Another peek at Heart Legacy, COMING TUESDAY (note this is from the rough draft and editor cut two lines...)

Another peek at Heart Legacy, COMING TUESDAY (note this is from the rough draft and editor cut two lines...)

**What do you think of the new stableman?** she asked Baccat, though she wasn't entirely sure of his judgment. He'd shown up at the stables at the beginning of winter, and though they were in concert about their ideas of her various Family members, Baccat had told outrageous stories of other Fams and people he'd known.

A hesitation before a rush of emotion came her way, slyness, laughter, the hint of a secret. But she'd become accustomed to beings having secrets, and, after all, she had her own.

**He is capable and efficient and speaks well.** Another snort. **The horses like him.**

She slowed, pondering. Perhaps the stableman shouldn't be treated like her Family, with cool distance. She knew little about horses, and this new man did. If she wanted to learn from him, or would be working with him, she should be herself . . . the person she liked being, not the D'Yew the Family had molded.

Soon she came within sight of one side of the stables and she smiled. Of all the estate, this place reflected her the most.

Like everything else on the estate, the stables were built on a grand scale, and Lori had used that reason to prod the Family into renovating one block of them, and keep the others from falling down. Lady and Lord knew the Family had plenty of gilt. Lori had kept the training program her father had initiated.

The U shaped stables loomed between the trees. Unlike the flat gray stone of the D'Yew Residence manor house, warm red brick composed the buildings. Her heart leapt a little seeing the corral with her six stridebeasts.

There she'd find love. There she'd give love to the stridebeasts. Though they weren't sentient animals like some other hybrid or Earthan animals, though through her breeding program they'd become more intelligent. She'd have liked to have compared her statistics and lines with others, but was allowed no contact with the outer world – with "lesser" people, or other FirstFamily nobles "who don't have our standards."

Lori believed only her Family followed some sort of hard-edged rules that were far too strict for human beings. She found them stifling.

She did want to be loved and the stridebeasts gave her that. She hoped the horses would, too.

Rounding the last copse and seeing the full stable block revealed, she skidded to a halt. In the gravel courtyard, a man looked to be practicing some sort of fighting pattern. She just stared.

He didn't look like her relatives. At all.

She thought he stood as tall as she, so medium-height for a man, but his muscles were certainly bigger. She didn't think she'd seen a man with developed muscle that went from his shoulders to his neck.

With a run of her hand across that area of the body, she discovered it was one of the trapeziuses, that she knew from stridebeasts. He had a strong back, then.

Yes, she could see it very well since he wore no shirt. A very triangular sort of upper body with ridges of muscles. She swallowed.

She slid her eyes lower than his back and chest. Yes, his legs looked like all muscle, too. His backside tighter than anyone's she'd seen. She patted her own. Solid, but nothing like his and she thought she was the most physical person in the household.