Free Charming the Devil by Lois Greiman

began, but he interrupted again.
    “Like the sky. In the warmth of the summer when the wildflowers….” He stopped himself abruptly. Good God, he sounded like a raving lunatic. “What of you? Your mother is alive and well?”
    “She died shortly after my father. Of a broken heart,” she said, then touched the tips of her fingers to her brow as though it pained her.
    And it was that pain, that scrunching of her fair forehead that troubled him.
    “Tell me they were with you,” he said.
    She watched him in silence.
    “When you lost your husband,” he said. “You were not alone.”
    She stared at him for an elongated, breathless moment, then lifted her attention quickly away. “I believe I heard the field-master’s horn,” she said, and, touching her crop to her dark gelding’s flank, eased into a canter.
    They did naught but ride then, Bain behind, her ahead. And though he knew far better, he could not help but admire her. Her balance, her grace, the gentle way she guided her mount.
    She glanced back once as if to speak, then the hounds went to full cry, and the run began in earnest.
    Colt lengthened his strides, eating up the turf,taking the stone fences as a matter of course, and always ahead of them, Faye rode like a wood sprite, as light as a leaf on the wind, soaring over downed logs, racing through the woods.
    Ahead, the hounds were milling. Perhaps the fox had gone to ground, but in an instant a bay split the air again, and the pack was off, with the horsemen racing behind, crashing through the underbrush like demons, galloping into the open.
    Cresting a hill, Bain saw the rolling countryside spread out before them. An open field lay ahead, and there, just past the tricolored pack, he saw the fox. It was racing flat out, twenty couples of hounds behind. More woods lay just beyond.
    Horses lathered and blew. The whippers-in urged the dogs on. They shortened the distance on the flagging vixen, and then the first cur leaped. The fox rolled beneath its fangs, and in a moment the others were on it.
    There was a cry from the fox, a cheer from the riders. Faye pulled up her mount even as Colt galloped past. Slowing him gradually, Bain pulled him around in a circle only to find the faerielike Mrs. Nettles sitting perfectly still upon her restive gelding.
    “Is something amiss?” he asked, heading back. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, but it took her a moment to speak.
    “No,” she said finally. A pair of ladies rode past, laughing as they went. She didn’t glance their way. “All is well.”
    He scowled. “Are you certain?”
    “Of course.” She brushed back a wayward strand of golden hair. “What could be amiss?”
    He nodded, glanced behind them. The hounds-men were already beginning to restrain the dogs. Several riders had dismounted to perform their bloody rituals. “I believe they intend to lunch here. Would you care to join them?” he asked, but when he turned back he saw her jerk her knuckles from her cheek.
    “Mrs.—”
    “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, and, turning her mount away, urged him back toward the woods behind them. “I need a few minutes of privacy.”
    Bain watched her ride away. Indeed, he was determined to leave her be, for he had no desire to embarrass her, but it was easy to get turned about in the woods. Thus he followed at a distance.
    By the time he entered the copse, her gelding stood alone, buckled reins looped over a nearby branch.
    He gazed around, but the lass was nowhere to be seen. And then he heard it. Muffled crying. Sobbing, actually. Inconsolable and incessant, coming from behind a fallen log and tearing at the fabric of his heart.

Chapter 6
    F aye’s stomach convulsed, her throat felt raw. What had she been thinking? A foxhunt! It had sounded so cultured. So posh. The perfect venue for proving she belonged among London’s refined society.
    Wrapping her arms about her legs, Faye tucked her feet under the sturdy fabric of her skirt and rocked