Lily by Patricia Gaffney

realization of her personal insignificance, and of the cosmic unimportance of all the things she filled her life with—not a brand new insight, and not altogether unpleasant, for under it lay the safe, prosaic certainty that in half an hour she would be snug in her bed.
    The first flare of lightning startled her; in its blue-white blaze she saw the gates ahead, closer than she’d expected. A practical, apprehensive part of her said to turn back now and go home; the stubborn part said the gates were the goal and she would turn back when she reached them. The rain had stopped, for now, but the savage wind still blew her skirts around her legs like sails on a storm-trapped schooner.
    She arrived at the gates. As always, they were open, their delicate iron grilles more for ornament than protection nowadays. She reached out to touch one of the crumbling brick-and-mortar posts, both as a personal acknowledgment that she’d reached her goal and for something solid to hold on to. There was no warning; the sound of hoofbeats was muffled completely by the wailing wind. A horse screamed; hooves scrabbled in the air scant inches from her face; a rider fell. She shrank back against the cold stone in utter darkness, petrified, expecting to be mauled or trampled in the next moment. But the wind dropped, and in the relative quiet the clatter of hooves sounded behind her, diminishing. In the next second a flash of lightning illuminated the writhing form of a man on the ground, not six feet from where she stood. She shuffled toward him in the sudden dark, hands outstretched. Her ankles touched him at the moment lightning flared again. It was the master.
    “Get the horse! The horse, damn it! Stop him!” He thought he saw the white flash of petticoats move away from him in the blackness. He pressed his soaked handkerchief to the gash in his shoulder again and growled into the wind, teeth gritted, praying he wouldn’t pass out. The pain lessened as he lay there; he became conscious that the fall hadn’t broken any bones, that he was in no worse shape than he’d been half a minute ago. Which wasn’t saying a great deal. The gate post was behind him—he saw it in a fleeting interval of light—and he shoved himself backward until he was leaning against it. Somewhere to his right he heard his horse nicker. Had the girl found him or had he come back on his own?
    Lily had no experience with frightened, lathered stallions. She found Devon’s by serendipity: she walked into him. It startled them both, and the first thing her astonished hand reached out for in reflex was his bridle. He backed up angrily, but somehow she held on, and after a moment he quieted enough to let her lead him in what she hoped was the direction of his owner.
    She found him eventually. He was still on the ground, and she was afraid he’d injured himself in the fall. “Are you hurt?”
    “No. Go away.”
    She stood over him, holding his horse’s reins. “But if you’re hurt—”
    “I’m all right.”
    “Let me—”
    “Go!”
    Instead she dropped to her knees in front of him. “You need help, you’re—” She broke off when she saw, in an instant’s burst of lightning, the dark stain of blood that had soaked through the entire front of his jacket. She made an anguished sound, more moan than scream, and Devon dropped his head back against the gate post and closed his eyes. So much for getting home unnoticed.
    “Help me up.”
    “I’ll get someone to—”
    “Damn it! Don’t tell me again what you’ll do. Help me to stand up—that’s the order. Have you got it?”
    “Yes, I believe so.”
    “Good.”
    Crouching, she half clasped him around the middle and tried to lift him. A low noise in his throat told her she was hurting him. It worked better when he put one arm around her shoulders. They struggled to their feet together, and then she had to lean all her weight against him to keep him upright; otherwise he would have toppled over on her like a