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For a usurious sum that would sap what little was left of her assets, Rowie predicted.

“You’re a vicious, horrible woman,”she cried.

“I don’t believe this prudish, holier-than-thouact for a minute.

It was a simple kiss, yet you neverwaited until marriage with my father.

I suspect that’s how you got your tentacles into him.

You’re ugly on the inside, and that isn’t something you can hide.

If I live to be one hundred, I’ll never understand what Father ever saw in such a hateful old goat. ”

She spat the last word and watched as her stepmother stiffened, her air of superiority replaced with a scowl. Translated, her name meant goat in Hebrew, a fact she’d always been sensitive to.

“Rather a goat than homeless without means to stable a dozen horses,”Jael shot back. “I will do you a favor, although you don’t deserve it. I’ll give you five hundred dollars for the lot of them right now. Take it or leave it. You’ve got until the count of five to decide.”

“But each horse would bring at least double that at auction.”

“One…”

“This isn’t fair!”

“Two…”

“Take the money, Rowie,” Carson urged. “We’ll start fresh with it.”

“Three…”

“But she’s robbing us of their worth.”

“Four. Decide now, or I will begin charging what I would have paid you to keep them. They’ll be mine in a week, and you’ll have nothing.”

“I’ll take the money,”Rowie uttered brokenly. What choice did she have?

“Excellent,”Jael drawled. “I’ll have a bank draft for you tomorrow when you return for your belongings.

Then, my dead husband’s brat of a daughter will be gone from my life and nothing but an unpleasant memory.

”She turned, but before leaving, she looked heavenward and smiled.

“My prayers, at long last, are being answered.”

As her vile stepmother strode toward the main house, Rowie’s beloved childhood home, once a haven whenever something went wrong, her malevolent laughter trailed after her.

“I’m so sorry, Miss,”Ben said softly. “What she's doing isn't right. I would have spoken up, but I need my job.”

She didn’t blame him. He had a wife and four children. The bread on their table and roof over their heads came from his salary at Eldridge House.

Carson’s arm slid around her shoulders. “We’ll get through this, sweetheart. Don’t you fret. I’ll find a way to give you a good life.”

His words didn’t ease the dread building in Rowie’s chest. Although handsome and filled with youthful enthusiasm, twenty-two-year-old Carson Dunn didn’t have much else going for him.

Jael had been right about one thing. At barely nineteen and starved for affection since the death of her beloved father, her head had been turned by his attention, not to mention his midnight-blue eyes and easy smile.

More appealing, after living with a hateful goat, whose constant criticism wore on her day in and day out, Carson was her way out.

With their shared love of horses, she’d dreamt of starting a new life with him and a profitable business, with her stable of a dozen thoroughbreds as their foundation.

With those dreams shattered and having to settle for a fraction of their value, she worried how they would live?

***

Well ahead of the unreasonable noon deadline, Rowie and Carson collected her things under the watchful, tearful eyes of the servants.

Under orders not to lift a finger to help or be sacked without a reference, they didn’t dare risk their mistress’ wrath.

Mrs. MacPherson, the housekeeper—Maw MacPhee to those who knew her well—who had worked for her family long before Rowie was born, was the first to ignore Jael’s dictate.

“Let the witch kick me out,”she grumbled as she stormed down the front steps with a wooden box under one arm and an overfilled carpetbag in the other. “I can live with my sister in Richmond. She’s been beggin’ me to for years.”

After she handed them both up to Carson, who stood in the wagon bed, the others, one by one, picked up a bag, a trunk, or a crate and joined in. While everyone else took care of the loading, the older woman took her by the hand and pulled her aside.

“I packed yer ma’s green cloak in one of those trunks.

The greedy shrew will miss it, but it’s warm, and ya may need it wherever yer going.

Miz Allona loved it and wore it every Christmas, bless her heart,”she said with a sniffle for Rowie’s mama, whom everyone adored.

“I filled that box with some of yer ma’s other treasures.

They’ve been hidden in the attic for years, a place the mistress wouldn’t dare venture for fear of spiders, ya ken?

Sell the lot. Ya won’t get rich, but there are pieces which will bring a fair price and keep ya on yer feet until yer settled somewhere away from the likes of her.

”With tears streaking her cheeks, Maw pulled her into her arms. “Ah, lass. I wish I coulda done more ta protect ya. I almost dinna stay on after yer da wed the bitch, but I saw through her sweetness and light act from the beginnin’.

You, my darlin' Rowie, were the only reason I stayed.”

“And I am so grateful you did,”she whispered tearfully, as Maw rocked her like she had since her mother died. Only five at the time, she needed her papa, but he wasn’t himself, overwhelmed with grief for his late wife and the infant son he lost along with her.

For months afterward, her father was in a state of despondency, often drunk on whiskey.

He became incapable of raising his daughter—the only family he had left—let alone run his estate.

It fell to the servants to watch over her.

Maw did the lion’s share of it, making sure Rowi was bathed, fed, and had her lessons, but most of all, that she was loved.

Maw looked after Papa, too. Seeing he was carried up to bed rather than sleep off his stupor in the library, and ordered him a bath once a week, whether he liked it or not.

Any contract or bank draft that Mr. Abernathy, her papa’s man of affairs, needed signed, she’d slide beneath the master’s nose as he swilled his whiskey, going as far as putting the ink-dipped quill in his lax fingers and helping him make his mark.

She made sure Rowie was witness to as little of it as possible, but servants talk, and five-year-olds see and hear more than their elders realize.

After losing his beloved Allona, Papa lost interest in his business and everything else, for that matter, except for the horses.

Mr. Abernathy helped keep them afloat until a decade later when Phillip Eldridge married a two-time widow, new to the community, shocking everyone.

Once wed, he allowed Jael, his new bride, free rein.

Including over Rowie's inheritance, evidently. Yes, she had bought dresses and ball gowns, but spent nothing close to the amount her father left her.

“It’s almost noon, sweetheart,”Carson called. "We better go."

Reluctantly releasing Maw, she turned to join him in the wagon but came face to chest with another beloved friend.

“Mr. Arrands,”she said with a sob an instant before he swept her up in a hug.

Papa had loved his prized thoroughbreds, but it was Mr. Arrands, the stablemaster, who could be credited for their success—in breeding, training, and racing. During that horrible time when her papa had checked out on life, he’d taught her everything she knew about horses, including how to ride.

“This ain’t right,”he muttered against her hair. “Your father wouldn't abide his stable being turned over to that she-bitch. He meant for you to have it.”

Leaning back, she gazed up at her friend and mentor. She’d sell her soul to the devil to throw Jael out on her ear, but her father had left Eldridge House and the land to her. Rowie had seen the will herself. Although shocking, legally, her stepmother held all the cards.

“One day, her deeds will catch up with her,”she said with conviction, “and there will be a reckoning.”

“I hope I’m there to see it.”

“Me too.”With where she was going, she doubted it would happen, though.

Mr. Arrands passed her a folded paper—Jael’s bank draft. “This for damn sure ain’t right,” he muttered. “She’s stealing you blind.”

Rowie nodded, unable to say more without falling apart. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his furry cheek, and after more hugs and fresh tears with Maw and several others, she allowed Carson to assist her into their used, battered wagon, which was all they could afford.

Damn that bitch, Jael.

Nothing about this was right. She would have gone to Mr. Abernathy for advice, but he had retired a few years back and moved to Boston. With no other options, she and Carson drove away from Eldridge House, the only home she’d ever known, a paltry $500 to their names, to an uncertain future.