The Wild Child by Mary Jo Putney Page A

set foot in Warfield Park again.”
    The boy gasped as he caught the gold sovereign, but Meriel flashed Dominic a darkling look. Tersely he said, “It’s hard to condemn a man for trying to feed his family.”
    Perhaps she understood. Though she shifted rebelliously from foot to foot, she didn’t make another move toward the poacher.
    “Th-thank you, sir,” the boy stammered, still staring at the coin. It was quite possible he’d never held a sovereign in his life.
    Dominic frowned. A piece of gold could feed a family for a few days or even weeks, but it wasn’t a permanent solution. “Tell me your name. I’m merely a guest at Warfield, so I can’t make any promises. However, if you think a job would keep you from poaching, I’ll ask the steward of the home farm if he needs laborers.”
    “Oh, sir!” The boy looked stunned. “I’ll do any honest work.”
    A laborer made little enough, but at least the boy wouldn’t risk being transported and leaving his mother with a cottage full of starving children. Dominic bent and picked up the fallen game bag and knife. “You can take these, but the trap stays here.”
    The boy nodded with resignation. There was no way he could use the trap legally; in fact, he could be arrested and convicted of poaching if he was even caught carrying the wretched thing. “Thank you, sir. My name is Jem Brown.”
    “Jem Brown. Very well, the day after tomorrow, present yourself to the Warfield steward. I’ll have talked to him by then. Now go.” Dominic donned the fierce scowl he’d learned during his brief career as a cavalry officer. “And don’t forget what I said about staying out of the park.”
    Jem darted away before Dominic could change his mind.
    Meriel made a sound like a hissing cat as she watched him go. It would have been funny, if her behavior didn’t underline how far she was from normal.
    Putting aside that painful thought, he said, “It’s time to see what we can do for that poor vixen. Just a moment.”
    He had passed a small brook on his way to the clearing, so he backtracked and soaked his handkerchief in the water. Then he returned to the trapped fox. Meriel crouched near the animal, concern in every line of her body.
    The fox growled when Dominic knelt beside it. Knowing this would be harder than physicking a distressed horse or dog, he looked the vixen in the eyes as he mentally projected calm and good intentions. That he was a friend.
    “There, there, old girl,” he said softly. “Let’s get you free. Then we can look at that leg. No need to worry. I used to think about becoming a veterinary surgeon, you know. I followed the Dornleigh farrier and the cowman and the shepherds around whenever I could, learning how to treat horses and cows and sheep. My father would have died of an apoplexy if I’d chosen to follow such a low trade, though.”
    The talk was mostly to soothe the fox with his tone of voice. He remembered just in time that he shouldn’t say anything that would indicate he wasn’t Kyle. While becoming a veterinary surgeon might be appalling in a younger son, it would be quite unthinkable for the heir to Wrexham. Rather than speak more about his onetime ambitions, Dominic switched to talking about the fox—how splendid her white-tipped tail, how beautiful her cubs must be. When he thought she was calm enough, he laid an experimental hand on the thick, springy reddish fur of her shoulder. She quivered a little, but accepted his touch.
    He turned his attention to the trap. The Dornleigh gamekeeper sometimes used traps to keep foxes from destroying the eggs of nesting game birds, but Dominic had never handled one. Wicked metal teeth clamped on the vixen’s foreleg, with the tension supplied by a flat steel spring by the hinge. Once he’d puzzled out how it worked, he rose and stepped on the spring. The metal jaw opened, and Meriel gently pulled the injured forepaw free.
    “Just a little longer. Then you can go home to your cubs,”