frightened whinny came from the pen.
The sound raked over her senses, calling to her like the song of a siren. Her every instinct screamed warnings but that sound, above all others, cut through her timidity and brought her out of the shadows. She forced herself to go nearer the intruder. He straightened, rubbing at the small of his back. The movement alarmed her, and she fell still, waiting. She could hear him muttering under his breath. He had a low, mellow voice that seemed curiously at odds with the barely restrained violence of his movements as he hauled on the canvas.
From the tall-sided pen she could hear a thump, then another. And finally a low, eerie growl, unmistakably equine.
She hurried the rest of the way to the beach and stepped barefoot through the wrack line, where changing varieties of flotsam were heaved up by the tide. The tattered hem of her dress swirled in the surf.
“Are you lost?” she asked, raising her voice over the roar of the sea.
His shoulders jerked up in surprise. He turned to glare at her. She could tell he was glaring even though the sun behind him obscured his features. Shading her eyes and squinting, she was able to catch a glimpse of his face, and for a moment she felt disoriented, adrift, confused, because it was such a striking, cleanly made face. In her entire life she had met few people, but she knew that here was a man who happened to be gifted with an excess of beauty. He looked like Prince Ferdinand in her illustrated Tempest.
For some reason that disturbed her more than anything else she’d seen so far. With a face as idealized as any artist’s fancy, he made a romantic sight; despite the circumstances, he possessed the sort of unsmiling demeanor of a man of great dignity and stature. He regarded her with a haughty aloofness, as if he lived in a kingdom not of this world.
But when he spoke, she knew he was very much of this world. “Is this Flyte Island?” he demanded, rude as any two-legged profane creature known as a man.
“It is,” she said.
“Then I’m not lost.” He yanked on the bowlines, testing them. “Who the hell are you?”
She cast a worried eye at the pen on the scow. “Who’s asking?”
His shoulders, remarkably expressive for such a nondescript part of the anatomy, lifted stiffly in annoyance. He turned to her once again, a shock of fair hair plastered with sweat to his brow.
“My name is Hunter Calhoun, of Albion Plantation on Mockjack Bay.” He paused, watching her face as if the name was supposed to mean something to her.
“Hunter. That’s a sort of horse, isn’t it?”
“It happens to be my name. I am master of Albion.” His eyes—they were a strange, crystalline blue—narrowed as his gaze swept over her. At a thud from the barge, his brow sank into a scowl. “I’ve come to see the horsemaster, Henry Flyte.”
The sandy earth beneath her feet shifted. Even now, after so much time had passed, the mere mention of the name disturbed her. He had been her world, the gentle-souled man who had been her father. He’d filled each day with wonder and wisdom, making her feel safe and loved. And then one day, without warning, he was gone forever. Gone in a raging blast of violence that haunted her still.
She felt such a choking wave of grief that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Her throat locked around words too painful to utter.
“Are you simple, girl?” the intruder asked impatiently. “I’m looking for Henry Flyte.”
“He’s gone,” she said, her small horrified admission stark in the salt-laden quiet of twilight. “Dead.”
A word she’d never heard before burst from the man. From the stormy expression on his face, she judged it was an oath.
“When?” he demanded.
“It’s been nearly a year.” Her pain gave way to anger. Who was this intruder to order her about and make demands, to pry into her private world? “So you’d best be off whilst the tide’s up,” she added, “else you’ll be stranded till moon tide.”
“He’s been dead a year, and no one knew?”
She flinched. “Those that matter knew.”
Hunter Calhoun swore again. He took out a hip flask, took a swig and swore a third time. “Who else lives here?”
“A small herd of wild ponies, up in the woods. Three hens, a milch cow, a dog and four cats, last I counted. More birds than there are stars.”
“I don’t mean livestock. Where’s your family?”
A wave of resentment rose high, crested. “I don’t have one.”
“You’re all alone here?”
She didn’t answer. He drank more whiskey. Then, bending down, he fetched a long-barreled rifle. The scent of danger sharpened. Was he going to shoot her?
“What do you mean to do with that?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he cocked the gun and lifted the barrel toward the latch of the pen. With horror, she realized his intent. “Stop it,” she said sharply. Animals were sacred to her, and she wouldn’t stand by and see one slaughtered. “Don’t you—”
“I’ve a mad horse aboard,” he interrupted. “You’d best move aside, because when I open the gate, he’ll escape, and I’ll take him out.”
Eliza stood her ground.
Scowling, Calhoun lowered the gun. “Without Mr. Flyte’s help, the beast is a mortal danger to anyone and anything. He’s got to be put down, and it’s best done here, in this godforsaken place.” His haughty glare encompassed the marsh. Ever-softening light spread over the low ground, the placid water reflecting the rise of dunes and the forest beyond.
He paused for another drink of whiskey. Eliza scrambled aboard and grabbed the gun, using her finger to pry the shot out of the pan. “This godforsaken place, as you call it, is my home, and I’ll thank you not to be leaving your carrion on the shore.”
He wrenched the gun away, elbowing her aside with a hard, impatient nudge. He lifted the heavy latch to the pen. “Stand aside now. This horse is a killer.”
Eliza burst into action, planting herself in front of the pen, her back flat against the gate. She could hear the heavy breath of the horse within, and she fancied she could feel its heat. The smells of hay and manure brought back waves of remembrance from the days when her father was alive. She let her emptiness fill up with fury.
“Who in God’s name are you, that you think you can simply do murder right here in front of me?”
“Who the hell are you that you think you can stop me?” As he spoke, he touched the barrel of the gun to her shoulder, where a long tangle of her hair escaped its carelessly done single braid.
Though she’d unloaded the rifle, she stood frozen with fear. In an obscenely gentle caress, he used the barrel of the gun to move aside the lock of hair and the edge of her blouse with it, baring her shoulder.
“Darling,” said Hunter Calhoun with
