CHAPTER 1

A shining silver shroud covered the lowlands along Broad Creek, deep and swift-running. The notes of the huntsman's horn, muffled, made his direction difficult to determine. Three young women, students at prestigious Custis Hall, followed the creek bed that bordered a cut hayfield. A gnarled tree, bending toward the clear water as if to bathe its branches, startled them.

"Looks like a giant witch," Valentina Smith blurted out.

They stopped to listen for hounds and the horn. Smooth gray stones jutted out of the creek, the water swirling and splashing around.

"Can you hear anything?" Felicity Porter, slender, serious, inquired.

"If we move away from the creek, we'll hear better." Valentina, as senior class president, was accustomed to taking charge.

Anne "Tootie" Harris, one of the best students at Custis Hall, was just as accustomed to resisting Valentina's assumed authority. "We'll get even more lost. Broad Creek runs south. It divides the Prescott land from Sister Jane's land. If we keep going we'll eventually reach the big old hog's back jump in the fence line. If we turn right at that jump we'll find the farm road back to the kennels."

Angry that she hadn't paid attention at the jump to where the rest of the riders disappeared into the fog, and now angry that she hadn't paid attention to the flow of Broad Creek, Valentina growled, "Well, shit, Tootie, we could go into menopause before we reach the hog's back jump!"

"One dollar, potty mouth." Felicity held out her hand with grim satisfaction.

"Felicity, how can you think of the kitty at a time like this? We could be lost for days. Why, we could die of thirst and—"

"Val, we're next to Broad Creek," Tootie deadpanned.

"You two are ganging up on me." Val tossed her head; her blonde ponytail, in a snood for riding, swayed slightly.

"No, we're not." Felicity rarely ran off the rails, her focus intense. "The deal when we started hunting with Jefferson Hunt was that each time one of us swore, one dollar to the kitty. I'm the bank."

Valentina fished in her tweed jacket. "You'll probably end up being a banker, F. I can see it now when you make your first million. You'll count the money, put it in a vault, and not even smile." She did, however, hand over her dollar.

Felicity leaned over to reach for the dollar, their horses side by side. She folded it in half, neatly sticking it in her inside jacket pocket. Felicity knew she wasn't quick-witted. No point in firing back at Valentina.

With Felicity and Valentina it was the tortoise and the hare. With Tootie and Valentina it was the hawk and the hare, two swift-moving creatures with opposing points of view.

"Come on, I'll get us back to the kennels," Tootie promised.

In the far distance the hounds sang, voices ranging from soprano to basso profundo, from tenor to darkest alto. The heavy moisture in the air accounted for the variation in clarity. The girls would hear the hounds moving toward them, then it would sound as though the hounds were turning.

"Coach will tear us a new one." Valentina did not reply to Tootie's suggestion, speaking about the coach's wrath instead.

"Coach? What about Mrs. Norton?" Felicity thought the headmistress's disapproval would be more severe than Bunny Taliaferro's, the riding coach, although Bunny naturally leaned toward censure.

"Wonder if they know we're not with the field? I mean, it's possible they're still in the fog, too. Sister Jane would get really upset if she thought we were in trouble." Valentina inhaled deeply. "If they don't know, let's swear never to tell."

Copyright © 2005 by American Artists, Inc.