It broke cleanly in two, shattered by a half-starved woman on a killer horse. Steam rolled off Ruin's flanks in thick, ghostly clouds by the time Basia rode him the two miles down the jagged fence line to the rusted iron gate that connected the south moor to the main road. Henry was already waiting for her. He had dismounted.
He stood holding his bay's reins tightly, staring at the frozen, rutted dirt at his feet. When he heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of Ruin's hooves approaching, he looked up. Basia stopped the gray gelding a few feet away. She looked like a casualty of war.
Her knuckles were bleeding again, the fresh red soaking into the clean linen bandages she had wrapped them in that morning. Her lips were cracked and bleeding from the wind, her oversized coat torn at the hem, plastered with mud and horse hair. She didn't wait for him to speak. She kicked her boots out of the stirrups and slid off the saddle.
Her legs gave out the moment her boots hit the frozen dirt. The adrenaline crash was absolute, turning her muscles to water. Henry dropped his reins. He moved faster than she had ever seen him move, closing the distance and catching her by the arms before her knees could hit the ground.
His grip was bruisingly tight. He didn't let go even as she found her footing. He pulled her against his heavy wool coat. The smell of his expensive cedarwood tobacco mixed heavily with the sharp, acrid scent of her sweat leather and the horse's hot breath.
"You are entirely out of your mind." Henry breathed. His voice was rough, completely stripped of its usual aristocratic polish. His hands traveled up her arms, gripping her shoulders. He was shaking.
The Duke of Ashbourne, who never raised his voice and never hurried, was actually trembling. "You could have died. He could have clipped a hind leg, broken his neck, and crushed you into the dirt."