Warmth filled me as I scanned the fields, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was their comfort and joy in their work here or the fact Windmill Cottage was home to so many. One woman caught my gaze. The smile slid off her face and she nudged her thin companion who sat in the dirt sawing at a thick root with slow, weak movements. The thin woman straightened and looked my way, but I dropped my gaze and turned my head so they could no longer see my face.

What a fool I was. A sketch of my likeness had been posted in Fairhoven. These women had probably seen it. They knew I was wanted. There was the smallest chance that Bastiaan did not yet know. We needed to get away from Windmill Cottage.

Now.

“I’m ready.” I tried not to let tension paint my words.

Bastiaan mounted and nodded to Runt. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the two women making their way toward us. Runt squeezed his heels enough to set his horse into a slow walk. Mine and Bastiaan’s followed.

One woman lifted a hand. “Wait!”

I slammed my heels into the flanks of Diantha’s mare. I let a scream loose—hoping the sound would propel the horse forward. It worked. She bolted and I clenched the reins in white-knuckled fists.

No matter how hard I pulled at the reins, I couldn’t seem to get my weight back in the center of the saddle. I slipped back and back until my head slammed against the mare’s rump and I abandoned the reins altogether.

Another slam of body on horseflesh and then I was airborne.

My body struck another. A surprised cry. Then slam. Ground. Limbs. Tumbling. Once I skidded to a stop, I pushed myself up, brushing dust from my face. The mare stood mere feet away, nibbling grass as though nothing had happened. Bastiaan’s stallion danced around her.

I spotted Bastiaan behind me, a body length away. He pushed himself up with a groan. “So much for catching you.”

He tried to catch me? At the very least, he softened my fall. I tried not to picture him tumbling off his stallion in a messy dive, only to miss and crash into the earth. I snorted, then covered it with a cough.

“Weather and woods,” he breathed, offering a hand. “Are you alright?”

I allowed him to pull me to my feet and gripped him a moment longer than necessary to make sure my aching hip and leg would hold me. I glanced back. Windmill Cottage was a speck in the distance. I relaxed.

I nodded and rolled my neck. “Thank you. I’m not accustomed to riding.”

“The mare is not one to spook. I don’t know what happened.”