She breathed again when Arthur slammed the door and sent his henchmen on their way with directions to the quarry.
She cringed when he swaggered over and brandished a dagger under her nose. “Come on, Lady Matilda,” he mocked. “One last tup, for old time’s sake.”
If she tried to deny him, he would punish her, but her own gullibility had brought her to this coil. Loathing for him and for herself boiled over. “You’re a disgusting murderer.”
His smile turned to a scowl. “You’ll pay for your insolence,” he spat, raising his blade.
Tillie held her breath, convinced the last sound she would ever hear would be the restless cries of the Whiteside mares, clearly upset by Orion’s presence. The racehorse hadn’t stopped pacing, snorting and whinnying. He’d kicked the boards of his stall more than once. Splintering wood suddenly drew Arthur’s attention.
She screamed, paralyzed by fear when the horse flew out of his damaged stall like an enraged Pegasus come to life. Transfixed by the beast’s awesome power, she stopped breathing when he reared. Risking a glance at the flailing hooves, she stared in disbelief when a deadly hoof crashed down on Arthur’s head.
He crumpled to the straw like a broken doll with its head split open.
Trembling with the certainty she was about to be stomped to death, she whimpered like a child when Orion tossed his head, turned and galloped out of the stable.
She scrambled to her feet, wrenched the dagger from Arthur’s grip and fled, just in time to see the horse disappear into the darkness, heading toward the Farnworth estate.
Anxious voices alerted her to the arrival of others. At all costs, she mustn’t be found with Arthur’s body. She’d be blamed—and how to explain the baron’s disappearance? And the earl’s?
As she fled into the night, following the path Orion had forged through the long grass, reality suddenly became clear. The only way to save herself from a charge of murder was to do everything she could to prevent the despicable crime Arthur had set in motion.
*
“Pacing won’t helpmatters,” Emma said. “Come and sit down.”
Susan only vaguely heard her friend’s advice and kept on wearing a path in the expensive drawing room carpet at Thicketford Manor. “I have to keep moving,” she replied, frantically worried for her horse. “I’m trying desperately to come up with a way to explain all this to Griff.”
“He’s perhaps received your message by now and set out. He’ll probably be here later today.”
The adder coiled in Susan’s heart hissed that Griff might leave her if the horse wasn’t recovered. “Orion means so much to him,” she murmured.
“He cares more about you,” Emma assured her. “He’ll be angry that you are overwrought.”
Peering into the glowing coals of the dying fire in the hearth, Susan looked in vain for some sign that Emma’s words were true. She swiveled her head when Frame burst into the room without the customary polite cough. Indeed, she barely recognized the red-faced, disheveled man who seemed unable to choke out the message he’d come to deliver. A dreadful premonition wrapped its tentacles around Susan’s stomach.
“What is it?” Emma asked as she rose from the sofa, thankfully more in control of her voice than Susan.
“The horse, my lady,” Frame panted, gesticulating wildly. “Outside.”
Susan later had no memory of how she arrived at the front of the house. It was tempting to fall to her knees and give thanks when she espied her beloved Orion stomping one hoof on the gravel driveway, but the greater need was to reassure the snorting horse he was safe. She tried to think what Griff would do.
“Careful,” Emma warned as Susan stretched out her hand and slowly reached for the halter, all the while uttering soothing words. Wherever Orion had been taken, he’d escaped and somehow instinctively known Thicketford Manor was where he belonged—with her and Griff.
The animal calmed when she took hold of the halter and stroked his nose. “He hasn’t come far,” she told Emma, reinforcing her belief their wretch of a neighbor had stolen him. “He’s barely winded.”
Orion tossed his head, baring his teeth when a wild-haired apparition emerged from the darkness and collapsed on the driveway.
Intent on keeping her horse calm, Susan was grateful when Emma gingerly approached the sobbing intruder, but she wasn’t prepared when her friend exclaimed, “It’s Tillie.”
Emma tried to help the girl to her feet, but Tillie gulped air, seemingly unable to rise from all fours.
“The…earl,” their former maid stammered.
“Lord Farnworth?” Emma asked, alarm evident in her voice. “What of him?”
“The other one,” Tillie croaked, shaking her head.
An icy hand gripped Susan’s innards. “The Earl of Pendlebury?” she shouted.