She blushed slightly but didn't reply. Demon couldn't help but notice how fine her skin was, unblemished ivory silk now tinged a delicate rose. She was a painter's dream; she would have had Botticelli slavering. The idea brought to mind the painter's diaphanously clad angels; in a blink of his mental eye, he had Flick similarly clothed. And the tantalizing question of how that ivory skin, which he'd wager would extend all over her, would look when flushed with passion formed in the forefront of his brain.

Abruptly, he refocused. Good God-what was he thinking? Flick was the General's ward, and not much more than a child. How old was she? He frowned at her. "None of what you've said explains what you're doing here, dressed like that, working my latest champion."

"I'm hoping to identify the man who contacted Dillon. Dillon only met him at night-he never saw him well enough to recognize or describe. Now Dillon's not available to act as his messenger, the man will have to contact someone else, someone who can easily speak to the race jockeys."

"So you're hanging around my stables morning and afternoon, hoping this man approaches you?" Aghast, he stared at her.

"Not me. One of the others-the older lads who know all the race jockeys. I'm there to keep watch and overhear anything I can."

He continued to stare at her while considering all the holes in her story. Clearly, he'd have to fill them in one by one. "How the hell did you persuade Carruthers to hire you? Or doesn't he know?"

"Of course he doesn't know. No one does. But it wasn't difficult to get hired. I heard Ickley had disappeared-Dillon was told Ickley had agreed to act as messenger for this season, but changed his mind at the last. That's why they approached Dillon. So I knew Carruthers was short-handed."

Demon's lips thinned. Flick continued. "So I dressed appropriately"-with a sweeping gesture, she indicated her garb-"and went to see Carruthers. Everyone in Newmarket knows Carruthers can't see well close to, so I didn't think I'd have any difficulty. All I had to do was ride for him and he'd take me on."

Demon swallowed a snort. "What about the others-the other lads, the jockeys? They're not all half-blind."

The look Flick bent on him was the epitome of feminine condescension. "Have you ever stood in a working stable and watched how often the men-lads or trainers-look at each other? The horses, yes, but they never do more than glance at the humans working alongside. The others see me all the time, but they never look. You're the only one who looked."

Accusation colored her tone. Demon swallowed his retort that he'd have to have been dead not to look. He also resisted the urge to inform her she should be grateful he had; just the thought of what she'd blithely got herself into, squaring up to expose a race-fixing syndicate, chilled him.

Race-fixing syndicates were dangerous, controlled by men to whom the lives of others meant little. The lives of people like Ickley. Demon made a mental note to find out what had happened to Ickley. The idea that Flick had set herself up as Ickley's replacement was enough to turn his hair grey. Gazing at her face, on her openly determined expression, it was on the tip of his tongue to terminate her employment immediately.

Recollection of how her chin had set earlier made him hold the words back. Pretty little chin, delicately tapered. And too stubborn by half.

There was a great deal he did not yet know, a great deal he didn't as yet understand.

The horses were cooling, the sun slowly sinking. His mount shifted, coat flickering. Demon drew breath. "Let's get back, then I'll go and see Dillon."

Flick nodded, urging The Flynn into a walk. "I'll come, too. Well, I have to. That's where I change clothes and switch horses."

"Horses?"

She threw him a wary glance. "I couldn't turn up for work riding Jessamy-that they'd certainly notice."

Jessamy, Demon recalled, was a dainty mare with exceptional bloodlines; the General had bought her last year. Apparently for Flick. He glanced at her. "So?…"

She drew breath and looked ahead. "So I borrow the old cob you let run on your back paddock. I don't ride him above a canter, if that. I'm very careful of him."

She looked up. He trapped her gaze. "Anything else you've borrowed?"

Big blue eyes blinked wide. "I don't think so."

"All right. We'll ride these two back, then you climb on the cob and head off. I'll leave in my curricle. I'll drive home, then ride out and join you. I'll meet you by the split oak on the road to Lidgate."

She nodded. "Very well. But we'll need to hurry now. Come on." She leaned forward, effortlessly shifting The Flynn from walk, to trot, to canter.

And left him staring after her. With a curse, he dug in his heels and set out in her wake.

He reached the split oak before her.

By the time she appeared, trotting the old cob, long past his prime, down the middle of the road, Demon had decided that, whatever transpired with Dillon, he would ensure that one point was made clear.

He was in charge from now on. She'd asked for his help; she would get it, but on his terms.

From now on, he'd lead and she could follow.

As she neared, her gaze slid from him to his mount, a raking grey hunter who went by the revealing name of Ivan the Terrible. He was a proud and princely beast with a foul, dangerous, potentially lethal temper. As the cob drew closer, Ivan rolled one eye and stamped.

The cob was too old to pay the slightest attention. Flick's brows, however, rose; her gaze passed knowledgeably over Ivan's more positive points as she reined in. "I know I haven't seen him before."

Demon made no reply. He waited-and waited-until she finished examining his horse and lifted her gaze to his face. Then he smiled. "I bought him late last year." Flick's eyes, suddenly riveted on his face, widened slightly. She mouthed an "Oh," and looked away.

Side by side, they rode on, the cob doggedly plodding, Ivan placing his hooves with restless disdain. "What did you tell Carruthers?" Flick asked with a sidelong glance. When they'd returned to the stable, Flick had been in the lead. Carruthers had been standing, hands on hips, in the stable door. From behind Flick, Demon had signalled him away; Carruthers had stared, but, as Flick had trotted The Flynn up, he'd stood aside and let her pass without question. By that time, Carruthers and the nightwatchman, a retired jockey, had been the only ones left in the stable.

Handing his mount to the nightwatchman to unsaddle, Demon had set about mollifying Carruthers.

"I told him I knew you as a brat from near Lidgate, and you'd feared that, recognizing you, I'd terminate your employment immediately." The twilight was deepening; they jogged along as fast as the cob could manage. "However, having seen you ride, and being convinced of your fervent wish to work my horses, I said I'd agreed to let you stay on."

Flick frowned. "He came in and all but shooed me off-said he'd settle The Flynn and I should get on home without delay."

"I mentioned that I knew your sick mother and how she'd worry-I instructed Carruthers that you shouldn't pull duties that will keep you late, and that you should leave in plenty of time to reach home before dark."

Although he was examining the scenery and not looking at her, Demon still felt Flick's suspicious glance. It confirmed his opinion that she didn't need to know about the other instructions he'd issued to his trainer. Carruthers, thankfully not an imaginative or garrulous son, had stared at him, then shrugged and acquiesced.

They left the road and turned into a sunken track between two fields. The cob, sensing home and dinner, broke into a trot; Ivan, forced to remain alongside, accepted the edict with typical bad grace, tossing his head and jerking his reins every few yards.

"He's obviously in need of exercise," Flick remarked.

"I'll give him a run later."

"I'm surprised you let him get into such a bad temper."

Demon stifled an acid retort. "He's been here, I've been in London, and no one can ride him but me."

"Oh."

Lifting her gaze, Flick looked ahead to where the track wended into a small wood; she fell to studying the trees.

From under his lashes, Demon studied her. She'd examined his horse so thoroughly she probably knew his every line, yet she'd barely glanced at him. Ivan was indeed a handsome beast, as were all his cattle, but he wasn't used to taking second place to his mount. Which might seem arrogant, but he knew women-girls and ladies, females of any description-well.

It wasn't simply that she hadn't looked. His senses, well honed through his years on the prowl, could detect not the slightest flicker of consciousness-the minutest suggestion of awareness-in the female riding beside him.

Which, in his experience, was odd. Distinctly odd.

The fact that her lack of awareness was focusing his to a remarkable degree hadn't escaped him. It didn't surprise him; he was a born hunter. When the prey didn't take cover, he-at least that part of him that operated on instinct first, logic second-saw it as a challenge.

Which was, in this case, ridiculous.

There was no reason a girl like Flick, raised quietly in the country, should be aware, in any sexual sense, of a gentleman like him-especially one she'd known all her life.

Demon frowned, tightening the reins as Ivan tried to surge. Disgusted, the big grey snorted; Demon managed not to do the same.

He still had no idea precisely how old she was. He glanced her way, covertly confirming details he'd instinctively noted. She'd always been petite, although he hadn't seen her in recent years. In her present incarnation, he'd only seen her atop a horse, but he doubted her head would clear his shoulder. Her figure remained a mystery, except for her definitely feminine bottom-a classic inverted heart, sleekly rounded. The rest of her was amply disguised by her stable lad's garb. Whether she wore bands about her breasts, as did many devoted female riders, he couldn't tell, but her overall proportions were nice. Slim, slender-she might well be delectable.

On the way back to the stables, she'd tugged her muffler up over her nose and chin so the swath hid most of her face. As for her hair, she'd stuffed it under her cap so thoroughly that, beyond the fact it was as brightly golden as he recalled, he couldn't tell how she wore it. A few short strands had slipped free at her nape, sheening against her collar like spun gold.

Looking forward, he inwardly frowned. It wasn't simply that there were lots of things he didn't yet know about her that bothered him. The very fact he wanted to know bothered him. This was Flick, the General's ward.

General Sir Gordon Caxton had been his mentor in all matters pertaining to horses since he'd been six. That was when, while visiting with his late great-aunt Charlotte, he'd first met the General. Thereafter, whenever he'd been in the locality, he'd spent as much time as possible with the General, learning everything he could about breeding Thoroughbreds. It was due to the General, to his knowledge freely shared and his unstinting encouragement, that he, Demon, was now one of the preeminent breeders of quality horseflesh in the British Isles.

He owed the General a great deal.

A fact he could never forget. He comforted himself with that thought as he trotted beside Flick into the trees beyond which stood the old cottage.

Once a tenant farmer's home, it was now one step away from a ruin. From the rutted lane meandering up to its warped and sagging door, the structure looked uninhabitable. Only on closer inspection could one discern that the roof of the main room was still mostly intact, the four walls enclosing it still standing.

With an imperious gesture, Flick led the way around the cottage. Briefly raising his eyes to the skies, Demon followed, entering a grassy clearing enclosed by trees. A sharp whinny greeted them. Eagerly, Flick urged the cob on. Looking across the clearing, Demon saw Jessamy, a pretty golden-coated mare with pale mane and tail and the most exquisite conformation he'd ever seen. She was tethered on a long rein.

Ivan saw Jessamy, too, and concurred with Demon's assessment. Still held on tight rein, Ivan reared and trumpeted. Only excellent reflexes saved Demon from an embarrassing unseating. Smothering an oath, he wrestled Ivan down, then forced him to the other side of the clearing, ignoring the combined, slightly insulted stares of Flick, Jessamy and the cob.