the single strand of pearls about her neck. “How strange it is that such a fine young lady is out walking by herself. Maybe I’ll not beat the beast if you give me those fine pearls.” He reached out a dirty hand, and Kate jumped back out of his reach.
“Don’t be absurd, you cruel creature. You can’t frighten me. I shall have you whipped, which is less than you deserve, if you so much as lay a hand on me. I’ll have you made into bacon, you swine.”
“On aye? And who’ll do this whipping, Missie? Who’ll do the chopping, eh?” He was advancing on her, the stick poised. He looked revoltingly pleased with himself, happy as he could be.
Without thought, she balled her hand into a fist, as Harry had taught her, and struck the man full in the face, right in his jaw, just left of his lower lip. He staggered back, more from surprise than pain. His rough features distorted with rage, he cursed her loudly in words she couldn’t begin to understand.
Now frightened, since she wasn’t a fool, she began to back away from him warily. She should have kicked him in the groin, the more extreme measure Harry had taught her to use when a man offended.
“I’ll show you, you bloody bitch!” The man rushed at her, swinging the stick in a wide arc.
In that instant the mare, now freed, reared on her hind legs and thrust her hooves at the peasant’s back, hard. He went sprawling, yelling as he went down, and landed on his face mere inches from Kate’s feet.
Kate grabbed the mare’s mane and swung onto her back. The mare snorted in surprise and reared again, her front hooves pawing the air. Kate hung on tightly to her mane, disregarding a huge rip in her skirt. She saw only that miserable man, who was rising slowly and painfully from the ground, his eyes as mean now as Sir Oliver’s at the most vicious of times. She threw herself forward on the mare’s neck and grasped the loose reins. She felt pain shoot through her leg as the peasant’s stick struck hard on her thigh. She bit back a cry, dug her heels into the mare’s sides, and hung on with all her strength as the frightened horse shot forward in an erratic gallop. She didn’t look back, just hugged herself against the mare’s neck. She realized vaguely that there was only the single mountain road and that they were heading in the direction of the village.
She heard the peasant yelling after her and looked back in sudden panic, afraid that he had another horse. He was running after her, his fists raised, screaming. She breathed only a momentary sigh of relief, for she hadn’t the foggiest notion what she was going to do. She’d stolen a horse— albeit for the purest of motives— and was fleeing toward a foreign village, where, for all she knew, the people were as vicious and uncaring as that horrible peasant.
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