The Bride Price by Anne Mallory

features furrowed.
    Sarah tugged the sleeve of Caroline’s dress. “We should join them. Or else she will bring Father’s attention to my absence and he will be displeased with me.”
    Caroline opened her mouth to tell her to go ahead, but Sarah’s pleading gaze stopped her. Reluctantly, she nodded. It was way too late for recriminations. Way too late to avoid her fate.
    As soon as they emerged from the grove, Lady Tevon’s face cleared and she beckoned them over. “Lady Sarah, where have you been?”
    “I was walking with Caroline while the grooms readied the horses.”
    Lady Tevon shot her a look of disapproval. “Mrs. Martin, I thought we had come to a thorough understanding of how best to improve Sarah’s chances.”
    Chances for unhappiness? she wanted to respond. “Yes, Lady Tevon,” she said instead, her voice sounding thoroughly chastened, even if it was because of another event entirely.
    “We were here before the game began,” Sarah said in her quiet way.
    “Fashionably walking in at just the right moment,” Caroline added with as much spark and innocence as she could muster.
    Lady Tevon frowned, nodded, then switched her gaze back to Sarah. “Well then, I suppose that is good. But be careful in the future. You don’t want the competitors to think you are hiding from them, do you?”
    Caroline had the distinct impression as they patted their horses, made ribald jokes, and eyed the available women that most of the competitors didn’t even notice Sarah’s presence, nor did they care—more fools they. Sarah was a prize far greater than these men deserved.
    Her eyes collided with a whirlpool of aquamarine, and suddenly she could hear nothing above the hammering of her heart, the beat of her bell tolling, the promise of a painful death as she looked into Sebastien Deville’s eyes. A slow smirk curved his mouth as one hand absently played with his horse’s reins.
    Sweat broke along her brow. She gathered every last reserve and purposefully turned away.
    “Well, Lady Sarah, at least you show a little more spirit with Mrs. Martin around.” Lady Tevon pinned Caroline with a glance. “See to it that she chats with the competitors. Nothing like adding a little incentive to the proceedings.”
    Lady Tevon tried to inject some excitement into the statements, but unfortunately, she didn’t even look like she believed her own words.
    Why no one could see the kind, beautiful girl beneath Sarah’s calm demeanor, Caroline didn’t know. It seemed obvious to her, but then people rarely looked beneath that which they wanted to see.
    Caroline nodded to Lady Tevon, smoothing her hands over her dress in an effort to calm her body. “The party should prove a perfect venue to do so.” Should she survive the week, the day , with her already spotty reputation intact, the party would be a perfect venue to see which competitors she would allow to continue, and which ones she would seek to crush. There was one man already firmly on the latter list.
    “Quite so.” Lady Tevon definitively agreed. “The men will be strutting after the game this afternoon.”
    “Line up,” a voice shouted.
    The fifteen riders trotted into place at the starting line. She tried to catalog each of their expressions, but her eyes continued to wander to Deville sitting on his horse, perfectly still, waiting.
    A crack sounded and sixty hooves beat down on the earth. The riders galloped over the flat expanse, leaning forward, the best horseflesh and most skilled riders breaking away from the pack as they rode harder. Deville was in the front with three others—the golden Sloane, Lord Benedict, and the hook-nosed man Sarah had identified as Timothy Timtree. Deville’s horse took a tight turn and he held out a gloved hand to a branch. He must have caught the ring, because a few of the riders behind veered off to the other side.
    Caroline had walked the course earlier looking for opportunities—the circuits of the wide expanse were useless,