Not Quite a Husband Read Online Free

again. How did he know that she had indeed taken her hair turning white as a sign that the time had come for her to leave? No, he did not know. He’d made it up out of whole cloth. But even Mr. Braeburn was spellbound by this ridiculous tale. She had forgotten how hypnotic Leo could be, when he wished to beguile a crowd.
    “And so I have searched. From the poles to the tropics, from the shores of China to the shores of Nova Scotia. Our wedding photograph in hand, I have asked crowds pale, red, brown, and black, ‘I seek an English lady doctor, my lost beloved. Have you seen her?’”
    He looked into her eyes, and she could not look away, as mesmerized as the hapless Braeburns.
    “And now I have found you at last.” He raised his glass. “To the beginning of the rest of our lives.”

     
    Leo had not come alone—he’d hired the necessary personnel in Chitral to ensure a comfortable journey for Mrs. Marsden, he’d explained to the Braeburns.The coolies he’d brought with him began taking down Bryony’s tent shortly after tea.
    The tent, rugged and waterproof, was open and cool in summer. In winter it manfully bore a foot of snow and, with the help of her heaviest overcoat and two paraffin burners, kept her blood from congealing in her sleep.
    Bryony experienced a moment of sharp distress as the tent came apart. Or perhaps it was fear: She was afraid to go with him.
    The collapsing of the tent exposed its paltry contents: a camp bed, two steamer trunks, a folding table, and a folding chair. The table held a collection of old medical journals and her medical bag. One steamer trunk had a few toiletry items on top; the other her straw hat, a shawl, and two pairs of gloves.
    Casually, he picked up her hat and turned it in his roughened hand. The knuckles of his other hand grazed across the brim. She swallowed. The gesture was intensely intimate, almost as if he were touching her hair. Her skin.
    He set the hat down, went to his horse, and came back with another hat. “I took the liberty of buying you this. You can get sunburned easily in the lower altitudes if you are not careful.”
    The hat he presented her was practically a helmet, with a rolled-up flap in the back that released toshield the nape, and a veil of netting in the front, in case the sun became too harsh for the eyes.
    His presumption galled her: He’d known precisely how he’d bend her to his will, long before he ever set foot in Rumbur Valley.
    She returned the hat to him: “I cannot accept articles of clothing from a gentleman.”
    It was a convenient excuse. He was not related to her—or married to her. And therefore had no business buying such things for her.
    He glanced down at the rejected hat. “That rule, if I’m not mistaken, does not apply to a gentleman who has fucked you.”
    At the last two words, he lifted his eyelashes. Such a current of heat jolted through her that she was unable to slap him as he richly deserved.
    “You, sir, are no gentleman,” she said. “And no, thank you. I will not wear that hideous thing.”
    He looked at her a minute, his gray eyes the color of morning mist, and she could not tell whether his expression was disgust, amusement, or something too dark and raw for easy labeling.
    “Suit yourself,” he said. “Let’s have your things packed.”
    Everything she had went on her person, on a coolie, or on a mule. Scarcely an hour after tea, theywere shaking the Braeburns’ hands, saying their farewells and promising to write regularly.
    After one last embrace with Mrs. Braeburn, Bryony mounted the spare horse that Leo had brought for her. He handed her the reins.
    “I hope you are happy,” she said quietly, for his ears alone.
    He gave her a lopsided smile that was at once intimate and distant. “Oh, intemperately so.”

 
    T he afternoon was cool, the sky cloudless. Rumbur Valley, squeezed between two high ridges, lowered rapidly toward the southeast. They followed the descent of the river, blue with