Light to Valhalla Read Online Free Page B

on the battlefield . Since that fateful day when his life had been miraculously spared he’d seen her in an entirely new way… as a goddess… an angel… his savior… the key to his peace and happiness . Today the mere sight of her swathed in a simple blue gauzy gown , soft strawberry tresses dripping from her upsweep , had left him undone . He ’d wanted her as he’d never wanted another woman in his life, burned for her . He burned for her still .
    Of course this evening the goddess he’d built up in his mind hadn’t come running into his arms . Her smile hadn’t washed the filth of sins from his soul . In truth s he hadn’t even smiled . Instead, she’d stood before him , eyes wide with such terror and sadness one would think Alex the devil himself . Not that he could blame her after their wedding night .
    If one could call that a wedding night.
    He couldn’t even remember having performed the act, which, really was too bad . The consummation of one’s marriage should be a memorable experience , especially with a woman like Charlotte . She was a fine little thing, t he perfect combination of petite and curvy , with a m ischievous personality to top it off . Since childhood s he’d reminded him of a mischievous fairy sprite .
    Alex sighed, s etting the inkwell upright , and searching for something to stop the mess from spreading . He missed the days when Charley ha d looked to him with the moon in her eyes . Why hadn’t he realized sooner that love and family were the only things truly important in life?  Convincing his wife he was a changed man would take time, and unfortunately time was the one thing in which he was sorely lacking .
    A river of ink ran across the desk toward the stack of calling cards labeled Alex ander Rawlings, Marquis Coverstone . He stopped short as the dark liquid trickled across the cards, blotting out his name … his title . If only blocking the cursed thing was so easy in real life .
    Cursed .
    He con templated the word . Yes, little doubt remained his was a cursed family, the G ypsy woman in Spain had told him as much .
    On the third day of May his second eldest brother, Timothy, had fallen from his mount in a steeple chase —a frayed stirrup strap snapped— and instantly broken his neck, just two weeks later Richard, his eldest brother, quite unexpectedly drowned in a rowing accident, and one week hence his only remaining brother, Christopher, contracted a sudden illness and died within twenty-four hours . One week to the day after Alex ’s marriage to Charlotte and subsequent return to duty , his father had put a bullet through his right temple —succumbed to overwhelming stress perhaps?   The physicians had speculated profound grief as the cause of the late Coverstone’s suicide , but Alex k new better . His father had possessed few admirable traits and grief was not among them . As such Alex inherited the title, and as such he hated it .
    Not that he put any stock in Gypsy hokum and blather . H e’d been stinking drunk when that old woman had said, Quieres que yo te leo tu fortuna ?   G rasped his palm and run a gnarled finger over the broken line running down his palm . His life line she’d called it . Drunk as he’d been he remembered thinking nothing could bode well of a broken life line . A chill swept over him as his near death experience on the battlefield swept through his mind again .
    Alex shuddered and shoved the bizarre encoun ter from his mind along with memories of the Gypsy woman . No thing could be foretold from looking at a man’s palm . Nothing.
    Using several pieces of pa per he managed to contain the puddle o f ink in the center of the desk, wiped his hand on a handkerchief located in the top left drawer , and considered his next move . “ Bloody mess,” he muttered, admitting defeat and striding toward the door to enlist the services of a maid . He reached the clean hand down to massage the ache in his thigh . “My whole damn life is a bloody