The Hunt Ball
Chapter One
A shining silver shroud covered the lowlands along Broad Creek, deep and swift-running. The notes of the huntsman's horn, muffled, made his direction difficult to determine. Three young women, students at prestigious Custis Hall, followed the creek bed that bordered a cut hayfield. A gnarled tree, bending toward the clear water as if to bathe its branches, startled them.
"Looks like a giant witch," Valentina Smith blurted out.
They stopped to listen for hounds and the horn. Smooth gray stones jutted out of the creek, the water swirling and splashing around.
"Can you hear anything?" Felicity Porter, slender, serious, inquired.
"If we move away from the creek, we'll hear better." Valentina, as senior class president, was accustomed to taking charge.
Anne "Tootie" Harris, one of the best students at Custis Hall, was just as accustomed to resisting Valentina's assumed authority. "We'll get even more lost. Broad Creek runs south. It divides the Prescott land from Sister Jane's land. If we keep going we'll eventually reach the big old hog's back jump in the fence line. If we turn right at that jump we'll find the far ... read full excerpt from The Hunt Ball ebook
