Ryan's Bride Read Online Free

pleasant person under normal circumstances. He certainly had a nice smile, warm as spring sunshine.
    He was strong, she could tell. Yet, as he continued to hold her, his grip lightened a bit, as though he were afraid he might be hurting her. That was why she was so sure that, given a little more time, he would have let her go. He seemed to care. Otherwise, why would he have told the gendarme not to be so rough with her or asked where she was being taken?
    She told herself she was being silly. The whole thing had happened so fast, and he probably hadn’t given her a second thought once it was over.
    Still, there in the damp darkness, Angele preferred to dwell on the stranger rather than her miserable past or precarious future. She also felt a bizarre kind of comfort to remember his touch. It had made her feel that as long as he held her, she was insulated against all harm. And that was an emotion she’d not known in a long, long time.
    Tears welled in her eyes, and Angele furiously blinked them away. Her uncle had tried to make her cry the night he raped her, so he would know she felt the pain he intended to inflict again and again until she agreed to marry him. Then he would be gentle, he said. He would not take her so roughly. But Angele had refused and promised herself to be so strong in the future that nothing—no one— would ever make her shed a tear.
    To take her mind from the nightmare of the past, she again thought about the stranger, wondering what kind of life he led. He probably had a wife, a family. And he looked like a man of position and wealth, even if his clothes were rumpled and dirty from chasing her.
    Then she made herself think of good times, like riding her horse Vertus, her hair blowing about her face as they galloped across the lush, green valleys, wild and free. It was a memory she would forever cherish, for it would likely never be again. Her uncle had taken Vertus, like everything else, and she was no longer free and likely would not be for a long time—if ever.
    She felt a little stirring in the pit of her stomach and knew it was not hunger that gnawed but will—the will to survive, no matter what.
    “I will not let them beat me down,” she said aloud.
    “I will not let them beat me down,” she repeated, and with each word an inner strength surged. She could feel it winding about her heart, warm and caressing. There had to be a way. There had to be.
    And she said it again, even louder, because it felt so good, better than anything had made her feel in too long to remember.
    Screams of protests exploded around her from the other prisoners.
    “Shut up, you bitch.”
    “We ain’t listenin’ to your caterwauling.”
    “Hey, I’m tryin’ to sleep. Shut that hole in your face.”
    A few seconds later, footsteps sounded outside her door, and Angele cringed. She’d let herself get carried away, and the guard had heard, and there was no telling what he might do. She’d heard the other prisoners yelling back and forth, talking about the torture called The Grave. A wooden box buried in the ground, it was where rebellious prisoners were laid out like corpses and covered up with barely enough air to breathe. They were left there, buried alive, until they were almost dead. And oh, God, she prayed it would not happen to her.
    A key turned in the lock.
    She had been sitting on the floor, leaning back against the cold wall, but straightened in apprehension.
    The door opened. A lantern was held up, and in its glow, she could see the guard called Leon. He was scowling as he swung the lantern about, searching the shadows. Then he saw her and growled, “All right. Get your thievin’ as over here and don’t give me no trouble. The commandant wants to see you.”
    Angele cringed. “Please. I meant no harm. I was just talking to myself. Maybe I was too loud, but I didn’t mean to be. I’ll be quiet. I promise.”
    His scowl deepened as he walked to where she was crouched. Reaching down, he twined his