coat fell open as her skirt hiked up. Cold, damp air whisked between her legs.
The farmer made a sputtering sound, like a conked-out engine. His pipe dropped from his lips and landed in the muck between his worn boots. His eyes bulged, and he stared at her exposed thigh.
At least she had his attention. She was freezing and desperate enough to use the sight of her legs to get what she needed. People in New York called her wild and sophisticated. But she wasn’t truly. At heart, she was still a girl who had grown up dirt poor and who felt a knife-twist of pain every time anyone looked down on her. But she had learned, in the frenetic, moneyed world of Manhattan, that demure didn’t get a woman very far. More people respected her for her daring than ever would if she followed rules.
Zoe plucked up his pipe and handed it to the farmer. Up close, the gnarled old man smelled of smoke, damp wool and an earthy scent that she was sure came from his barn. But she was used to being at the aerodrome, where everything smelled of motor oil and gasoline. She batted her lashes. “Could you help me?”
“Bur urn gar burn,” the farmer said, or at least that was how the series of grunts and mutterings sounded to her.
It must be his accent. She couldn’t grasp it yet. After all, she’d had trouble understanding exactly what people had been saying when she and Mother had disembarked at the pier, and their luggage and her automobile had been unloaded.
“Excuse me, I didn’t quite understand. Do you have a motorcar? It’s what we need to have our car pulled out of the mud. Perhaps even horses could do it—”
He broke in unintelligibly, gesturing toward his house with his pipe. Then he gave a satisfied nod of his head.
This was not going to work. “How far is it to Brideswell Abbey?”
His answer was yet another guttural rush of incomprehensible sounds.
She tried again. But there was not one word in his speech she could recognize. Unfortunately, she had been misled. The inhabitants of England did not actually speak English.
Finally the farmer spat on the ground, then uttered a word she did understand. “Daft.”
“I’m not daft,” she declared with the full force of Gifford pride. “I can’t understand your accent. Probably you don’t understand mine either.”
Tipping her chin in the air, she turned. She was going to have to walk in the other direction and blindly hope she found Brideswell.
But as she turned to begin marching back toward Mother—who would go off in hysterics when she returned with no automobile or horse to pull them out—Zoe saw a huge black gelding galloping across the fields, ridden by a tall man in a black top hat, immaculate breeches and long gray coat.
The horse’s long legs moved so smoothly the animal looked to be soaring over the meadow. The strong neck stretched forward, the mane and black tail streamed back, and the gelding accelerated as if he were truly trying to take off and fly.
She hadn’t ridden a horse in forever. Once she’d learned to drive and fly an airplane, she’d forgotten how glorious riding could be.
The rider moved fluidly with the horse’s strides, raised out of the saddle. He leaned along the smooth black neck like a brilliant jockey.
He exuded power—in his broad shoulders, his tall frame, his endless, muscular legs. Much of his body was hidden by the long gray coat with its many tiers at his shoulders, but it was obvious how well built he must be. The hat was worn low on his head, shielding his eyes. He was like something out of a nineteenth-century novel.
“Hello!” she called, waving at him. “Over here!”
His head jerked toward her, and she knew he’d heard her, but he continued to thunder off in the same direction, and her heart sank.
Then his course changed. He wheeled the horse toward her.
A low stone fence separated the fields—a wall just like the one that ran along the road. He raced toward it. The rider urged his mount to soar over the fence, and they jumped in perfect unison.
Hooves struck the ground, and the gentleman—he most definitely fit the definition of that thoroughly British word—gently reined the horse in and cantered toward where she stood.
Thankfully, she could actually understand the English spoken by British gentlemen. A man of his class would obviously know where to find the home of the Hazelton family.
As he approached, she couldn’t help herself. She clapped with abandon. “Bravo,” she called out. “You’re an excellent rider.”
The rider made a curt acknowledgment of her compliment—an abrupt nod of his head. An American man would have smiled, but this man’s face appeared carved of stone. As he approached, the gloom and the brim of his tall hat kept his face in shadow, but she could see his lips were drawn in a hard line. Those lips parted, and words slid out. Cool and austere, they were more chilling than inviting. “Good afternoon, madam.”
He turned to the farmer, who had snatched off his cap. “Evnern, Yer Grr,” the farmer called out in a reverential tone.
The gentleman on the horse reined his mount to a stop. “The lady is in distress, you say?”
Had he? How this gentleman had mined those words from the sounds, she didn’t know, but relief made her almost giddy.
“I’m Zoe Gifford,” she shouted, leaning on the stone wall. “I was on my way to Brideswell Abbey when my car went off the road. We’re stuck, and we have no idea how to get to the house. Do you know where it is?”
The gentleman drew his horse to a halt more than six feet from the wall that separated them. Perhaps this was what was meant by British reserve—a good few yards were required between people or an interaction became too familiar.
Still, she was not going to shout as if across a chasm. Zoe planted her bottom on the wall, swung her legs over. Her coat once again fell open and her skirt flew up, revealing her stockings and a glimpse of her garters.
The horse reared as she jumped to the ground.
The huge legs pawed at the air, and Zoe’s heart banged against her rib cage as if it were dancing the Charleston. She scrambled back, expecting to be crushed—
“Easy, easy,” the man commanded, as he pulled on the reins and controlled the horse with his thighs. The enormous hooves thudded against the ground, two feet to the side of her body. She fought not to sway on her feet as she gulped cold breaths of relief.
“Brideswell is my home. I am the Duke of Langford.” His voice was cool, calm, utterly without emotion. She would never have known he’d almost been tossed off a horse if she hadn’t witnessed it. “So you are Miss Gifford. My brother has told me a great deal about you—it helped to reinforce the impression I had already made, given what I have read about you in American newspapers.”
So this was her fiancé’s brother and, as Sebastian had warned, ice coated his every word. It was true there had been several stories about her in the papers. But she had chosen not to care what was said about her. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
The duke sat on his
