Tempting Prudence: The Bride Train Read Online Free Page A

out, she’d trip over one of those sycamore roots.
    Suddenly, she stumbled. Her legs got tangled in her skirts and down she went. Hard. Skidding to a stop, she lay crumpled. Still.
    He dropped to his knees next to her, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it. Should’ve known the poor woman was unbalanced and not to let her out of his sight. “Dang it all to perdition.”
    Being gentle as possible, he turned her into his arms.
    Her chest moved. Breathing, thank God.
    He brushed the tangled hair out of her face. Her smooth skin had turned as white as one of those porcelain dolls he’d seen in the window of the mercantile. Blood ran freely out of a cut along the edge of her scalp.
    Carefully lifting her, he cradled her limp body and started up the path as fast as he could go without stumbling or losing his grip. He had to get her to the house and staunch the bleeding. The cut would need to be stitched. When she woke, she’d have a devil of a headache and would have to stay in bed for a few days, maybe a week, and he’d thought he was in trouble before. Now, he had an even bigger problem on his hands.
    * * *
    Something damp laved her face. A wet tongue…odiferous breath… “Stop bathing me, Caesar,” Prudence mumbled. She raised her hands to ward off the eager licking. When the dog wouldn’t stop, she turned her head.
    A sharp pain made her gasp. Someone had embedded a knife in her forehead.
    Moaning, she forced her eyelids to open a crack. A black nose appeared, sniffing her face. Loose skin hung from the dog’s snout. So it wasn’t a sheepdog, and definitely not Caesar. Where had the hound come from, and why was it on her bed? Why did her head pound as though it would fall off? Her eyes drifted shut as the questions melted into awful memories…or were they dreams?
    She remembered being in a coffin. Buried alive. Bearded men leered at her and tossed her bound and gagged, to and fro, cackling like demons. Someone lifted her into strong arms that formed a safe cradle. She snuggled against what felt like a solid wall and could hear inside a heavy thump, thump, thump .
    A low voice whispered in an unfamiliar drawl. “ Hush now, be still. I won’t leave you.”
    “Git down, Rebel!”
    The harsh command startled Prudence out of the troubled, half-sleep. She snapped her eyes open in time to see a flash of fur as the dog leapt off the bed.
    A man’s face, wreathed in auburn hair, hovered over her. His heavy russet brows drew down over eyes as blue as a bright summer sky. The bridge of his nose had a slight bump, suggesting it might’ve been broken at one time. A slight cleft softened an otherwise square chin. His lips were thin, or maybe it looked that way because he had them pressed together. She didn’t know him. Yet, he looked familiar…her dream rescuer?
    Dazed and not sure she wasn’t asleep, she spoke. “Why are you in my bedroom?”
    His eyes widened with surprise. He parted his lips as if he might say something, but then closed his mouth and gave her a crooked half-smile, which transformed his features into a compelling blend of flirtatious boy and rugged man.
    He twisted away. She followed his movements as he pulled a straight-back chair over to the side of the bed. “You got conked on the head pretty hard. I hear that can rattle your memory.”
    Her gaze wandered to the ceiling and she frowned, confused. The hotel didn’t have rough-hewn timbers or a clapboard roof…and this place had an earthy smell, like a root cellar.
    A rush of memories blew away the fog that had settled over her mind. The coffin, the three devils abducting her, she hadn’t dreamed the nightmare, it had really happened.
    Alarmed, she tried to sit up.
    The world went spinning.
    “Whoa, slow down.” The auburn haired man—he was the one who’d chased after her—caught her arms, preventing her from rising. She didn’t have the strength to fight him, and her head rang like the inside of a church bell.
    With a groan, she