Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) Read Online Free PDF Page A

reins, leaning against a tree, when she’d come stumbling and wet from the water, certain her horse was lost. She had come to him for the reins, and stayed for his lingering kisses and wandering hands. She knew he couldn’t, or wouldn’t understand why she had given in to him, this stranger in the woods, in his strange embroidered vest and patched trousers, so far beneath her in class that she shouldn’t have nodded to him had they passed on the road.  
    But his eyes… his black eyes had been so demanding, so sultry, so smoldering, and when he put his hand upon the small of her back and pulled her body close to his, she let herself ignore their differences. Society had no place out here in the woods. And Grainne had been looking for a way out of society for some months, having sensed that its walls were growing ever closer around her. This gypsy, he was as sure an escape as any, she thought, smothering a smile, and melting into his embrace, certain that she could enchant him, believing him when he told her that she did.
    And then she had watched the back of his head with anguished disbelief when he’d announced he had work to do and tramped off along the smooth stones of the stream-bed, leaving her to scramble into the saddle and find her own way home, alone with her bruises and her disheveled hair, to stammer excuses to her father and Mrs. Kinney.
    But she hadn’t stopped coming back, in all the weeks since, as the hot summer slowly cooled into the early days of autumn, riding down to the creekside, slipping down from the saddle, and leaving her horse to graze with his motley herd. She had grown to enjoy the feel of his hands upon her, unlacing her loose corset and slipping the sleeves of her blouse down her white shoulders, kissing the smooth skin that had never known sunlight, praying that today would be the day he would agree to take her away, instead of pushing her away, leaning back against the wheel of the caravan, and lighting his pipe.
    “I have work to do,” he’d always say then. “Run along and play.”
    She didn’t know what work he had to do; she had never actually seen him do anything besides smoke his pipe and watch his horses graze, but at the horse fair his animals had made a fair killing, striding out as if they carried royalty upon Rotten Row, and so he must be a fine enough rider. He was certainly enough of a horse whisperer that he didn’t have to tie his horses, nor fence them in, she thought, slipping the bit from Gretna’s mouth and leaving the mare to graze with the others.
    “It’s late,” Len grumbled, watching her skip across the stepping stones of the stream. “I expected ye two hours ago.”
    “I was delayed,” Grainne sighed, wishing Len was not always so displeased with her. The only way she could make him happy was with her riding, and with her body, and even then he always turned away from her. “My father has hired a new huntsman. His coming upset the whole yard, and then he came upon me in the field and I was hard-pressed to dissuade him from following me.”
    “Has he followed ye without yer knowin’?” Len looked suddenly alarmed, his dark eyes piercing into the tangle of forest around them. “Suppose he is yer father’s spy?”
    “My father would not spy upon me!” Grainne exclaimed, appalled. “He has no cause!”
    Len got up then and put a brown arm around her waist, pulling he close. She gasped as he pressed his pelvis against hers, feeling light-headed in an instant. “No cause, eh?” he growled against her neck, teeth snatching at her skin. “With such a wanton daughter, the poor man probably gets no sleep for worryin’.”
    She gasped and wriggled, pretending to try to escape, but he tightened his grasp and took her mouth in a hard, bruising kiss. Grainne closed her eyes and gave in, letting her curves melt to his hardness, feeling the heat in her body rise and flush her face. And then he was suddenly done with her, pushing her away and walking