and stared open-mouthed at the woman who had pulled her horse to a standstill. The woman gave Victoria an imperious look down her long nose and when she spoke her voice was high pitched and haughty.
‘Why didn’t you look where you were going?’ And then on a more concerned note, she asked, ‘Are you all right?’
Victoria Lewis—the product of eighteen years of careful upbringing and the product of five years at Miss Carver’s Academy for young ladies in York which had, until now, produced a charming and dignified young lady—looked up at the stranger and regarded her with scathing animosity. The woman’s tone—condescending, authoritative and at the same time lightly contemptuous—made Victoria’s hackles rise.
‘I’ve almost been run over by your horse,’ she fumed, quite beside herself. ‘Of course I’m not all right. It is you who should have looked where you were going. You might have killed me.’
The girl’s boldness and forceful attack infuriated the woman on the horse. Her initial concern that she might be hurt vanished. ‘How dare you speak to me so!’ The words were shrill, like those that might have come from a shrew.
‘I dare and I do. And look at your poor horse.’ Victoria pointed to the restless mount which was all a-lather. ‘And look at me.’ She held out her soiled skirts.
‘It’s your own fault. If you hadn’t been wandering in the middle of the road, you wouldn’t have fallen into the ditch.’
Victoria stared up into the beautiful, arrogant face above her, seeing angry grey eyes blazing in a soft-skinned face, topped by a feather-adorned high scarlet hat to match the velvet habit that had a white ruffle at the neck. The snug waist and fitted bodice enhanced the woman’s voluptuous body and the abundance of her light brown hair was secured in a net at her nape. Clearly she was a woman of note, but after Victoria’s run-in with the gentleman at the station and now this, she was in no mood to be browbeaten by anyone.
‘Me? If you hadn’t been racing your horse to death, I should not have fallen!’ she retorted before she could stop herself. ‘You shouldn’t be allowed on the road. Do you always ride like a lunatic?’
Her face a mask of blazing indignation, the woman could scarcely believe what she was hearing. ‘What? What did you say? Why, you impertinent little baggage! You will do well to watch your tongue. I swear you will pay for this insolence.’ Like a flash the woman’s arm went up, the riding whip with it, as she cried indignantly, ‘You dare to say such things to me—to me!’
At this point another horse and rider appeared on the scene, a gentleman, and he couldn’t believe his eyes at what followed, for he saw the girl standing in the road reach up, grab Clara’s arm and wrench the whip from her grasp. Then in one swift movement she snapped it in two and flung it into the ditch.
‘There, that’s where it belongs. How dare you raise your hand to me! Do you make a habit of going around beating people?’
‘What’s going on here?’ a deep, throaty voice broke in. ‘Clara? What’s all this about? It looks like a minor riot to me.’
The moment was brought to a halt by his mount. Restless at being pulled up when it had been in full stride, it tried to move on. Before the horse was brought under control it had made a full turn and moved closer to Victoria, who, always nervous around horses, eyed the beast warily and stepped out of the way of its hooves.
Distracted by the arrival of her companion, when Clara turned her head towards him a flush rose to her cheeks. Victoria saw her expression soften visibly and her eyes light up. Why, she thought, it was as if the gentleman had lit a candle inside her. The woman’s affection for her companion was more than obvious.
‘This—this girl was in the middle of the road and when I came round the corner she lost her balance and fell into the ditch,’ Clara explained on a gentler note than the one she had used on Victoria, her gaze reluctant to leave her companion.
‘Must you and your animal claim the whole road while lesser mortals take to the grass?’ Victoria retorted, feeling that she had to remind the woman of her presence.
Clara looked at her, but addressed her companion. ‘Never have I been so insulted! When I asked if she was all right the insolent girl accused me of being an idiot and a lunatic. Really! The audacity!’
‘Which you are,’ Victoria flared. ‘I’m not sorry for calling you those things. I could have been trampled to death, or terribly crippled.’
‘I don’t know who you are, but you should mind your manners, girl, if you know what’s good for you. And who might you be? Well?’ Clara demanded, her voice unnecessarily loud in the quiet of the countryside. ‘Where do you live?’
‘In Ashcomb,’ Victoria replied, lifting her chin proudly and looking directly into the narrowed grey eyes. ‘And there is no need to shout since my hearing is perfectly sound.’
Fixing the gentleman with her gaze, her eyes restless and pensive—the very essence of tempestuous youth—she was rendered momentarily speechless by the appearance of this scowling, masculine presence. An indescribable awe—or fascination—came over her as she stared at him. She had made a study of animals in her lessons to be able to pick out in an instant the dominant male and there was no question whatsoever that he was it.
He sat tall and lean in the saddle with strong shoulders straining at the seams of his well-cut olive-green jacket. Snuff-coloured breeches were fitted snugly about his muscular legs, which gripped the horse. His boots were brown and highly polished, and he wore no hat. There was a certain insolence in the lift of his head and in the casual way his body lounged upon his horse. Even his shadow, which stretched along the ground and almost touched her feet, seemed solid.
His gaze, uncompromising and intent, settled heavily on hers. There was something so powerful in that look, an energy that flowed into her. She shuddered with a mingling of fear and awe. Indomitable pride, intelligence and hard-bitten strength were etched into every feature of his face. He was clean shaven, his skin dark, slashed with eyebrows more accustomed to frowning than smiling. His mouth was firm with a hint of cruelty in it, determination in the jut of his chin and arrogance in his square jaw. It was a face that said its owner cared nothing for fools and in the purple-blue of his compelling eyes—the purple-blue of amethyst—silver flecks stirred dangerously like small warning lights. They were watchful and mocking as though he found the world an entertaining place to be providing it did not interfere with him. His expression was set with determination and she suspected he did not often smile readily.
Victoria forgot her manners and stared back for as long as she was able, suspecting he was a man diverse and complex, hard-edged and fine-tuned, with many shades to his character and much of it hidden. She felt her cheeks grow pink, sure he’d somehow read her mind. He wasn’t handsome in the classical sense, but with his shock of unruly hair as black as pitch, he had the look of a pirate or a highwayman about him, or even the devil himself.
Yes, she thought, feeling her stomach roll over, she sensed a wildness about him that would surely terrify the most experienced of women. He bothered her, bothered her senses. She tried to put that thought aside.
‘I see you’ve got yourself into a spot of trouble. Then thank God you are unharmed,’ the man said. ‘You are unhurt?’
‘Yes—but look at my clothes,’ Victoria said, upset that her mother would have to see her looking like this when she had so wanted to arrive home looking perfect. ‘They are quite ruined.’
The man, Laurence Rockford, looked down at her with interest and a furrowed brow. Her self-possessed response startled him. She wore a knee-length pelisse which matched the dress beneath. The expression on her face was interesting—wary, challenging, confident, all at the same time. It was familiar to him, that face, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember where he might have seen it before.
When she tilted her head back, his stare homed in on her slender neck and white fichu tucked into her neckline. He was struck by a jolt of unexpected lust Victoria little realised. Her dark-brown hair with shades of