She won. Handily. She could barely think from the cacophony of shouts. Papa was out there. He’d watched her win.
By the time the medallion was pressed into her hand, she was giddy. It was proof she was talented, worthy, of value. She couldn’t wait to show her father.
With a smile she couldn’t suppress and legs barely strong enough to hold her, she passed behind the stables on her way to circle back to where the spectators awaited.
She didn’t go far.
There was a boy watching the competition from the shadows.
Olive erased her happy grin at once, but the boy didn’t seem to mind it.
He had never seen anyone ride like she did, he said. He was impressed. She had dazzled him.
His words dazzled Olive. No one but her father had ever spoken to her so prettily before. She angled toward the track and to comment on the next group’s race aloud, as if she were a judge and not a girl with a brass medallion clutched in her sweaty palm.
The boy laughed at all of the right times. She was so witty, he said. Clever and talented. His fingers brushed hers.
Startled, she turned to look at him, and his face was right there. She knew what he was going to do before he did it. She could have moved away. Instead, she leaned into him.
Her first kiss. To date, her only kiss. It had been bliss.
At first.
A large group walked around the corner, catching them in the act. Mostly children, but a few parents as well. Olive’s was one of them. So was the boy’s father.
“Get away from my son,” he’d screamed, as though she were a cockroach on his Christmas pudding.
Olive was frozen in place, but the boy jerked away.
The Marquess of Milbotham, whispered the crowd. That’s his heir.
No. Impossible.
The boy knew who she was. He’d just watched her win a competition.
“I’d rather my son kiss an actual horse,” snarled the marquess, “than a worthless chit who just looks like one.”
Shock stole the words from her throat, and she turned to the boy in supplication.
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and sneered. “You’re just a Harper.”
“A Harper what?” drawled the marquess.
The boy’s next words were louder. “A Harper horse.”
The children erupted in laughter. They surrounded Olive, baring their teeth and making horsey noises until she burst into tears and barreled through them and into the safety of her father’s arms.
Papa couldn’t hear the taunts. Try as he might to urge her to confide in him, she had never repeated what they’d said.
But every word, every whinny, had imprinted indelibly on her soul.
She’d lost her innocence that day, as well as her prized medallion. It had slipped from her slick fingers during all of the pushing and neighing.
The medallion was the one thing from that day that she wished she still had. Solid proof that the others weren’t better than her.
It was the first time she’d ever won anything and the last time she let something she wanted slip out of her hands.
To the devil with Weston and Milbotham both! No wonder her father was at war with that family. From that day forward, they were Olive’s sworn enemies, too.
She swore never to let anyone humiliate her like that again.
But of course it wasn’t that easy. One couldn’t simply decide never to be an object of ridicule.
Not with Weston and Milbotham out there, whispering into every gossip’s ears.
Word of her hoydenish ways reached Town long before Olive arrived four years later for her come-out.
It did not matter that every gown in her trunks was the pinnacle of fashion. Instead of the “horse farm heiress,” scandal columns dubbed her the “horse-faced heiress.”
The appellation caught on overnight.
Olive was a pariah.
She didn’t lose her Almack’s voucher—she was never granted one to begin with. Ballrooms were for young ladies, not horses. The Weston family spread the tales triumphantly. Not that much effort was necessary—the caricatures were not kind.
She left London after one week, rather than endure six months of a social season she wasn’t invited to.
Weston and his father had tried to destroy her, but instead they had given her purpose.
Olive couldn’t beat anyone with beauty, but she could be the best bloody horsewoman England had ever seen. The world might not desire her, but they would dream of having her skills.
And soon enough, they dreamed of having her horses.
No, she would not sell to Prinny.
No, she would not do business with the families of the people who had taunted her. Who had pushed a child, and mocked, and whinnied. As if she were nothing more than an animal. As if she were nothing at all.
The Harper blood horses were infamous not just because of their superior attributes, but because they weren’t easy to obtain. Olive could charge what she liked, because her customers were paying as much for exclusivity as they were for fine horseflesh.
She wouldn’t sell to Lady Jersey, they could tell their friends smugly. But she sold to me.
That’s right. To the devil with the patronesses. The beau monde could have their little world.
Olive ruled hers.
She was a woman now. No longer the cowering, frightened child who had run off in tears of mortification. Olive was strong, and fierce, and capable.
And this time, she would not let Weston win.
Chapter 5
The Third Day
This time, Eli was awake before dawn. He awaited Miss Harper out by the horses.
Well, not too near the horses. He kept a healthy distance between himself and the completely inadequate wooden fence demarcating their territory from his.
Happily, his carrot-tossing aim was improving by the day. Most of the pieces landed in the vicinity of the horse he was aiming to treat without the need to venture close.
When a cube of orange carrot landed in the soft snow in front of Duke, the big stallion gave a great sniff. Not at the carrot—at the wind, which came from behind Eli and appeared to be carrying his scent with it.
Rather than dip his head to eat the carrot, Duke charged toward the fence.
Eli dropped most of the remaining carrot where he stood in a desperate attempt to scramble backward, though he knew from experience he had no hope of outrunning a rampaging horse.
Rather than leap the too-short fence, Duke halted with nothing more than his nostrils over the top and gave another loud sniff.
Eli wasn’t fooled into coming closer. He weighed the last bit of carrot in his clammy palm and tossed it underhand in the direction of the fence. It landed just on the other side.
Duke lowered his head, ate the carrot, and sauntered away, as if Eli’s presence no longer held any interest.
Eli took a deep breath and willed his galloping heart back to a canter.
He had a mission.
Both his father and Miss Harper’s father were expecting their heirs to put forth their best efforts in good faith, but that wasn’t why Eli was out here in the snow, risking life and limb to throw carrots at an ill-humored stallion.
With unsteady fingers, he straightened his cravat and smoothed his lapels. He wasn’t here for his father, who considered Miss Harper’s feelings on the question of marriage to be just as irrelevant as Eli’s.
He was out here tempting fate because he cared about Miss Harper’s feelings. He wouldn’t make this any harder on her than he had to. Although Eli would rather be anywhere but a horse farm, Miss Harper adored these beasts above all else.