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kitchen door. And Henry would not call so late. She hesitated all the more because she was alone and it was all but dark outside. Was it really wise to open her door to some unknown caller?
    Another round of pounding roused her ire, and she unlocked and opened the door a few inches, saying as tartly as Dixon might, “You need not break the door.”
    She froze. Her pulse pounded in her ears as loudly as the knocking had been. Her mind shouted, Danger! A man stood in cocked hat and greatcoat. Tall, imposing, grim. A stranger. A strange man at her door at night? She fought the urge to slam and lock the door. How she wished Dixon would return.
    She lifted the lamp higher to see his face. Saw a grimace of pain there . . . a gash on his cheek. She opened the door a few inches more.
    “Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding too timid. She drew her shoulders back, determined not to show fear. He need not know she was alone.
    He grimaced again, from pain and perhaps to clear the rain from his eyes. “Is your master at home?”
    She hesitated as reactions – annoyance, offense, alarm – wrestled for preeminence. He presumed she was a servant. Casting a swift glance down at herself, she realized there was little else he could think. She was wearing a mobcap, a dingy puce frock she wore to help Dixon with messy chores, and a soiled apron besides.
    But as much as she wanted to sharply retort that she had no master and wasn’t a servant, she was too fearful of letting him know there was no man in the house, or anyone else for that matter.
    “What do you need?” she asked instead.
    “My horse has thrown me. He is running loose in the meadow beyond that copse there, and I cannot catch him. I am afraid he will injure himself.”
    Mariah nodded. A call for help. She had never been able to resist one.
    “One moment.”
    She did not invite him inside to wait. Rather, she quickly closed the door and pulled on an oilcloth coat from the wall pegs beside it. She ran to the kitchen and stuffed several items into her pockets. Then, pausing to light a tin-and-glass lantern, she jogged back to the front door. She let herself out and brushed past him before he could voice the protest already forming on his frowning face. His hat, drawn down low against the rain, obscured his features. He appeared to be about thirty years old, but beyond that, she formed no distinct impression.
    Lantern high, she hurried though the pouring rain toward the copse. How she wished she had her own horse with her. But even had her father allowed it, she could never have afforded the mare’s upkeep.
    Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed that the man hobbled after her with a jerky limp.
    He muttered, “Heaven knows where he’s got to by now.”
    He was right. A horse spooked by lightning could run headlong and be halfway across the county by now. Or could fall into some unseen burrow and break his leg. They needed to hurry.
    “Do you live nearby?” she asked, wondering if the horse might have taken himself back to the warm security of his stable once divested of its rider. Just because the man was a stranger to her did not mean he did not live in the area. She rarely ventured beyond the walled estate and, except when Dixon was ill, avoided going into the village altogether.
    “No. I was on my way to Bourton when the, er, mishap occurred.”
    Pushing through the narrow copse of trees, Mariah spotted the white horse at the edge of the meadow, one rein apparently ensnared by low branches or brambles. Before she could thank providence for their good fortune, thunder shot the sky. The spooked creature reared up, pulling the rein loose, and bolted across the open meadow, then stopped again a short distance away.
    “Follow me,” she said quietly. She crept forward, hand outstretched, palm up. The white horse swung its head toward them, hesitated, but did not flee. They were able to draw within twenty feet or so of the frightened animal.
    “Call to him gently,” she