How to Lose a Bride in One Night Read Online Free

move.
    Gray edged at her vision, closing in. She couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t fight. Bloodsworth had succeeded after all.
    She wasn’t going to make it out of this river alive.
    O wen squinted against the afternoon’s gray sky, swaying loosely in his saddle as his mount meandered along the road. Never mind that it was overcast. The day was too bright for him. The consequences of last night’s binge with a bottle of brandy still bore its effects. Thousands of tiny hammers beat inside his head.
    He scratched at his bristly jaw, unable to recall the last time he had shaved. Perhaps a week ago. He hadn’t cared enough even when he had arrived home into the loving embrace of his family. Not that he had stayed longer than a day. It took him all of five minutes in the company of Jamie and Paget to realize he couldn’t stomach either one of them.
    His brother and bride were nauseatingly happy, and he was not fit company for happy people. It had nothing to do with the fact that his older brother had wed his own childhood sweetheart. Discovering Jamie and Paget happily wed had not overly concerned him. Not as it would have four years ago when he was besotted with Paget. When he possessed a heart. When he was more than the shell of a man he was now.
    He felt only relief to know that Paget had moved on—that she wasn’t waiting for him. There was no disappointing her. Because what he was, who he had become . . . there was no coming back from that.
    The Owen they once knew was dead. Lost halfway around the world.
    His mount quickened its pace, and he knew he was approaching the river. Reaching its banks, he dismounted and led the horse to water, holding the reins loosely in his hand as it drank.
    He scanned his surroundings, his gaze missing nothing on land or water. He might be in the land of his birth, a mere day’s ride from London, but a part of him would always be back in India scouting for rebels. Ready to kill. A talent he had perfected these past few years. It turned out he was extraordinarily good at killing.
    His gaze stopped, arresting on something several yards downriver. Everything inside him tightened with familiar alertness, his time as a soldier rushing to the surface.
    Ever wary, he moved closer. At first he thought it nothing more than a mound of fabric, discarded and washed ashore. Even soiled, the material was startling white alongside the muddy bank. But then he detected the shape of a body beneath the sopping wet fabric.
    A female body.
    She lay facedown, a limp arm stretched above her head. One leg stretched out, the pale foot and calf disappearing into the ink of water. He took a slow look around, well aware that a trap could wait anywhere. She could be the bait some nefarious brigands left to lure unsuspecting travelers to a foul end.
    The still and silent woods met his sweeping stare, the gentle slap of water the only sound. He pushed the ghosts from his head, burying the cries of dead men deep as he turned his attention back to the woman. He cautiously approached. Crouching, he carefully touched her shoulder and rolled her onto her back.
    She was young. Her face ashen. Eyes closed, her lashes fanned out against her cheeks in dark crescents that looked almost obscene against her waxy, colorless skin.
    He pressed his fingertips to her throat. Icy cold to the touch, her pulse hiccupped, the smallest, barely-there flutter. Soft as a moth’s wings. Not good.
    He leaned closer, listening for her breath. The air escaped her bloodless lips in tiny, hard-fought rasps. He compressed his lips.
    His gaze skimmed her, assessing. Scratches, cuts, and bruises marred her pale skin. The hem of her gown was streaked in faint pink tinges of blood. He tugged the gown up, checking for injuries, wincing at the sight of her leg. From the odd shape, it was clearly broken. A deep gash on her foot probably needed stitching as well. Owen glanced to the river and back at her, marveling that she was alive. Given her