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  “Roddy,” her father said in an aching voice.

  It made her throat hurt. The tears threatened, blurred, spilled over.

  “Oh, Papa,” she cried, turning to throw herself into his familiar arms. “This awful talent—sometimes I don’t think…I can’t stand…Oh, God, I don’t want it! I don’t want to live alone forever.”

  He clasped her tightly, not speaking, his anger forgotten as he let her feel all the force of his affection and support through the gift she despised. She wanted to stay there in his embrace forever, shielded from the confusion of anger and pain that bore in on her from the world outside. She could see the lies, feel the cruelty and greed so clearly, but she could never understand them. She felt as helpless as the dumb animals who lived under the whim of human will, unable to comprehend the tides of passion that swept around her. The methods of blocking she had so painstakingly taught herself were imperfect, easily broken down by extremes of emotion, leaving her vulnerable at just those times when she needed protection the most.

  “Little Roddy,” her father murmured. “Don’t cry, darling. You won’t be all alone. Your mother and I—you know you’ll have us always, as long as we live.” He stroked her trembling shoulder and touched her cheek. “You won’t be like Nell; already you’ve come so much farther. It would have killed her to be within a mile of this place today, and you’ve managed beautifully.”

  Roddy shook her head with a vehemence that bumped his chin. “I haven’t! I haven’t done well at all. That match race—the first heat was more than I could stand. Even up at the stables with Lord Iveragh’s stallion, it almost overset me when they began to cheer the finish of a race.” She buried her face against his wide lapels. “I can’t endure it, Papa. All the people—you were right. I should never, ever have come. I’ll have to spend all my life stuck away in the country—” She drew a shaky, half-sobbing breath. “I’ll never go to London, or dance at an assembly, or even be able to drive in the park. I’ll never have my own family, little children to look after or watch grow up. It’s s-so unfair. Why did it have to be m-me?”

  Her father had no answer, and his helplessness and guilt only sank her deeper in despair. The Delamore gift passed to females from the male side of the family, and Roddy’s father, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him, had trusted to the fortune of siring sons one too many times. Her four brothers would most probably do the same, each hoping that the family penchant for boys would hold true. It was one of the cruel ironies of the gift that those who knew what it was to suffer it were not the ones who could pass it on. Her doomed great-aunt Jane had borne three daughters, and none of them had possessed the talent that Roddy had inherited through her father.

  But she did not blame him. How could she? The alternative was never to have been born at all, and life was not so bitter as that. Not yet, anyway. But the memory of Great-aunt Jane was always there as an omen of what might happen if Roddy were so foolish as to try to live a normal life.

  Normal. Now, there was a word to cherish. Like love. Like the things she would never have, not for herself alone. Her parents loved her, and her brothers. But that was family. That was a child, and she was almost a woman now.

  That wasn’t Geoffrey.

  Oh, Geoffrey, she thought. The tears swelled back into her throat. My friend. My friend. Who doesn’t want me.

  After a minute, she stood back a little, wiping at her blurry eyes. “I’m sorry, Papa. I shan’t cry anymore. It’s just been such a trial today, and I’m so very tired.”

  He squeezed her hands. “Go and change, then, and I’ll have Mark find some dinner for you. You’d rather stay here than come to the inn?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “I couldn’t face an inn—not tonight. It must be a sad crush.”

  He nodded. “Mark will stay with you. I’ve an appointment to dine with Bunbury at the Jockey Club—he dearly wants that colt of ours by Waxy. Can I do anything else for you now?”

  Roddy shook her head. As he brushed aside the silken door, her father paused. “I’m sorry to have given you such a scold, darling. But when Mark found that you’d somehow gone off with Iveragh—” He made a clucking sound of distress. “Do stay clear of his like, Roddy. If your mother knew—”

  “Oh, Papa,” Roddy said, driven to a watery giggle by his obsession with her mother’s disapproval. “Go on. Mama won’t know what you don’t tell her.”

  He smiled sheepishly and gave her a quick kiss. Then he was gone.

  Roddy sat down on a cushioned stool and contemplated the well-worn jackboots that were an integral part of her disguise as a stableboy. Her homebound mother thought she was staying safely confined in the pavilion’s ladylike quarters, but her father, more practical, had been easily swayed by the usefulness of Roddy’s talent with his string of racehorses, allowing her on pain of utmost secrecy to dress so that she could go easily among the horse sheds.

  It was not completely practicality. It represented something else, too: one of his small gestures, his little favors. He felt guilty, and so he gave her these secret treats. Gave her everything she wanted when she asked.

  She’d been five years old when she’d first understood her difference. Before that it had simply been the way the world was, the way her parents were taller than she and her brothers had louder voices. It was a talent, her father had told her, something special, and she’d nodded, not understanding. She mustn’t talk about it, her father had said; she mustn’t be unfair. Don’t carry tales. No one likes a tattle.

  But the truth had come from her mother. It had happened one day in Mama’s bedroom, while Mama sat alone at her dresser and fussed at her hair with shaking fingers. Mama was afraid, and excited, and Roddy had peeped in anxiously. She’d stood just inside the door, watching her mother, who tried to smile in false welcome, which was a scary thing that had never happened to Roddy before. Some people thought one thing and said another. Never Mama.

  Never Mama.

  Roddy had walked forward, into that aversion, because she was frightened and wanted her mother to like her as her mother always did. Roddy hadn’t understood, she’d only wanted this thing that made her mother excited and happy and miserable all at once to go away. She’d laid one hand on Mama’s knee and said, “Please don’t, Mama. Don’t go to that man in the spinney.”

  “What?” her mother had said, with a jerk around and a scared, awful roll of the eyes.

  And slapped her daughter.

  Roddy could feel it still: an unhealed wound, the shape and length of her mother’s fingers. The symbol of what Roddy was. A freak. An aberration. The thing they all feared in their deepest nightmares.

  The fear was gone in an instant, covered with love and remorse, and Mama had gathered Roddy in her arms and cried and cried and begged for forgiveness. “Don’t tell your father,” Mama had moaned. “I won’t go; I won’t go; I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never would have gone, darling, I promise. Don’t tell your father, please—oh, God—please don’t tell your father.”

  Roddy had not told. And her mother had not gone. Never again had there been another man in her mother’s life but her husband. Because of Roddy.

  Angel of Reckoning.

  Chapter 2

  Two hours later, easily shed of Mark’s halfhearted chaperonage, Roddy found Lord Iveragh’s stallion where she had left him, looking lonely with his head hung over the door of the box. He greeted her with a soft whuffling, and Roddy gave him the handful of grass she had picked on the way. She peered into the box on tiptoe. His bedding was newly clean. That, at least. Sometime in her absence his groom had been back to care for him. She had begun to wonder, waiting all those afternoon hours alone.

  The stallion nudged her, hungry after his effort of the day. Roddy smiled, and gave him a pat and a promise. She thought she might catch Old Jack, the Delamores’ head groom, and have him cook a hot bran mash before he went to bed.

  It was late when she returned, Old Jack having been long asleep and h
ard to rouse. She’d prepared the heavy bucket of steaming mash herself. After that it had been a long walk in the moonlight with only the sound of her own light song to keep her company:

  Here is a pledge unto all true lovers,

  A pledge to my love where ’er he may be.

  This very night I’ll be with my darling

  For many the long mile he is from me.

  Along the bare, rolling ridges of the heath she sang, where dry grass and horse-scent lay heavy on the breeze.

  Ah la, then he came to his true love’s window,

  He knelt low down upon a stone,

  Then through the glass he whispered softly,

  Are you asleep, love, are you alone?

  It was an old song, sad and dreaming, one of the sweet Irish airs that Geoffrey had taught her. As she reentered the maze of sheds and shadow she left off her singing and kept her attention centered, occupied mainly with placing her feet and catching her breath and transferring the bucket from one hand to the other as her fingers went numb from the handle’s bite.

  It was a man’s low voice that alerted her first. She stopped in the shadows, suddenly aware that the horse had a visitor.

  He stood outside the box, speaking softly to the stallion as he leaned against the shed. She knew instantly who it was.

  Not through her gift. Through the failure of it.

  She squinted in the moon-tricky darkness, panting softly, and set down the bucket—slowly, slowly, so it did not rustle in the drying grass. He had abandoned his coat and neckcloth, and his shirt shone pale as the starlight, with sleeves rolled up and collar open. From the interior of the box, the stallion radiated satisfaction, having been finally fed, although he was looking for more when he sniffed Roddy and the bran mash. His fine head came out of the box, craning in her direction.

  The earl stood back. “Greedy bastard,” he said, in a tone that didn’t match the words. “Deserve an extra measure of corn, do you?” He reached up and did something, she couldn’t see what—patted the horse or flipped a stray piece of black mane onto its proper side. “To hell with you, then. I’ve hardly the blunt to feed myself. Not now.”

  The stallion swung his head up and down and then whinnied, demanding that Roddy quit dawdling with that fine-smelling mash. It was a funny thing, a small strange pleasure, to stand and listen to the earl’s rich voice speaking softly in the darkness. Even the stallion liked it, which was why he was not making more of a fuss in his impatience.

  The earl turned a little, leaning his shoulders against the shed and staring out into the night. In the moonlight, Roddy could see his face clearly, white and stark black with the shadows. He ran long fingers through his hair and down his face with a low groan. “We’ve lost it, old friend,” he said. “You let me down.” He lifted his face to the dark sky. “Ah, God. I can’t believe it. Iveragh.”

  The name seemed to hang in the air, vibrating with love and despair. He turned, in sudden violence, and slammed his fist into the wooden shed with a blow that made both Roddy and the stallion jerk back in startlement. “Damn.” It was vicious. “God damn them all.” He moved as if to hit the shed again, but midway in his motion he checked the blow and stood still, his face a shadowed mask.

  Roddy stared at him. She had thought at first he meant to strike the horse, but instead he let out a long, harsh breath of air, and buried his face in the animal’s neck with a wordless sound of desolation.

  It was then that the idea came to her.

  She tilted her head.

  To do such a thing—to even think of it…

  But why not?

  Why turn away from a chance—one chance—at the life that her gift denied her? He had trusted her. That counted for something. That counted for a lot.

  She stood still, her mind racing, and then bent very quietly to pick up the softly steaming bucket of mash. She retreated in silence back behind the shed row before going forward again, whistling warning with a loud, cheerful stable tune that Old Jack had taught her long ago.

  By the time she turned the corner, the earl had composed himself. He looked up at her approach with cool disinterest.

  Roddy smiled inwardly. An actor. A fine one at that, and Roddy was an excellent judge. He seemed suddenly fascinating, all the more attractive for his unpredictability. She nodded when she met his eyes, and gave him a brisk country greeting.

  “’Evenin’ to ’ee, m’lor’. I thought ’ee wudn’t a-comin’ back.” She hefted the pail of bran. “I brung ta beast a bit o’ hot mash, wi’ yer permission, sir.”

  He gave her a narrow look, and nodded briefly. Roddy set the pail of bran in the eager stallion’s box. She came out and closed the door, then took up a negligent position nearby, as if waiting for the horse to finish.

  She half expected Iveragh to turn curtly away and leave, but he only stood, a little in the shadows where she could no longer see his face. She sought for something to say, some way to broach the subject that she wanted to discuss, but now that the moment was here, it seemed so outrageous an idea that she could think of nothing. Finally, after tapping her fingers nervously against the hard wood at her back, she blurted, “It near floored me, m’lor’, that ’ee took me at me word this day and scratched ta beast.”

  He shrugged. “It pleased me at the time.”

  Roddy couldn’t help herself; her eyebrows went disobediently upward as she looked at him.

  He stared back at her gloomily, and added after a moment, “I’d a mind to give my groom a setdown.”

  Oh, certainly, Roddy thought. A setdown for a groom. And scratching your horse only cost you your estate.

  She hid a wry smile in steady concentration on the tip of one boot. His stiff pride, maintained even in front of a mere stableboy, was perversely endearing. The plan in her head took on more appeal.

  “’Er’s a lovely beast, anyway,” she said nonchalantly. “Me young missus would pay a pretty penny for him, I vow, even if he can’t race no more. Put him to her Eclipse mare, she would. That’d be the Delamore stud, m’lor’, up to Thomton Dale.”

  “Your mistress,” he repeated, and Roddy thought there was the faintest trace of interest in his voice. “Mrs. Delamore?”

  She jumped at her chance. “Oh, no, sir. Her daughter. Miss Roderica Delamore. She breeds her own stock, y’see. Happen she can spot a winner, too, even if she’s not yet twenty.” Which was perfectly true. At age twelve, Roddy had picked a black filly from her father’s yearling crop that had gone on to win the Oaks in her third year, under Lord Egremont’s colors.

  “How happy for her,” the earl said dryly.

  “Oh, that ain’t the half of it.” Roddy warmed to her topic. “She’s rich as Croesus, too—she’s got three hundred thousand in her own name, free and clear, and all a-goin’ to the man she weds. Come full into it a year ago.”

  He shifted a little, but did not move out of the shadow. “How do you happen to know that?”

  She hesitated, frustrated by her inability to discern his true reaction. It was that blindness again, the uneasy sense of treading unknown ground. But he seemed by his question to be curious, and she plunged ahead. “’Tisn’t rumor, m’lor’. She speaks of it now and then.”

  “You work in the stable?”

  “Aye, m’lor’.”

  “You seem to be on rather familiar terms with a daughter of the house.”

  Roddy bit her lip, aware that she’d made a misstep. “Well, she ain’t uppity, if that’s what you mean,” she said quickly. “Not silly and missish at all. She don’t mind carryin’ feed an’ water if we’re pushed down at the stud. For meself, I can’t see why some town dandy hain’t plucked her right up. An heiress like that. She even hunts. Make a fine wife for any man, I’d reckon.”

  The earl seemed to be looking at her rather oddly, but his position in the half-shadow made it hard to tell. “Perhaps she’s ugly,” he murmured.

  “Ugly!” Roddy straightened indignantly. “I hardly think so. ’Tis just that they keep h
er locked away in the country. I’m sure she’s as pretty as any London miss, and maybe more than some. An’ she kin sing. Like a lark; they all say that. And dance,” she added, determined not to miss any of her strong points. “Why, I’ve known her to dance all night at a ball!”

  A small exaggeration. Roddy had never been to a ball, but she’d often slipped out of the house to whirl and leap in time to imaginary music when the moon was high and full.

  She took a breath and went on recklessly, “You should see her. Why, I warrant she’d be pleased at the attention of a fine gentleman like yourself. You’re just what she’s looking for in the way of a husband, m’lor’.”

  He moved then, out of the shadow. Before she could prevent it, he had reached up with one smooth motion and flipped the cap from her head.

  Roddy froze, with the bright loose curls tumbling down across her shoulders. She stared up into his face, turning crimson, feeling mortification paralyze every muscle and bone. Her mouth opened and then shut, fishlike, and no words came out.

  “See for myself,” he echoed softly. He touched her bruised cheek with one finger, tracing down her jaw, and a slow smile curved his fine mouth. “Perhaps I shall.”

  She blinked, distracted by the unexpected gentleness of his hand on her skin. His eyes looked very blue in the moonlight. He did not move away, and for one wild moment he was so close that she thought—but no, surely not, it wasn’t possible…