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Conceding that some men ranked above truffle hogs and clatterfarts was a step forward for Emily. Not so long ago, she’d believed all males were charlatans, scapegraces, and opportunistic bounders. The late Lieutenant Clement Grenville most assuredly had been.
She hadn’t learned the depths of Clement’s treachery until it was too late. Until he’d destroyed her trust in men forever. How he had whispered words of love and devotion and rattled off colossal lies with the same tongue still confounded her.
Bah.
Resolutely shoving the unpleasant ruminations to a fusty corner in her mind, Emily gripped her parasol’s black carved handle and gave the accessory a rather vicious swing. She would enjoy this outing—would cherish the glorious break in the weather and a chance to clear her head.
A vibrant azure sky and effervescent sunbeams filtering through trees laden with leaves and buds testified to the unusually passive spring weather. Ensconced in this mazarine-blue velvet redingote—another gift from Justina and quite the loveliest thing Emily had ever worn—she felt like an impostor.
A charlatan herself.
She appeared poised, wealthy, privileged…none of which were accurate.
If people, specifically, the ton, knew the truth—knew that Emily’s marriage to the lieutenant had been a diabolical sham… Clement had kept her ignorant of that particular and rather critical detail, the blackhearted bigamist.
A shudder rippled from Emily’s waist to her nape.
The on dit would be ruinous.
Only Justina was privy to the whole sordid tale, and she would never breathe a syllable.
As Emily continued along the footpath, another rider, two nurses pushing prams, and a trio of bewhiskered elderly gentlemen appeared. Others had likely ventured forth to take the air this fine spring morning, but she couldn’t see them from her vantage point.
Another horse burst into the park, its rider obviously struggling to control the large mount. Lifting a hand to her bonnet’s brim to shade her eyes, Emily squinted into the sun’s brightness. A playful breeze teased the curls framing her face and the loosely tied azure ribbon under her chin.
Black mane and tail flying, the gray tore down the pathway she stood upon rather than take to Rotten Row as the other equestrians had.
Her heart skipped a beat, then another.
Surely the horseman would turn his mount aside.
Wouldn’t he?
A long-ago memory struggled to the surface of Emily’s mind. One she’d buried under pain, sorrow, time, and pure determination to not recollect.
She’d been six and playing a few feet away from her mother as they watched Emily’s father atop a new stallion. Something—she never knew what—had spooked the massive beast, and the horse had bolted.
Mindless with terror, the wild-eyed animal had charged straight at Emily.
Acrid terror clawed at Emily’s throat as it had that dreadful day, and she broke into a fear-induced sweat. Every limb seemed weighted by stone, and she could not move.
Not again.
As she had all of those years ago, Emily froze, petrified to the very marrow of her bones. Unable to inhale, unable to look away, unable to move a single muscle, knowing, knowing, she was about to die.
God help me, Emily mouthed, but no sound escaped her parted lips.
She heard her mother’s rasping, strangled gasp of fear. Felt Mama roughly seize her and throw her to the side. Heard Mama’s godawful shriek, cut short by the stallion’s impact.
Papa cursed and shouted, and then… and then… another sound resounded...
A hard, sickening thud.
That wretched day had orphaned Emily, altered the course of her life forever, and left her with a fear of horses she’d never overcome.
She struggled to inhale.
Commanded her leaden feet to move.
