How to Lose a Bride in One Night Read Online Free Page A

injuries, he couldn’t quite fathom how she had not drowned.
    Staring at her for a long moment, he brushed some of the brown hair from her forehead. “How’d you get in that river, hmm?”
    His mind quickly worked, plotting the best way to find her help. He had spent the last five years attacking sepoys , assassinating them at the behest of his commanders. He was about taking lives, not saving.
    They were a day’s ride from his family home—not that he wanted to return there again. The next village was a half day ride south. He’d planned on spending the night there before continuing on to London.
    Sighing, he glanced around them again, suddenly wishing someone else would happen upon them. Someone better equipped to care for a female who didn’t look as though she would live out the day.
    “Come, little one,” he murmured, slipping his arms beneath her, one beneath her legs and the other at her back, taking care not to jostle her leg more than necessary.
    Contrary to his words, she was no fragile bit of crystal. She was generously curved in his arms, and yet his six-foot-plus frame ate up the distance toward his horse as if she weighed nothing at all. After grueling conditions in India, she was only a slight burden.
    Remounting with her in his arms was a tricky task, but he managed it, laying her carefully across his lap. With her legs dangled off to one side, he grasped the reins and prodded his mount to move. Her head lolled against his chest, her face settling against his well-worn jacket. Almost trustingly, it seemed. Absurd, of course. She was unconscious.
    Disconcerted, he blinked down at her. It was impossible to recall the last time a woman had fallen asleep in his arms. There’d been women in his life, in his bed, but no one that he actually slept with. No one he had held in his arms once he satisfied his body’s need for them.
    Looking up again, he urged his mount into a faster clip, eager to reach the next town and rid himself of this newfound burden. So that he could be on his way. Just him and the demons of his past.
    The female in his arms stiffened with a sharp gasp.
    Startled, he looked down to find himself staring into a pair of brown eyes. Framed in lush lashes, the eyes were no ordinary brown. They were velvety . . . brown rimmed in the darkest black. They shined, as if lit from within. She stared directly at him, the fear there unmistakable.
    His hand reached down to cup her face, trying to offer some comfort. “Don’t be frightened. I mean you no harm.”
    Nothing in her wild, searching gaze indicated she understood or even heard him. Those eyes looked right through him, as though she were somewhere else entirely, caught up in a living nightmare. Her breath fell faster in sharp little pants.
    “Easy,” he soothed, not really knowing what sort of words he should say. He wasn’t accustomed to doling out comfort or reassurances. He pressed a hand awkwardly over her forehead and made a hushing sound. The kind his old nanny used to make whenever he’d hurt himself as a child.
    Perhaps it worked. Or perhaps she was just out of her head with pain.
    Her eyelids drifted shut. After a long moment he looked back up at the road and urged his mount faster, suddenly determined that she would live out the day.

 

    Chapter Four
    A n hour into the trek, and he knew the damsel in distress he’d rescued from the banks of the river was in the gravest danger. She burned with fever. Heat radiated off her and roasted him through his clothes. He rode his mount hard now. Digging in his heels, he gave Jasper his lead, less concerned for her comfort. Jostling the woman’s leg was now secondary to getting her into the hands of someone who could ease her fever.
    He doubted they would reach the village in time. He glanced around, debating stopping somewhere. But then he was plagued with what it was he himself could do. What could he offer her? He wasn’t equipped to care for her along a roadside.
    He wondered if