Free HerOutlandishStranger by Summer Devon

to drag his
attention back to the dull print of the CR or the gray landscape, although it
now had the tinge of green.
    The sight of her captivated him more than any list of facts,
even facts about her. Enough. He growled and bent his head to read about the
men in her future.
    In about a year she would marry a fellow citizen of England,
a man called James Sandton. The records from the marriage were blotchy because
the book of records was destroyed by a later flood in the small church where
she married. But there was no doubt as to her husband’s name, or his stature,
from later records. An influential sort of solid citizen by the time any
reliable historical records bothered to mention him, Sandton was a gent
eventually granted the title of baronet.
    Once or twice the baronet was referred to in the press as
“the eccentric Sir Sandton” and he seemed to hold liberal views, but Jazz
thought he seemed thoroughly tedious.
    Jazz gave a near-silent snort of derision as he read
snippets from letters and other primary sources about the bart’s country seat,
his fine stable of horses, his good deeds, wholesome life, interesting
innovations, and celebrated rose gardens. Just the sort of stable and boring
blockhead of a homebody a woman returning from a war-ravaged land would long
for.
    Rose gardens, he thought, disgusted.
    A secondary source, a particularly dull piece by a DHU
expert, explained why no good portraits of Sir James Sandton existed. The
family portrait was destroyed in a fire several generations later, and the
small portrait Sir James had commissioned and given to his wife had been lost.
What kind of a man gave his wife pictures of himself? Hard to imagine sensible
Miss Wickman married to such a conceited nitwit.
    Jazz tugged out the dirk he kept tucked in his boot and
practiced tossing it at a stick.
    He skimmed the CR and found a personal letter written by
Lady Sandton, born Wickman, he’d be sure to add to the general net when he got
back. The “P”, taken from the damaged record of her marriage to Sandton
remained a mystery.
    Jazz didn’t remember the letter from his training. No
surprise there. Until he met Eliza, it would have bored him silly. Now he found
the charming letter fascinating. Pages long, it was written to a girlhood
friend who’d been thoughtful enough to preserve it for history.
    Thunk . The blade grazed the target. While he
read, he absently flipped and picked up the knife a few times. He practiced
aiming with only peripheral vision.
    He reread one of the less charming bits of Eliza’s letter.
    I have known and admired James since the moment he was
introduced to me by my sister when I was a young girl. You can imagine my joy
when I met him again after such a protracted period of sorrow. I felt I had at
last come home when I agreed to be his bride. Do you recall how Jane once said
that she could never marry a man who did not dance? I thought it a silly
requirement for a life’s mate until I performed the waltz with my new husband.
He dances divinely.
    He wandered over to retrieve his dirk—he’d thrown it too far
and missed the dried stick. As he yanked up the knife where it had buried
itself deep in the ground, he wondered what a waltz could be. Sounded obscene.
Maybe it was some kind of euphemism for sex.
    He settled back and glanced through the more familiar
letters and notes for what seemed the thousandth time. This time he searched
again for more mention of the second stranger, the one who helped her in Spain.
Only a line or two and never a name, which as he had to remind himself, was
entirely appropriate for a DHUy. He’d do a good job then. Just “a singularly
strange person, ’tho clearly a good man”. That last bit was something, anyway.
No mention of his death or disappearance. Take that, Steele.
    Flip. Thunk. The stick split in half. He grabbed the
knife and stabbed the stick a few more times, then tossed it away.
    He continued his search on the CR, still absently tossing
the