The Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

smoothly along a deserted country road—scarcely more than a lane, really—when the phaeton suddenly wobbled and then pitched over on its side. It was the passenger’s side that went down, but fortunately I was tossed clear of the accident.
    I landed abruptly in a roadside ditch, startling a fox that was curled up in its bottom, peacefully asleep. The fox streaked away, and I lay still for a moment, regaining my breath. Then I got slowly to my feet. I have fallen from enough horses to have learned how to land, so, though I collected a few bruises, I was otherwise unhurt. As I brushed the dirt off my new blue pelisse, I heard Greystone shouting my name.
    “I’m all right!” I called back. My straw bonnet was hopelessly mashed, so I abandoned it, lifted my skirts, and began to scramble up the steep side of the ditch. Greystone appeared above me when I was halfway up and he bent to offer assistance. I reached my hand up and was pulled effortlessly back to the road.
    “Are you certain you’re all right, Miss Fitzgerald?” he demanded brusquely, taking in my torn and dirty clothes.
    “I’m fine.” My hair was coming down and I pushed it away from my face. “What happened?”
    “The wheel came off,” he answered tersely. “If you’re really all right, I had better see about getting the horses out of harness. They’ve contrived to get it all tangled.”
    He had managed to keep his matched bays from running away, but they were snorting and stamping and throwing their heads around, and I went to help him. We put the leather halters he carried on them and I offered to hold them while he tried to fix the wheel.
    He gave me a worried look. “Can you hold two horses?”
    “Yes.” Without waiting for further comment from him, I led the horses to the grass margin that lay along the side of the road. As soon as they saw the grass they put their heads down and went to work.
    A field of wheat lay to the left of the road, and to the right was pastureland upon which grazed a herd of cows. Bands of butterflies flitted here and there in the grass, and bees hummed among the clover. Nowhere was there any sign of a human person.
    Ten minutes later a grim-faced Greystone appeared at my side. He had removed his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. There was a long white scar on his bare right forearm. His shoulders were very wide. There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead, and he was scowling. “The axle is broken.”
    “Oh dear.” I looked at the peaceful, rural scene that stretched all around us. The white tail of a rabbit bobbed in a clump of nearby hawthorns. No one had passed us on this road yet. “You can’t fix it?”
    “It can’t be fixed. It needs a new axle.”
    He was looking extremely grim. “Well,” I said as cheerfully as I could, “then we must just go on to the next village and get the blacksmith to come back to replace the axle.”
    “According to my map, the next village is eight miles up this road.”
    I looked at the two horses, who were eating grass as if they hadn’t seen food in a week. A bee buzzed around my ear and I brushed it away. “Can we ride these bays, my lord?”
    “To my knowledge, they have never been ridden. Considering that we do not have either saddle or bridle, I do not think it would be wise to make the attempt.”
    I chewed on my lip. “I suppose not.”
    He looked around the bucolic landscape. “I cannot leave you alone here, Miss Fitzgerald.”
    “There is nothing wrong with my feet, my lord,” I said tartly. His grim look was beginning to annoy me. “We can each lead a horse.”
    He ran his fingers through his disordered hair and consulted the sky. Wordlessly, I extended one of the horses’ lead ropes to him. He took it, and, still in silence, the two of us began to walk down the road.
    It was almost two hours before we saw the first sign that we were approaching a village. A little squat church, with neither spire nor tower, appeared on our right,