Chartres snatched at the lace again, tearing it from her throat. Lorraine tugged at the lace of her sleeve, dragging it against the painful cut of Dr. Fagon’s lancet.
A cloud of terrified grouse erupted from the underbrush, flapping wildly, so frightened they flew into danger instead of running to safety. Berwick’s horse shied, startling Lorraine’s and Chartres’ mounts.
Gyrfalcons screeched and arrowed toward their prey. Their claws hit the plump birds with the soft thud of crushed wings.
Marie-Josèphe touched Zachi’s mouth with the reins. The Arabian rushed backwards, reared and spun and leaped into a gallop. Chartres and Berwick and Lorraine pounded down the trail after her. Zachi sped past gamesmen opening wicker baskets, flinging a score of gobbling dindon from America into the air. Zachi never wavered when the stout brown birds erupted, into the range of the hunters’ guns.
Hoofbeats echoed so close that Marie-Josèphe feared to look back; she urged Zachi on. Chartres, the lightest of the three men, grasped the hem of Marie-Josèphe’s habit and nearly unseated her, but she tightened her right leg around the saddle-crook and shouted for Zachi to run, to flee.
Zachi ran, joyous and sure-footed, skimming over the path, outdistancing the larger horses. The hoofbeats and snorts fell behind. The laughter of the pursuers turned to irritation, then to anger. Marie-Josèphe leaned as close to Zachi’s neck as the sidesaddle allowed.
Zachi outdistanced the horses, the riders, the clamor of the hunt. Marie-Josèphe rode alone. She sat back; Zachi slowed her headlong run. The mare cantered, then trotted, then walked, along the main branch of a tangle of manicured trails, flicking her ears as Marie-Josèphe spoke.
“No horse can outdistance you,” Marie-Josèphe said. “No horse can even keep up with you. You are magnificent, and when I must return you, I’ll grieve, but I could never afford to keep you as Count Lucien can — as you deserve.”
As if she had summoned him by speaking his name, Count Lucien appeared from a side trail.
“If you continue this habit of speaking to animals, Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said, “you’ll earn a reputation you won’t enjoy.”
Zelis stopped before Zachi; the two mares blew into each other’s nostrils.
Marie-Josèphe fantasied that they told each other what had happened, and Count Lucien understood them.
“A reputation as a witch might aid me now,” she said. “I beg your pardon, of course I didn’t mean that.”
“You’re missing His Majesty’s hunt.”
“As are you.”
“I took a brace of grouse; I don’t eat as much as some men.”
Marie-Josèphe’s outrage boiled over. “Those wretched boys!” she cried. “That wretched Lorraine!” Her hair hung wild around her face; her lace was ruined; her left arm ached fiercely. She bunched up her hair in her uninjured right hand; she dropped it; she fumbled at her torn cravat. She burst into tears of anger and frustration.
Humiliated, she turned away from Count Lucien.
“What you must think of me!” she said. “You see me only when I’m begging for your help, or crying like a child, or making a fool of myself —”
“Hardly that.” He rode closer. “Hold still.”
She shivered at his touch, thinking, wildly, Chartres pursued me but Chrétien caught me, they both believe I —
“I am a dangerous man, but you’ll never be in danger from me. Be easy.” Count Lucien’s voice gentled her.
He tied her hair back with his own ribbon, letting his chestnut perruke fall free around his shoulders.
“I liked Chartres,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “A sweet boy — I thought! What did I do, to make him behave so?”
“He behaved so because he wished to, and because he can indulge his wishes,”
Count Lucien said. “It had nothing to do with you, except that you appeared in his sights like an antelope.”
Marie-Josèphe stroked Zachi’s shoulder. “But I escaped, because you surround me with afrits to watch me.”
“Zachi is only a horse,” Count Lucien said. “A remarkably swift horse, but only a horse, after all.”
He guided Zelis to Zachi’s left, where he straightened Marie-Josèphe’s cravat and arranged it like a steenkirk, fastening its end to her hunting jacket with his own diamond pin.
“I’ll be in the forefront of fashion,” Marie-Josèphe said.
“At its very zenith.”
Marie-Josèphe gathered the reins in her right hand. Swelling and waves of pain made her left hand useless. She nestled it in her lap.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You are flushed with fever.”
“With the wind. With escape —”
Count Lucien took her hand. She pulled away.
“Truly, nothing —”
“Be still!” Count Lucien said sharply. He exposed her wrist. His fair complexion paled to chalk white.
The red streaks had turned ugly purple. Dried blood stuck the bandage to her skin.
Her arm throbbed. She thought, Though he’s an officer, he doesn’t like the sight of blood.
“I’ll send to my lodge for M. de Baatz’ salve. It’s infallible for wounds and fever. It saved my life this summer.”