Her. There was no doubt of that now. Lads did not have delicate shoulders and collarbones, swanlike necks, and hands that, even encased in leather gloves, looked small and fine-boned. As for her face, the little he'd glimpsed above the woollen muffler wound about her nose and chin had been more Madonnalike than manlike.

A female called Flick. In the distant recesses of his brain, a memory stirred, too insubstantial to catch and hold. He tried to coax it further into the light, and failed. He was sure he'd never called any female Flick.

She was still a good two furlongs ahead of him, maintaining the distance with ease. They were riding directly west, out onto the less frequented stretches of the Heath. They'd sped past a number of strings out exercising; heads had come up to watch them in surprise. He saw her glance around again; an instant later, she swerved. Grimly determined, Demon squinted into the setting sun and followed in her tracks.

He might not be able to ride her down, but he'd be damned if he'd lose her.

His resolution had, by now, communicated itself quite effectively to Flick. Making a few choice observations about London-bound rakes who came up to their stud farms with not a moment's notice and then proceeded to get in the way, to throw her off her stride, to plunge her into a ridiculous fluster, she irritatedly, and not a little frantically, reviewed her options.

There weren't many. While she could easily ride for another hour, The Flynn couldn't. And the horse Demon was on would fare even worse. And, despite the knot of sheer panic in her stomach, there wasn't any point fleeing, anyway.

She would, one way or another, either now or only marginally later, have to face Demon. She didn't know if he'd recognized her, but in that frozen instant in the stable when his blue gaze had raked her, she'd got the impression he'd seen through her disguise.