Free The Untamed Bride by Stephanie Laurens Page A

The interior of the carriage was a sea of shifting shadows; she couldn’t see well enough to read anything from his face—and she’d already realized that only showed what he wanted it to.
    Silence stretched, but she waited.
    Eventually, he murmured, “The attack was linked to mymission. Can you describe the man with the pistol? It would help.”
    The vision she’d seen through the window was etched in her mind. “He was somewhat above average height, wearing a dark coat—nothing all that fashionable, but decent quality. He had on a dark hat, but I could see his hair was close-cropped. Beyond that…I really didn’t have time to note every detail.” She let a moment tick past, then asked, “Do you know who he was?”
    “He sounds like one of the men linked with my mission.”
    “Your ‘mission,’ whatever it might be, doesn’t explain why you refused to alert the authorities to the action of a felon—any more than it explains why we’re racing away in the dead of night, as if we’d taken fright.” She didn’t know much about Colonel Derek Delborough, but he didn’t seem the sort to cut and run.
    He answered in a bored, superior tone. “It was the right thing to do.”
    “Humph.” She frowned, disinclined to let him stop talking. His voice was deep, assured, his accents—those of a man accustomed to command—strangely soothing, and after the excitement of the shooting, she was still on edge. Her nerves were still jangling. She grimaced. “Even if you didn’t want to draw attention to yourself, you might at least—”
    Del transferred his gaze to the unrelieved darkness outside. He’d glanced at her, seen her grimace, seen her lips pout…and felt a nearly overwhelming urge to shut her up.
    By sealing those pouting lips with his.
    And finding out how soft they were, and what she tasted like.
    Tart, or sweet? Or both?
    Quite aside from the audience lined up on the opposite seat, he felt reasonably certain any such action would result in him receiving at least one boxed ear. Probably two. Yet having her sitting beside him, her hip less than an inch from his, her shoulder lightly brushing his arm with every rocking motion of the carriage, the warmth of her bathing hisside, was a temptation to which his body was shamelessly responding.
    The search for the Black Cobra had consumed him for months; he hadn’t spared the time to dally with any woman—and it had been far longer since he’d been with an Englishwoman, and never with a termagant of Miss Duncannon’s ilk.
    None of which explained why he was suddenly so attracted to a harridan with lips for which the most experienced courtesans would trade their souls.
    He blotted out her voice, her insistent, persistent prodding, focused instead on the heavy rhythm of the horses’ hooves. Leaving Southampton with all speed had been what he’d had to do, no matter how much it had gone against his grain. If he’d been carrying the original letter, then the necessity of keeping it out of Ferrar’s clutches would have trumped any inclination to give chase.
    If he’d stood and fought—tried to hunt down Larkins, even dallied to set the Watch on Ferrar’s trail—Ferrar would have guessed that he wasn’t all that concerned with the contents of the scroll-holder he carried. And then Ferrar would have shifted his attention, and that of his cultists, from Del to one of the others.
    Were the others ahead of him, or were they yet to land in England?
    With luck Torrington and Crowhurst would know. He’d left a short note for them with Bowden.
    Given the hour, and the falling temperatures, and that more than half their number were traveling exposed, they couldn’t go far. For tonight, Winchester was his goal.
    He prayed he’d be able to resist the impulses provoked by the feminine muttering from beside him long enough for them to reach it.
     
    The Swan Inn in Southgate Street proved sufficient for their needs.
    Miss Duncannon predictably grumbled when he