Elsie smiled and reached out slowly, letting him catch her scent before she touched him. "Hello, old friend," she whispered. "Tomorrow, they think they will watch me fail."
Tempest pressed his nose gently into her open palm, calm and trusting in a way he had never once been with anyone else on the estate. Old Garrick, the stable master, often said the horse had a demon inside him, but Elsie knew better: Tempest was not wild out of cruelty; he was wild because no one had ever bothered to understand him, the same way no one on this estate had ever bothered to understand her.
She spent nearly an hour with him that night, speaking softly, stroking his neck, reminding her own hands of movements they had never truly forgotten. When she finally slipped back toward the servants' quarters, she did not notice the tall figure standing motionless in the shadow of the garden wall, watching her every move with sharp, thoughtful eyes.
Duke Alaric Vane had followed the sound of her voice from his study window, curious to understand how a simple maid could walk so calmly toward a horse that had injured three grown men. What he witnessed left him with more questions than answers, and a strange, unfamiliar feeling he could not quite name settled over him as he returned to his quarters, unable to stop thinking about the girl in the gray dress and the stallion who trusted her completely.
By the time the sun rose the next morning, word of the dare had spread through every corner of the estate. Cooks whispered about it over boiling pots. Footmen placed bets in hushed corners. Even the gardeners paused their work to talk about the foolish maid who thought she could ride the Duke's wildest horse without so much as a rope to hold onto.