Free Gareth: Lord of Rakes by Grace Burrowes

his attentions to her hair had gone awry.
    “Out where?” Astrid all but shrieked.
    “Hush, Astrid,” Felicity said. “Eat up, and I’ll go change into a walking gown. We have plenty of time for a turn about the park and some browsing along the shop windows before the morning is spent. I am to go to the theatre with Heathgate, that’s all. I’m sure we’ll see something unremarkable, but I promise to bring you all the details.”
    Astrid was bouncing around the room at that.
    “Oh, yes, details! Those I must have. May we buy you opera glasses this morning, so you might peer about the theatre and remark on the doings of Polite Society? I need ideas for my hair, Felicity, you can bring those back too…” Astrid trumpeted on a while longer, but by the time they were at the gates of the park, she had quieted down.
    In fact, in the sudden mood changes for which her age was notorious, Astrid had grown downright serious.
    “You know, Felicity, I appreciate the risk you are running to ensure our future,” she said as they tossed some stale bread to the ducks.
    Around Felicity’s feet, ducks flapped and honked in an avian display of pique. “Whatever does that mean?”
    “For a single young lady to run a gambling establishment is beyond the pale, and even I know that. You are hoping you can learn this business, as Callista required, then sell it with no one the wiser. You are trusting Heathgate’s discretion and hoping not one word of scandal attaches to your name. That is quite a risk,” Astrid concluded, throwing a small crust to a particularly tenacious gander.
    “You are growing up too quickly, little Sister.” To this extent, at least, Felicity could be honest with Astrid. “I am glad you see the need for extreme discretion regarding the time I spend with Heathgate. I believe we can trust his silence, but people will talk, and you are right: if word of this situation reached the wrong ears, I would be ruined in the eyes of good Society, though at five-and-twenty, that hardly matters.”
    They would both be ruined, though, and that did matter.
    “I shouldn’t like to see that,” Astrid said, firing a chunk of bread down the bank with the kind of steady aim no young lady ought to display in public. “You say you are five-and-twenty, Lissy, like it’s some geological tragedy, but you aren’t so old. You could still find true love. Besides, if you are ruined, I should insist on being ruined right along with you.”
    “Let’s hope it never comes to that.” Felicity dusted her gloved hands and hiked her skirts a few inches to allow her to scramble the several yards back up the embankment to the gravel pathway. Astrid was still tossing bread crumbs to the waterfowl, which she could do while chattering at a great rate.
    “Felicity, have you noticed that the brown duck to my left bears a striking resemblance—Felicity!”
    Felicity’s mind was slow to add up what her senses screamed at her. That pounding sensation beneath her feet, the dull tattoo in her ear, came from a horse tearing across the green, its hoofbeats muffled in the damp grass. Though the rider sawed brutally at the reins, the animal bore directly down on Felicity.
    Astrid was screaming in earnest when Felicity felt a pair of strong arms scoop her off the path and drag her behind the nearest tree just as the horse thundered past, inches from where her rescuer shielded her.
    “Felicity! Are you all right? Lissy!?” Astrid clambered up the bank and threw her arms around her sister. The gentleman obliged by wrapping an arm around Astrid too, while his words floated through the fog in Felicity’s mind.
    “Steady on, ladies. Catch your breath for a bit.” He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to release them, but stood with an arm around each sister. Unable to speak, Felicity closed the circle by wrapping her free arm around Astrid.
    “Oh, Felicity, I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. That horse must have been mad.” Astrid