Free August (Prairie Grooms, #1) by Kit Morgan

Sayers began that night – and if disaster wasn’t plaguing her father’s family, it went after her Uncle John’s. Any male heir bearing the Sayer name met with an unseemly demise. And once it had struck the male line down, it went after the females, ensuring no one would be able to take the Sayer name and use it for his own. Anthony Sayer’s estate had a black cloud around it since the day he died, and none had been able to lift it until Duncan Cooke – a.k.a. Duncan Mackenzie Sayer – came into his own and took over the title and estate. Peace finally settled over the remaining family members – all of them female, and either widowed or unwed.
    It would only be a matter of time before Uncle John’s daughters descended upon America. Penelope hoped they were dealt a better hand than she and her two sisters had been. If they were lucky, though, they’d be sent across the Channel to France to marry instead of having to travel across the sea. Barring that, she hoped that if the Duke did send them this way, it would be no further west than New York or Philadelphia.
    She stared at the sorrel mare as it stood calmly waiting for the saddle to be cinched up. Were they purposely giving her the saddest-looking animal on the ranch? Did they think her that incompetent? No, of course not. She told them she could ride. They just thought her a silly child for being afraid to.
    “There, that ought to do it for you,” Jefferson said as he patted the animal on the neck. “This here’s Lady J. She may not look like much right now, she hasn’t completely lost her winter coat, but she’s a good horse.” He turned to look at her. “She belonged to my late wife. The boys call her Juliet.”
    Penelope smiled at the name, and automatically thought of Romeo and Juliet . But surely no one here would make such a reference ...
    “Duncan took Romeo with him to London.”
    “What?” she asked in surprise, then looked away as embarrassment flushed her cheeks. When was she going to stop judging these people harshly, solely because they lived out on this hardened frontier? She wished she could simply let herself go and start enjoying things in the moment like Constance did. She had realized earlier as she walked to the barn, that she was beginning to fall into an “us against them” mentality - which wouldn’t do at all if she was to marry one of ... well, them. But now she was seeing the depth of that fall – and she didn’t like it very much.
    “Yeah, kind of funny, isn’t it? Naming horses after characters in stories,” said Jefferson.
    “Plays,” she corrected reflexively as she reached out and patted Juliet on the neck. “Shakespeare was a playwright.”
    “A what? Oh, never mind. Honoria was always correcting me on things like that. What do I know? I’m just a man from Missouri. Only reason I even talk halfway proper is Honoria’s years of teaching me,” he added with a grin.
    She smiled. “And you came out west to make a new life for yourself?”
    “Along with thousands of others. We’ve done all right, I guess, but enough of that. Let me give you a leg up.”
    She backed away from Juliet and turned to him. “A ‘leg up’? Oh, dear ...”
    “What’s wrong with a leg up? You telling me you didn’t have that in England either?”
    “No, we used a mounting block.”
    “A what?”
    “They stood on a big box, Jefferson,” August said as he entered the barn. Both turned to face him. “But what we do out west is give you a leg up.” He gave the saddle a once-over. “Just what in Sam blazes is that thing?”
    Penelope straightened herself. “Allow me to demonstrate,” she replied icily. She took the reins from Jefferson and led the horse to a nearby crate. It was a little small, but it would do in the pinch. She would not let August Bennett have the satisfaction of giving her a “leg up,” as it was called, especially not if he was going to make fun of her choice of saddle. Besides, the thought of his