He didn’t want to be involved in anything like this, he truly didn’t, and yet this time he knew enough to react more quickly. Jabbing his spurs into Samson’s side to intercept her, he held down his hand. “Take hold,” he called.

“Oh, thank you!” She grasped his hand, and, not knowing quite how he did it, he pulled her up behind him, though fierce pain rocketed up from his wounded shoulder to almost behind his teeth. “Oh, thank you! ” I didn’t know what I would do—”

Abruptly a pistol barked. The shot flew harmlessly by;

it, too, was a reminder of another time, and of a peril he’d not thought to encounter again. The first man might have discharged his shot, but the other hadn’t, and both were pounding too near for his comfort Holding his arm absolutely steady, as he had countless times during battles, he fired, and the first man fell.

“Oh, capital!” the woman said, perhaps the most bizarre moment of this entire bizarre incident. There was no time to consider that, though, not with one of the enemy still standing. Retreat was clearly in order. Wheeling Samson around, he dug his spurs in again. They took off at a gallop, pounding down the lane. A pistol sounded behind them again, but they were safely out of reach. For now.

“Oh, thank you! I—”

“Do they have horses?” he demanded at the same time.

“No. Yes, of course they do. They brought me here in a closed carriage, but they could use the horses for riding, couldn’t they?”

Overhead arched the same leafy trees as before; to his right, now, was the wildflower meadow. What was different was that he had somehow managed to saddle himself with a totty-headed female. “Quite,” he said, his voice clipped.

Surprisingly, she chuckled. “I do beg your pardon. That was an extremely ridiculous thing for me to say, wasn’t it? I do hope they don’t catch us up.”

“On Samson? Highly unlikely.”

“So I’d think. Arabian, is he not?”

“Yes,” he said, startled.

“And very nicely mannered, considering all he’s been through the last few moments. Very nice horseflesh, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said, the conversation only adding to his feeling of unreality. “Excuse me, miss, but who are you?”

She gurgled with laughter, strange in someone who had been in dire peril not five minutes hence. “Of course. We’ve not been properly introduced, have we?” Charles smiled in spite of himself. One would think they were in a London drawing room, from the way she talked. She had bottom, this young lady. And a lady she was, he had no doubt, in spite of her disordered hair and crumpled gown. “My apologies. I am Major Charles Kirk, late of His Majesty’s army.” Now why the devil had he introduced himself like that?

“Oh, so that is why you reacted as quickly as you did, and thank heavens for me.”

“Yes. May I ask who you are? I do like to know the names of the damsels in distress I rescue.”

She laughed again, a low, seductive, and yet innocent sound, and he felt a shiver go up his spine. “Of course.