Free The Reckless Bride by Stephanie Laurens

breathe, then he looked at the river once more. “I can’t.”
    Rafe heard his temper in the clipped words. If she had any sensitivity, she would hear it, too.
    The swift glance she threw him, frowning, puzzled, suggested she had.
    “I have a timetable.” He hadn’t mentioned it earlier, but saw no reason he couldn’t tell her; she already knew so much. “There’s four couriers, so four threads to this mission. I’m supposed to land in England on December twenty-first, not before, not later. I don’t know when the others will get there—before? On the same day? Regardless, having others involved means I can’t rush. As things stand, traveling up the Danube, then crossing to the Rhine and taking another boat downriver will get me to the Channel at about the right time.”
    After a moment, she asked, “So if you get to the Channel coast too early, you’ll have to wait before you cross?”
    He nodded. “And there’s sure to be cultists thronging that shore.” He sighed. “We got to Constanta earlier than I, or indeed Wolverstone, anticipated. We had a quick and undisturbed journey from Bombay until there, something I certainly hadn’t expected.”
    “You expected the cult to pursue you out of Bombay?”
    “Yes. But they missed us entirely.” He shifted, a familiar restlessness building, frustration over having to consistently take evasive action rather than stand and fight. “If we’d gone on by road from Buda and weren’t stopped along the way, we’d be on the Channel coast weeks too early. That’s one reason why, as much as the pace irks, we opted to go via the rivers.”
    After a moment she asked, “Were there other reasons for your choice?”
    “A number. If we traveled by road, we’d need to be constantly on guard. On land, no matter where we stopped the chance of a cult attack would be very real. Worse, when they attack they don’t care who else gets hurt—they have a penchant for using fire to flush their quarry out, and if innocents die as well … they simply don’t care. They’ll happily set fire to a crowded inn with no thought for who else might be killed.”
    He straightened. “Against that, the riverboats are too small and their crews too few for the cult to easily slip anyone on board, either as a stowaway or a last minute addition to the crew, so the boat itself is safe. Setting fire to a boat on the river in this weather is also as close to impossible as makes no odds, so we don’t have to fear that. We still need to keep watch for anyone sneaking aboard, but the crew and passengers help with that—if anyone sees someone who isn’t crew or passenger, they’ll sound an alarm, and that person will be caught. On top of that, most cultists can’t swim, most can’t even row worth a damn, which further decreases the chance of them sneaking onto the boat while it’s on the river. Those cultists who can swim or row have most likely been sent to the Mediterranean, to the Channel, or to other ports.”
    “So while crossing Europe, you’re safer on the river than on the roads, staying at inns.”
    “I know there are cultists keeping watch for us—forme—all through Europe. I’m running a gauntlet of sorts. But I’m wagering on the chance—and I think it’s a real chance—that the cult won’t think to watch the rivers at all. The Black Cobra, Ferrar, would, but it’s entirely possible he’s sent his men to watch and not thought to specifically name each and every route. Why would he? So there were cultists in Constanta and Buda, but they were watching the roads, not the river. I expect there’ll be cultists stationed in every city, in every large town. But the cultists themselves won’t think of the rivers as highways. With any luck, they won’t have any inkling we’re traveling this way.”
    He fell silent. As a commander he was happy with the choice he’d made; it was the right one, he had no doubt of that.
    As a soldier, he’d rather face action than flee.
    But