Raven Prince

Chapter One

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived an impoverished duke and his three daughters. . . .

—from The Raven Prince

LITTLE BATTLEFORD, ENGLAND

MARCH, 1760

The combination of a horse galloping far too fast, a muddy lane with a curve, and a lady pedestrian is never a good one. Even in the best of circumstances, the odds of a positive outcome are depressingly low. But add a dog—a very big dog—and, Anna Wren reflected, disaster becomes inescapable.

The horse in question made a sudden sideways jump at the sight of Anna in its path. The mastiff, jogging beside the horse, responded by running under its nose, which, in turn, made the horse rear. Saucer-sized hooves flailed the air. And inevitably, the enormous rider on the horse’s back came unseated. The man went down at her feet like a hawk shot from the sky, if less gracefully. His long limbs sprawled as he fell, he lost his crop and tricorn, and he landed with a spectacular splash in a mud puddle. A wall of filthy water sprang up to drench her.

Everyone, including the dog, paused.

Idiot, Anna thought, but that was not what she said. Respectable widows of a certain age—one and thirty in two months—do not hurl epithets, however apt, at gentlemen. No, indeed.

“I do hope you are not damaged by your fall,” she said instead. “May I assist you to rise?” She smiled through gritted teeth at the sodden man.

He did not return her pleasantry. “What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road, you silly woman?”

The man heaved himself out of the mud puddle to loom over her in that irritating way gentlemen had of trying to look important when they’d just been foolish. The dirty water beading on his pale, pockmarked face made him an awful sight. Black eyelashes clumped together lushly around obsidian eyes, but that hardly offset the large nose and chin and the thin, bloodless lips.

“I am so sorry.” Anna’s smile did not falter. “I was walking home. Naturally, had I known you would be needing the entire width of the throughway—”

But apparently his question had been rhetorical. The man stomped away, dismissing her and her explanation. He ignored his hat and crop to stalk the horse, cursing it in a low, oddly soothing monotone.

The dog sat down to watch the show.

The horse, a bony bay, had peculiar light patches on its coat that gave it an unfortunate piebald appearance. It rolled its eyes at the man and sidled a few steps away.

“That’s right. Dance around like a virgin at the first squeeze of a tit, you revolting lump of maggot-eaten hide,” the man crooned to the animal. “When I get hold of you, you misbegotten result of a diseased camel humping a sway-backed ass, I’ll wring your cretinous neck, I will.”