Rebecca leaned low, her nose practically touching the mane of the horse, as she raced her mare across the heath of Putney. It was only six miles from central London, but she felt like she was back in the country again. Her blood rushed through her veins. The wind was cold, but she barely felt it between the heat of the beast rising beneath her and her own exhilaration. This was what she missed most when in London—this heady sense of freedom when riding without restraint.
Five hundred yards ahead of her, Lady Louisa was a bright streak in her scarlet riding habit. As Rebecca watched, Lady Louisa’s thoroughbred stretched and flew in a graceful arc, clearing a hedgerow easily. Rebecca felt her mare’s muscles bunch and held her breath as the beast’s hooves left the ground, and braced herself for the impact as they came down on the other side of the hedgerow. She pulled up on the reins and gave a loud laugh—also something frowned on in London society—when the horse finally came to a halt next to Lady Louisa.
“This is wonderful! You are a brilliant horsewoman, Lady Louisa!”
She grinned at the other woman. She had to admit that Lady Louisa had surprised her. When she’d invited Rebecca to gallop on the outskirts of London, Rebecca’s expectations had been low. She’d anticipated Lady Louisa riding a gentle mare, their excursion more a canter than a gallop. Yet Lady Louisa had shown up sitting on a hot-blooded thoroughbred stallion, more temperamental than Rebecca’s own warm-blooded Hanoverian mare. Even now, Lady Louisa had to keep a tight rein on the beast as it sidled to the side, its head twitching impatiently, clearly anxious to keep moving.
Beneath the black hat she wore, Lady Louisa’s cheeks were ruddy from the wind. The added color, Rebecca thought, suited her.
“Thank you, Lady Rebecca. ’Tis a passion of mine. And poor Caspian needed a run. He was becoming quite bad-tempered.”
“London is ill-suited to a horse of Caspian’s temperament. My Sophia here has a calmer spirit, and yet I know she longs to be back in the country.” She leaned forward and stroked her mare’s sweaty neck. “Did you name your horse after the Caspian Sea?”
“The name was chosen before my father bought him,” Lady Louisa said as she guided the horse to walk alongside Rebecca’s mare. “And you? Was Sophia your choice?”
Rebecca smiled. “Yes. I named her after Princess Sophia. My mother urged me to reconsider, thinking it was an insult to the Princess. As there was little chance of the Princess ever hearing about it, my father allowed me to keep the name.”
Louisa bit her lip and gave her a sideways glance. “Do you believe the rumors that the Princess gave birth to a bastard child?” asked Louisa. “They say that is why she never married.”
“From what I’ve heard, the reason she and most of her sisters have never wed was because of Queen Charlotte’s uncommon fondness to keep them near her. I believe Princess Sophia, as well as the other princesses, had very much hoped to find husbands and set up their own households.”
“That is a great desire.”
Rebecca immediately regretted her words. She’d forgotten Lady Louisa’s own unwed state. “I did not mean to bring up an unpleasant subject,” she said.
“Do not concern yourself, Lady Rebecca. My circumstance is well-known, I think.” She gave a sad smile. “I fear I have lost the affections of Lord Ludlow.”
Rebecca doubted that she’d ever had the Earl’s affections. Most likely, she’d only had his interest because the old man had lost the sons he’d sired by his first wife and wanted to set up another nursery. But she could hardly say that, so she instead turned in her saddle to look at the stretch of country behind them. “We appear to have lost your groom in our last race. Shall we wait for him, or continue?”
“Let us thoroughly confuse him.” Lady Louisa gave a surprisingly impish grin and lifted her reins, a signal that sent Caspian trotting toward the coppice spread out before them.
They had to slow down once they were in the forest. It was like a different world here, Rebecca thought, quieter without the wind buffeting them. The only sounds were the twigs snapping under the horses’ hooves, the branches whispering overhead, and the tweeting calls made by the various birds. Rebecca breathed in the woodsy smells of loam and vegetation.
The trees thinned a moment later and they emerged in another clearing. A crumbling stone ruin, once a Norman keep, had been built on the embankment overlooking the churning dark water of the Thames.
Rebecca smiled in delight. “Oh, ’tis a pretty area.”
“I’ve always loved it. I believe the fortress and lands were once owned by Lord Fairchild, but it now belongs to Putney. My family would often come here to picnic when I was a child, as it’s not far from Town.” She pulled up on the reins of the stallion. “My brother and sisters would climb the ruins looking for treasure.”
“Did you find any?”
“We found a Roman coin once.” She smiled. “Frances claimed it.”
“Somehow that does not surprise me.”
Lady Louisa slipped off her saddle to the ground. “Those were happier times.” She glanced at Rebecca as she climbed down “These are not happy times. Miss Donovan continues to quiz my family.”
Rebecca hesitated, wondering if this had been the real purpose behind Lady Louisa’s invitation. “Miss Donovan is assisting the Duke in his inquiries,” she said carefully.
“You said that Miss Donovan has an exceptional skill at finding murderers,” Lady Louisa reminded her, glancing over her shoulder at Rebecca as she tied Caspian’s reins to tree branch. She gathered her long skirt in her arms as she walked toward the river.
Rebecca let Sophia’s reins go, knowing the more gently bred horse would graze rather than bolt, and followed Lady Louisa up the stone embankment that had been built at one time to protect the area from flooding. Now it was covered in spots of green lichen. A few wildflowers poked through the stones, offering bright splashes of color against the gray and green. Lady Louisa paused long enough to pluck one of the flowers.
“’Tis an odd skill to have,” murmured Lady Louisa. “She is a very strange woman to occupy her time in such a manner. Why does she do it?”
“I believe it is a passion of hers, much like riding is for you.” Rebecca could hear a note of defensiveness creep into her voice. She didn’t like to hear Kendra described as strange, even though she herself found much about the American strange. But she meant strange in a good way—not as an oddity, as Lady Louisa was clearly regarding her.
“She feels very strongly about justice,” she added primly.
Lady Louisa’s lip curled. “For Lady Dover?”
She understood the woman’s hostility toward the Countess, but couldn’t find herself placating her, even for politeness sake. “For anyone,” she said.
Lady Louisa said nothing for a moment, her gaze dropping to the flower she twirled. She tossed the wildflower and they both watched as the wind caught it and spun it a little farther out over the black rushing water. Then it fell into the Thames, turning for a moment before rapidly sinking.