The Lady's Ride:

An hour earlier: 
      Cecilia wrung her hands together, nervously awaiting Mr. Pritchard's arrival. She knew their relationship couldn't go on any longer, but she was terribly desperate for the confrontation to be over with. Finally, she stopped her pacing and forced herself to sit still on the edge of a settee that faced away from the door; she couldn't bring herself to watch for his appearance with only empty anticipation in front of a closed door.
      Just as she was beginning to hope he wouldn't come, a chilling voice overran her spine. Though he said only the simplest phrase which otherwise could have been taken for a pleasant inquiry, Mr. Pritchard spoke with just enough contempt to fill every fiber of Cecilia's being with disdain. "A penny for your thoughts, M'dear?"
      His condescending attitude had grated on her one to many times. Suddenly she spun around to face him. "Is that all I'm worth to you? A Penny?"
      Mr. Pritchard gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug. "If you'd rather not take it, I'm sure I could find a better use for it." Glancing down at his pocket watch, he slid easily into a chair near the fire, apparently thinking nothing of the insult he had just delivered. Rolling his eyes and looking back up, he said, "Suppose we hurry this along; eh, pet? I've a very important meeting with the boys tonight."
     She brushed aside his mention of the boys, his infamous group of highly untoward, so called gentlemen with an affinity for trouble, and launched into her next question: "Why are you here, Louis?"
      Her question caught him off guard. "Aren't I supposed to be?"
      "No, I mean why are you with me? Or is obligation the only thing binding us together?"
      Now he began to smile, the sneer spreading through his countenance like a virus. "So you've been talking to Roudington again, have you? I thought I made it apparent you were to stay clear of the impudent fiend."
      Cecilia turned slightly and mumbled under her breath, "I'm not so certain he's the fiend."
      "Yes, and I'm not a gentleman," Mr. Pritchard scoffed.
      "But that's just the thing; you're not," she said, finally facing up to the man. "Being a gentleman doesn't always refer to social standing, Louis. It means you are respectful and amiable and good--chivalrous; a word of which I'm not even sure you know the meaning. You've been none of those things but instead you pretended to be something you weren't, and I was blinded by your flattery. I believed you when you said that the only reason Thomas didn't want us to be together was that he would lose control over me; that he was too selfish to want anything better for me. But I can see now that you were wrong: you were always the one afraid to lose control. Well, I've had enough. Thomas was right about you, you know. You are a scoundrel."
       Cecilia could she her words infuriated him, and there was a part of her that felt proud of the fact; and yet, the other part was scared to death at what she'd just done. Mr. Pritchard clicked his tongue. "Oh, dear, dear, dear. You've fallen in love with the man. Well I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you but I'm afraid you're rather too late. But don't worry; I shall forgive you in time."His sneer deepened just then, as if he knew and loved exactly how autocratic he was being. He took another bored look at his pocket watch and began gathering his hat and gloves from off the tea table where he had deposited them. Once he had possession of his belongings again, he turned to her. "Look, I can see our conversation has upset you terribly. Perhaps we should finish it tomorrow? The boys don't like to be kept waiting, you know." And with that he walked out the door and down the stairs.
        Cecilia was stunned. After all her attempts, he had broken the argument in three quick sentences. She was snapped out of her trance, however, when the front doors slammed. She couldn't let him leave like this, still having the upper hand. She grabbed her shawl and ran for the stables.



Walking briskly into the shelter, Cecilia called out to him. "You can't walk away from this, Louis Pritchard, I won't let you."
     She found him standing quietly, ominously, in front of Obsidian's stall. "Marvelous beast," he said, murmuring almost indistinctly to himself. He turned to her, placing his hands lightly and chillingly on her neck, "Makes you wonder why he snapped." He emphasized the last word, clenching his fingers around her until the word echoed in her mind. Snapped. That's precisely what he'd like to do to me. She shook the unnerving thought off. He moved his hands away as the devilish glint in his eye flashed. "Certainly it is a pity you couldn't ride him well enough to tame him." He looked at her, and by the expression in his eyes she could tell he knew exactly what he was doing to  her; challenging her pride one last time.
     Cecilia sharply inhaled. "That's quite enough, Mr. Pritchard. You should go. And there will be no further visits between us, understand?"
      He nodded, and, knowing he had done enough damage, left.
      Cecilia was left starring at the animal. ...a pity you couldn't ride him... It was too much. Mr. Pritchard had gotten inside her head too many times for her to be confident in herself anymore. Perhaps if she did this one thing, proved to herself she wasn't what Louis had made her out to be, perhaps then she could believe he was really gone.


Cecilia felt decidedly uneasy on the back of the great black beast; each footstep it took seemed to dig into the ground with such ferociousness it felt as though he meant to tear the ground open just for spite. Suddenly his ears went up, and he began to skitter about, and just when Cecilia didn't think he'd ever walk in a straight line again, Obsidian began charging across the open field. Faster and faster they flew across the ground, racing the horizon to what lay beyond, the reigns flailing beneath them, threatening to tangle the horse's legs and bring them both to a crude acquaintance with the earth.
      Amidst the rushing sound of blood pounding in her ears, she began to hear something that sounded suspiciously like another rider crossing the rugged terrain. Turning around, Cecilia saw a figure in the distance riding furiously toward her. Before she could call out to him, she was forced forward again by the uneven jolting of the beast beneath her. As if sensing someone coming to Cecilia's rescue, the horse sped to the edge of the earth.
     With the horse's jagged movements, Cecilia's hands lost their grip on Obsidian's mane. Suddenly, he knew he'd won. Making his final attempt for freedom from his rider, the horse reared on its hind legs.
      A rush of black fur and gray sky was all Cecilia saw as she fell. And then hooves; he brandished them above her, threatening her with their powerful swatting at the air. She struck the ground with an excruciating twist in her ankle. She closed her eyes, succumbed to her fate, not willing to watch as the horse would trample her as he had her father.
     Suddenly she felt an arm wrap itself around her waist and drag her across the rough cold of the ground. The pain of her ankle tugged at her head and she allowed the encroaching darkness to envelope her, cognizant, but only just, of being held in the safety of two warm arms.