Velvet by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page A

run?”
    Her hat was slightly askew, dark red ringlets escaping from its confines. The translucent pallor of her complexion had taken on a rosy glow and the dark eyes were alight. Nathaniel’s head spun again.
    “You’re mad,” he declared. “Of all the crazy, reckless pieces of riding! There had to be an easier way over that hedge.”
    Gabrielle looked at him as if he’d taken on some strange, alien shape. “Of course there was. But we wanted to be ahead of the field.”
    “That’s no excuse.”
    She continued to stare at him in incomprehension. “What are you saying?”
    “That it was a piece of the most foolhardy risk-taking I’ve ever witnessed,” he said flatly.
    “Well, why did you follow me if you were scared?”
    “I was not scared. It was all right for me to take the fence; my mount is bigger and more powerful than yours.”
    “Oh, wait a minute,” she said softly. “This is nothing to do with horses, is it, Lord Praed? This is to do with what men can do and women can’t … or do I mean
shouldn’t!”
    “You can mean what you wish,” he said. “But you’ve demonstrated yet again that you lack the qualities to join the service. I told you last night that reckless endangerment of oneself and others is unacceptable.”
    “Nonsense,” Gabrielle said stoutly. “There was nothing reckless about that. My mount is one of Simon’s hunters. He’s well up to the weight of a grown man, let alone mine, and very powerful. Besides, I’ve jumped that fence hundreds of times. Georgie’s family estates march with the Vanbrughs’ and I hunted this land almost every winter until a few years ago.”
    “You don’t stop to contemplate consequences,madame,” he declared. “Such habits make for a dangerous and untrustworthy partner.”
    Impatiently he glared around at the frustrated pack of hounds, the cursing huntsman, and the milling riders as they straggled into the spinney. “This is going nowhere. Why don’t they move on and draw another covert?”
    “They’ll move to Hogart’s Wood in a minute,” Gabrielle said thoughtfully. There was no point defending herself verbally against such a wealth of misguided prejudice. They’d end up in a shouting match that would achieve nothing. A different, more challenging approach was needed.
    “If you’ll excuse me, Lord Praed, I think I’ll make my way to the wood now. There’s a shortcut. You won’t wish to take it, of course, since it involves another rather sizable hurdle. But I’m sure you won’t miss anything if you follow the body of the field.”
    She turned her horse and cantered off down the ride leading out of the spinney. Hooves sounded behind her with satisfying immediacy, and she smiled to herself, leaning low over the horse’s neck as they emerged onto a stretch of gorse-strewn common land. She nudged his flanks and the animal broke into an easy gallop. She hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said he was well up to a weight considerably more than her own. It gave her the advantage of speed in this race she was running with Nathaniel Praed.
    They raced across the common, up a relatively steep hill, and then down the other side. The obstacle she intended to jump was a ten-foot stone wall at the bottom of the hill bounding the orchard of a sizable farmhouse. Hogart’s Wood lay on the far side of the orchard and the hounds would have to be taken around the wall. An intrepid rider could thus ensure he was on the spot when the hounds drew the wood.
    Nathaniel didn’t know why he was following her. Except that she’d needled him again with that derisivechallenge. Except that he couldn’t seem to keep his distance. Except that he seemed in her company to follow impulse in as headstrong a fashion as the Comtesse de Beaucaire.
    He saw the wall ahead—mellow golden stone in the crisp sunlight, dwarfing the horse and rider pounding toward it. He wanted to yell at her not to be a fool, but the black was already gathering himself for the effort