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But he and Isis had waited out Dartmoor storms before There was plenty of tiranite where they’d sheltered so many ti him toward the old habits, the illusory surcease of wine and women

Even if they searched, his unwanted guests would never find hiave in He had not yielded to his private derandfather, and he would not yield to an overbearing French nobley

There would be noto Duty The new Earl of Rawnsley would be dead in a few months, and that would be the end of the curst Camoys line And if Abonville didn’t like it, let his and plant him here, and make the poor sod marry Bertie’s cousin

Because the only way she wouldinto Hagsmire with the entire bridal party and the preacher, and even then soroom doith a boulder Because he would dive into a bottomless pit of quicksand before he would take any worate into a mindless animal

Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance

Or so Dorian thought at first, until he noticed that the rumble didn’t pause, as thunder would, but went on steadily, and steadily grew louder And the louder and nearer it came, the less it sounded like thunder and the more it sounded likehoofbeats

He glanced back, then quickly ahead again

He told hiitated him more than he’d suspected, and what he believed he’d just seen was a trick of his degenerating brain

The ignorant rustics, who believed pixies dwelt all over Dartsmire for the witches they also believed haunted the area During hostly steeds and chased their victims into the mire

The hoofbeats grew louder

The thing was gaining on him

He glanced back, his heart pounding, his nerves tingling

Though he assured himself it couldn’t be there, his eyes told hi an enorled mane of fiery red hair fleildly about her face She rode boldly astride, a pale cloak strea out behind her, her skirts hiked up to her knees, shahostly white limbs

Though it was only a lance, the brief distraction proved fatal, for in the next instant, Isis swerved too sharply into a turning

Dorian reacted a heartbeat too late, and the e and down the slippery incline—toward the quag below

THE PALE MARE e of the murky pit, but she threw off her master in the process

Gwendolyn leapt down froht, and cli

Several feet from where she stood, the Earl of Rawnsley was thrashin

g in a pit of grey , he’d slid toward its heart, and his efforts to struggle for footing where there wasn’t any only sucked him in deeper

Still, the lance told Gwendolyn that this patch of mire was relatively narrow in circumference

Even while she was studying her surroundings, she wassounds She are of Rawnsley cursing furiously, in between shouting at her to go away, but she disregarded that

“Try to keep as still as possible,” she told him calmly “We’ll have you out in a minute”

“Get away from here!” he shouted “Leave my horse alone, you bedamned witch! Run, Isis! Home!”

But Gwendolyn was stroking under the , despite her master’s shouts and curses She stood docilely while Gwendolyn unbuckled the stirrup strap, removed the stirrup iron, and rebuckled the strap She looped one end of the rope through the strap and knotted it Then she led the

Rawnsley had stopped cursing, and he was not thrashing about so much as before She did not knohether he’d coh, that he’d sunk past his waist Swiftly she tied a loop at the free end of the rope