“Local pest.” Stretton indicated the boy on the hill. “Makes a point of ruining every hunt possible.” He indicated the confusion of hounds. “Scatters food around, destroys the scent with smoked herring heads, even been known to blow false horn calls that confuse the hounds.” He shook his head in disgust. “Blasted fox will be well away now, dammit.”

“Why does nobody do anything to stop him?” Hart demanded, gazing at the bold figure on the hill. “Teach him a lesson in interfering with a gentleman’s pleasures.”

Stretton eyed him. “Why don’t you?”

“Dammit, I will.” And Hart urged his horse after a different quarry, an insolent boy riding a black horse, bareback.

He recalled the fury that drove him that day, his determination to catch the little wretch and give him a good hiding. The lad rode brilliantly, his horse was young and fleet, but like the boy, not quite into his full growth.

Hart’s horse was bigger and stronger and Hart gradually gained on him, the thrill of the chase firing his blood again.

He’d drawn alongside the lad and reached out to haul him from his mount. There was a struggle and they’d both come crashing down onto the muddy ground. The boy didn’t move and for a moment, Hart feared that he’d killed him.

But he’d only knocked the breath from his body, and when he took a great, gasping breath, and opened those dazzling smoke-colored eyes, fringed with thick dark lashes, Hart had realized what he’d done. Dragged a young girl off her horse and hurled her roughly to the ground.

He hadn’t known what to say. He was shocked. Appalled. Had no words to explain. He’d never laid a finger on any female, not in violence.

“I’m sorry. I—I didn’t know,” he stammered. “Are you all right?”

She’d given him a long hard look as she gasped to recover her breath. She’d opened her mouth and he’d sat back, waiting to hear what she’d say. Then without warning she kneed him in the balls, scrambled out from under him, swung lithely onto her horse and galloped away, leaving Hart curled in agony on the ground.

Lady Georgiana Rutherford. Not that he knew that back then. The men of the hunt knew she was female—damn them! They’d deliberately misled him—but as far as they knew she was just some rich man’s by-blow. Not that that was any excuse.

Stretton had sent Hart, in his ignorance, to give a young girl a thrashing.

Hart had confronted Stretton immediately. “Did you know you were sending me after a young girl?”

Stretton had snorted. “Of course. The little bitch needed a lesson. I hope it hurt when you knocked her off her horse. Pity she didn’t break her neck.”