Or another witch on horseback.

I have quite a hard head. He smiled. A hard head, indeed. She slips off the saddle-bump-and she’s right back on her feet. And cheeky to boot. As if I couldn’t tell a mare from a stallion. All I needed was the right view.

Which he certainly had had of her. There was no doubt whatsoever that it was the female of the species he’d been looking at. All that raven hair, those laughing green eyes. She almost reminds me of…

He suppressed the thought, shoved it into the quicksand of bad memories. Nightmares, really. Those terrible echoes of his first assignment, his first failure. It had colored his career, had kept him from ever again taking anything for granted. That was the way one should operate in this business. Check the facts, never trust your sources, and always, always watch your back.

It was starting to wear him down. Maybe I should kick back and retire early. Live the quiet country life like Hugh Tavistock. Of course Tavistock had a title and estate to keep him in comfort, though Richard had to laugh when he thought of the rotund and balding Hugh Tavistock as earl of anything. Yeah, I should just settle down on those ten acres in Connecticut. Declare myself Earl of Whatever and grow cucumbers.

But he’d miss the work. Those delicious whiffs of danger, the international chess game of wits. The world was changing so fast, and you didn’t know from day to day who your enemies were…

He spotted, at last, the turnoff to Chetwynd. Flanked by majestic elms, it was as the black-haired woman had described it. That impressive driveway was more than matched by the manor house standing at the end of the road. This was no mere country cottage; this was a castle, complete with turrets and ivy-covered stone walls. Formal gardens stretched out for acres, and a brick path led to what looked like a medieval maze.