Free Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) by Sydney Alexander

and it had been a rough go, he still loved the man. It had been losing the hunting that had done it, he supposed. They had always agreed on hunting, but the old man didn’t hunt anymore, and so they had lost their one bond.
    William sighed and stood to bank the fire. It had grown late, and he’d be expected at the yard at an hour he had previously associated more with tumbling into bed than climbing out of it. It was hard work, riding all day and pitching in to help clean the stables, besides. Harder than strolling down to the yard, whip in hand, to mount the saddle horse his groom held still for him, that was for certain. When he stretched his back, his spine made interesting popping sounds. His knees were making their presence known in ways he had never experienced before. The ankle he had broken in a tumble over a ditch as a fourteen-year-old boy was aching as if the fall had happened yesterday.  
    Yes, working as a huntsman in an Irish lord’s stable was much more difficult than he had anticipated. But by God, he was enjoying himself.  
    And the master’s daughter certainly sweetened the bargain.
    He poured himself another finger and thought about the master’s daughter.
    They had shared quite a moment as he had left the house that night. He felt a little aroused just thinking of it, the way she had stood in the doorway bidding the men goodnight, and tried to walk back inside just as he was stepping out, looking back at her father to say goodnight. They had brushed, and stopped, and stared, for a scant second, but it was enough, her breasts against his chest, her face close to his, their bodies touching… her eyes had grown wide and damn if her cheeks didn’t flush again.
    He’d apologized, but he couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face, and she had been so flustered, stepping back into the house while he went out into the night, that he knew it had affected her too.  
    There was something there, he thought. Something very interesting.

    ***

    Grainne brushed her hair slowly, gazing at the fire as she drew the comb through her thick locks. After a day in the yard, her hair was as wooly and full of tangles as a broodmare left out in the fields all summer, but now, having been caught up in a net all evening, it was calmer and more biddable. She still found bits of hay and leaves in it from time to time, though. She flicked a little twig to the floor and tugged the comb through the snag it had left behind, grimacing at the pain. She supposed no one who ever saw her combing out this mane would make the mistake of thinking her a lady.
    Except for her father, of course.
    Her father had been growing tiresome of late, inviting over this stupid squire for dinner being only the very latest instance of his sudden interest in her gender. She had conveniently forgotten she was a female when she was very young; only her mother had cared, and when her mother had died, no one in the house had dared tell her no. By the time the household had thought her sufficiently recovered enough to start treating her like a normal child again, it was too late. She had run wild, spending all her days on horseback, and her father, longing for his lost wife, relished his daughter’s company.  
    She had never expected he might send her away. Even when Mrs. Kinney, overstepping her boundaries as all good housekeepers were wont to do, began prodding at him to send her to relatives in Dublin, to learn to be a young lady of society, to come out and make her bow, however humble, and find a respectable husband amongst the Anglo-Irish gentry, her father had looked at the housekeeper as if she had two heads. Send Grainne away? What madness!
    And that was only a few years ago, Grainne thought sadly, watching the embers deep in the hearth glow and sparkle. She had fooled herself into thinking she was safe, that her father would never take her away from her horses. She shouldn’t have trusted him.
    Now she only had Len to trust.
    Len.