.
Jo heard the man riding after her in pursuit, but once she got a few lengths ahead of him, she knew he wasn't going to catch her. Tempest was the finest horse to come out of her father's stables, and even as a yearling, her father had thought Tempest's like wasn't to be seen in England. Steadily, she pulled ahead of the man's sturdier hunter, and when she came around the bend, she turned the horse into the forest trails.
Tempest was fast and dainty-footed, and she followed one of the deer trails off the road a short distance. From there, shielded by the high bank and the new scrub, Jo kept her mare still as the strange man on the road thundered past. His gelding was of a high quality, she had known that immediately upon seeing it, but he was nothing compared to Tempest.
What a strange man. She hadn't expected to be stopped by a stranger on the road. Yorkshire, in general, was a place known for its stoic people, and no one stopped much to chat. The man was clearly not from the area, and perhaps that was why she found him so strange.
Well... it wasn't just how strange he was acting, if she were entirely honest with herself. His black hair and gray eyes were striking enough, and there was something strangely beautiful about his face. She supposed he would be called handsome if he stopped moving or kept his face still, but when he was smiling, teasing, and questioning, he had a kind of liveliness that made handsomeness seem secondary to his charm.
Jo had noticed right away that he sat a horse very well. With his tall and athletic form, the stranger looked as if he were born to be on horseback. A part of her absently wondered what he might do mounted on her father's own blood bay hunter, one of the tallest horses the Fairport stud farm had ever thrown. She flinched away from the thought because the blood bay Hauer was the first horse her uncle sold off to a visiting Prussian dignitary.
I can't think about this now. I need to concentrate on getting to London and to the Earl of Leaford.
She counted to five hundred, and then when she had not heard anything else, she guided Tempest back on to the road. Despite the day and a half they had already traveled, Tempest was still moving as if they were only out for a midday run.
London is just seven days away. If I can get to London, if I can get to the earl, everything will be fine.
With any luck, the strange man had given up and returned to whatever errand brought him to Yorkshire, or perhaps he had stopped for a drink somewhere and would not see her and Tempest sneak by. That was the only thing that mattered to her.
Tempest looked as if that run wasn't nearly enough for her taste.
Jo grinned as she thumped the mare's neck gently with her fist.
“Sorry, pretty girl. We've got a long way to go, and there are no good stalls for us between here and London, I'm afraid.”
She was just getting ready to take Tempest down the river road when she heard the sound of hoof beats behind her. Even this early in the year, there were plenty of hunting parties and various other riding expeditions going on in Yorkshire, and thinking nothing of it, she guided Tempest to the side of the road to give the group plenty of space to pass.
To her shock, however, it was not a group of gentry out for a ride or even a hunt. Instead, it was a trio of rather shabbily dressed men on dusty, ragged-looking horses coming up fast. Just as she realized their faces were covered below the nose with scarves, they had her and Tempest surrounded with the river to their backs.
“It's just a boy,” said one.
Another snorted.
“Look at the damn horse. You think some local brat's going to have horseflesh like that?”
Tempest stamped her feet in agitation, and Jo could tell the mare liked the situation as little as she did.
“You're coming with us, girl.”
The words told her all she needed to know, and with a squeeze of her knee, she signaled to Tempest to half-rear, throwing her hooves forward like a medieval battle horse. It allowed her to break through the loose ring the men had formed around her, and Jo wasn't going to waste whatever opportunity she had.
Tempest slipped between two of the cobby horses like a fish slipping through water, but one of the men regained his wits long enough to grab at Jo. She ducked and felt the cap she had pinned so carefully snatched off her head. She shouted, but the man didn't grab on to her hair. Her long braid hit her back, and then she was through—almost.
One of the men had recovered faster than she thought he would. Wheeling around, he somehow pulled alongside Tempest. He wasn't worried about racing her, only stopping her. Suddenly, Jo was surrounded by a stench of unwashed flesh and a meaty arm scooped around her waist, dragging her backward off the saddle.
She shrieked with rage and panic, and the man's grip slipped. Instead of throwing her over his saddle as he intended, he let her slip toward the ground. For the first time, Jo was grateful for all the tumbles she had ever taken, starting from the time she was seven. She couldn't stop herself from falling, but she managed to grab the man who had toppled her by the foot, pulling him off the horse as she fell.
Jo felt a kind of grim satisfaction when the man hit the ground next to her. In a heartbeat, she was up and scrambling for her feet. She had to get to Tempest. Her only way out of this situation—their only way out—was if she got back on her horse and got the hell out of there.
However, that was easier said than done, as the two other riders were bearing down on her, grabbing at her jacket, her arms, anything to keep her from getting mounted up again. She shouted with fury, helpless and knowing all too well that her bid for freedom was at an end. A part of her told her to simply return quietly, that there was no good in fighting. The rest of her felt pure undiluted rage at that idea, and she lashed out blindly, desperate to get back on top of Tempest.
The shot that cracked through the air sent all the horses except for Tempest into a panic. The loose horse panicked and ran off down the road, tack jingling, and then another one reared, dumping its rider on the ground and taking off after the first. That left only one of her attackers mounted, and he wheeled around in confusion, trying to see where the shot had come from.
“That's enough of that, gentlemen.”
The speaker, to Jo's shock, was the same man who had given chase less than an hour before. His horse stood like a statue as he took aim with his pistol.
“You need to get on the road back to whatever slum you crawled out of. That first shot was a warning, but the next one won't be.”
The two men on the ground slowly released Jo, and in a few moments, she had scrambled back onto Tempest's back, calming the horse with just a few strokes and murmured words. She cantered up to the stranger with the pistol, because whoever he was, he was already better than the men who had attacked her.
Never taking his eyes off her attacker, he directed his next words to her.
“Are you good to run?”
“Always.”
“Good. On the shot, then.”
He raised his voice and lifted the pistol. “All right then. Get the hell out of here.”
Another shot ran out, sending the men scrambling back down the road. With a surge of speed, Jo sent Tempest down the road south again, and this time, she felt only a sense of relief at the fact that the man on the bay gelding was right behind her.