Free Archangel by Sharon Shinn Page B

half-asleep, Nathan had been properly appalled and amused.
    “Jovah guard us,” Nathan had said, struggling to sit up and grind the sleep from his face. “Could it be worse?”
    “It’s worse,” Gabriel replied. “She dislikes me.”
    Nathan choked back a yawn. “Already?”
    “She does not want to go with us. She declined the honor awaiting her. I informed her she was not allowed to decline. I would not put it past her to make a run for it. I want you to get dressed and find her. Follow her. Keep her in your sight till I rejoin you.”
    Nathan shook his head to clear it, and came to his feet. “Gladly. Where is she? How will I know her?”
    “Look for anyone racing from the house.”
    “Seriously.”
    Gabriel actually had to stop and consider. He had been so intent on the person behind the face that he had not consciously studied Rachel’s physical appearance. “Shorter than me, but not by much,” he said slowly. “Thin. Pale. Beautiful hair. Long and blond and very curly. Her eyes are brown. Her hands are chained together.”
    “She sounds most striking,” Nathan said. “I will hardly be able to mistake her.”
    “I left her in my room, but I doubt she’s still there. I have no idea where she would have hidden by now. I’m off to inform Jethro of the dishonor he’s done me these past five years.”
    Nathan tried to force back another yawn. “And to think,” he said, “you didn’t want to come to the wedding.”
    Gabriel was tricked into a laugh as he strode out the door.
    It was nearly an hour before he confronted his bride-to-be again, and in that time she had undergone a remarkable transformation. She had been thoroughly cleaned up, her hair ruthlessly combed, her ragged dress changed for a silken traveling gown of deep green. The chains that had bound her wrists were gone. But the expression on her face had not altered, and she looked at Gabriel with a mixture of defiance and dislike as he entered the salon where she and Nathan waited.
    “She did not run” was Nathan’s greeting.
    “I’m glad of it,” Gabriel said. He studied her. Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t looked much like a slave girl this morning. Her attire, perhaps, had been wretched, but her demeanor had not for a moment been subservient. She certainly did not look like a slave girl now. Nor, with that hair, did she looklike an Edori. Neither did she bear a resemblance to any of the weather-beaten, work-weary farm women he had ever seen. “And are you any more resigned to coming with me?”
    “Well, I can’t stay here,” she said. “They would not have me now, even if I wanted to stay.”
    “Graciously spoken,” Gabriel murmured. She gave him a killing look. He turned to his brother. “It will not be so easy to leave as I at first imagined,” he said. “Jethro insists on dowering the girl with all sorts of treasures—clothing, jewels, gold, I don’t know what. There’s a wagonload being assembled in the courtyard even as we speak. I am trying to decide if courtesy demands that one of us travel alongside the wagon—”
    “I will, if you want,” Nathan said with a grin.
    “I’ll travel with the wagon,” the girl said.
    Gabriel turned back to her. “You will travel with me,” he said. “I want to get you to the Eyrie as soon as possible.”
    She eyed him uncertainly. “What do you mean, travel with you?”
    Nathan divided a glance between them and said, “Well, I’ll just go check on some things,” then left the room. Gabriel and Rachel remained facing each other warily.
    “I will fly you back to the Eyrie,” he said as pleasantly as possible. “The trip will take about six hours. By cart it would take maybe three or four days.”
    For the first time, she showed a certain apprehension. “I can’t fly,” she said.
    “No, of course not.
I
will carry you—”
    “No, I mean I’m afraid. Heights make me sick. I will faint or become ill, I really will—”
    He frowned at her. Her distress