Free Rexanne Becnel by The Matchmaker-1

Bringing the horses to Doncaster had been a good decision. Though he’d dreaded it, perhaps all would work out as he’d hoped.
    “I’ll keep your offer in mind,” he said. “There’s still tomorrow’s race to be run.”

    “When will we see your other animal put through his paces? He’s a fine-looking one.” Just then Holdsworth was jostled from behind and the tumbler he held sloshed whisky over the side.
    Neville inhaled the sweet pungent scent of it. “Soon. Soon enough,” he said, staring hungrily at the amber liquid.
    Cummings had invited his houseguests plus a few locals for an end-of-the-day drink at the Eel and Elbow, Doncaster’s finest public house. So far Neville had avoided spirits, only a mug of ale to assuage his thirst. But he could feel the siren call of the stronger stuffs.
    Bart nudged him. “D‘ye want to check Kitti’s leg before I take ’er back to the stables, milord?”
    Neville glanced at him, relieved at the interruption. Did Bart see how hard temptation rode him? He grimaced, but without rancor. Bart and Otis knew him better than any other men. They’d seen him roaring drunk one night, and deathly ill the next morn. They knew he sat up at night and slept until early afternoon. If they disapproved of the choices he sometimes made, they did not say. The common link they shared was the stables at Woodford, and the horses.
    “I’ll see the rest of you this evening,” Neville said to his other companions. “I’ve horses to tend.”
    “Hold on a minute! Here’s a toast to the fillies,” Cummings said, raising his glass.
    “And to the fillies we shall encounter at the ball,” Holdsworth added, hoisting his glass high and grinning. “We shall need our dancing shoes tonight, lads.”
    Neville raised his empty glass with the rest of the happy crowd. Then with Bart behind him, made his escape from the tavern.
    They rode the one mile out of town in silence. It had been a good day, a good beginning, and he breathed deep of the warm afternoon air. The smell of drying hay and warm horseflesh added to his contentment, as did the sun lingering late in the clear August sky. Soon enough the cool winds would arrive, and behind them the winter. By then he would be back among his people, hunkered down for the season with
only his chores and the breeding mares to tend.
    But if it was difficult to abstain from drinking now, it would be more so then. He rubbed one knuckle along the scar on his jaw. He knew from experience that he did his heaviest drinking during the long dark months of winter. It would be nearly impossible to fight his night demons without the numbing effects of whisky. He wasn’t certain he could succeed. The whisky deadened his nerves, keeping the awful memories at bay, memories of a night spent in hell, a night thick with screams and death, and swimming with blood.
    He swallowed hard. A night he could have prevented if he’d just stayed awake.
    He shuddered, suddenly overwhelmed by the need for a drink. What did it matter if he drank himself sick? a resigned voice in his head whispered. After all, he had no one to impress with his sobriety—or lack thereof.
    Then an image of Olivia Byrde flashed unexpectedly through his mind and he clung to it in relief. She would be there tonight, tempting him almost as fiercely as would Cummings’s fine stock of brandies. He ran a hand through his hair. No doubt she would work very hard to avoid him. But so long as he remained sober, he could think of no good reason to let her succeed.
    “No drinking,” he said out loud.
    “Very good, milord,” Bart agreed.
    Neville gave him a sidelong glance. He’d nearly forgotten the man’s presence. “No drinking,” he repeated, shifting in the saddle. “But I will see if I can remember how to dance.”
     
    Augusta adjusted the curl that lay against Olivia’s cheek. “You will break hearts tonight, my dear. Why, just look at you. Normally I would not care for that particular shade of