“What are you doing here?” Ayah demanded, curbing the gelding with hard hands. “How dare you touch my father’s horse?”
The stranger wiped a splatter off one cheek. “He is a very fine horse,” he replied, tranquil. “I thought to buy him.”
“Well, you can’t.” Ayah sprang to the ground. Patton’s eldest son was as broad and heavily built as a Siberian ox. The other, who was both shorter and more slender, ought to have looked frail beside him, but he didn’t. Perhaps it was the look in his eyes. With a thrill of unease, Patton quickened his pace. Ayah was maybe still drunk, maybe just unwary, but he mistook the stranger’s mildness for yielding. “And how do you propose to manage a horse like that, little man?” he added scornfully. “Run back to your lover and leave riding war-horses to men of stre
