He took a step forward. She could not retreat from the gaze that assaulted her, challenged her. It made her feel she had to prove her strength like she did with an unbroken stallion first brought to her stables. To waver would mean the powerful beast would run roughshod over her if she did not show enough courage. Being the shrewd horsewoman she was, though, she would never allow this degradation to happen. And since she had more knowledge of horses than of men her only way to respond to the well-turned buckskinned figure was in the way she knew best. She took control... The Nabobs, men of great wealth, were a particular type of aristocrat in the 1850s of the Old South. They ruled over Natchez, Mississippi. There were forty families recorded in historical documents in this narrow nobility. Their rules for society, their beloved horse races and for their women especially, were strict and breaking them was unheard of--except for a risk-taker like young Antonia Richardson.