The Elusive Bride Read Online Free Page A

inch of death had sobered and shaken her, but had also raised questions—ones she couldn’t answer.
    She was fairly sure Hamilton could. As soon as she’d seen her people settled, and had washed off the dust of the streets, she made her way to the salon that served as drawing room-cum-parlor.
    Hamilton was there, alone, seated on one of the long cushion-covered divans. He looked up, saw her, and came to his feet.
    With an easy smile, she went forward, and sat on the divan to his left. Opposite, wide doors stood open to the courtyard, with its small central pool and shading tree.
    He resumed his seat. “I…er, hope you have everything you need.”
    “The accommodations are adequate, thank you.” They were not what she was accustomed to, but they were clean and comfortable enough—they would do. “However”—she fixed her gaze on his face—“I have a number of questions, Major, that I hope you’ll be able to answer. I only caught the briefest glimpse of my attacker, but I saw enough to know he was a Black Cobra cultist. What I don’t understand is why he would attack me, or why a cultist should be here, in Aden, at all.”
    When he didn’t leap into reassuring speech, she went on, “The only contact I’ve had with the Black Cobra cult is through the incident with poor Captain MacFarlane and the packet I delivered for him to your friend, Colonel Delborough. I presume the attack today was connected with that?”
    Gareth studied her face—her determined expression, the directness of her gaze—and regretfully jettisoned his preferred option of revealing nothing at all. If she’d been a typical miss with not a great deal of wit…but there was intelligence, willfulness, and a definite—potentially dangerous—curiosity lurking behind her lovely eyes…“Isuspect the cultists are here to intercept me, and yes, that’s linked to the packet you brought to Bombay. The only reasons they would have for attacking you is if they recognized you, and either thought you might still have the packet, or simply wanted to punish you for your part in the packet’s loss.”
    “What’s in the packet the Black Cobra wants so desperately?”
    As he’d thought—far too quick-witted. He’d hoped to gloss over his mission, conceal the major aspects, but…her moss-hazel gaze was too acute, too intent. And many—she, certainly—would argue she had a right to know, now more than ever given the cult had just demonstrated that it wasn’t inclined to overlook her part in the affair. He inwardly sighed. “I assume you’d prefer I start at the beginning?”
    “Indeed.”
    “Five of us—Delborough, me, Major Logan Monteith, Captains Rafe Carstairs and James MacFarlane—were sent to Bombay by Governor-General Hastings with specific orders to do whatever was needed to bring the Black Cobra to justice.” He sank back against the cushions, his gaze fixing, unseeing, on the wall opposite. “That was in March. Within a few months, we’d identified the Black Cobra, but the evidence was circumstantial, and given our suspect, our case needed to be beyond question.”
    “Who is the Black Cobra?”
    He turned his head and regarded her. If he told her…but the cult had just demonstrated it didn’t care if she knew or not, and now she was with him, had been seen with him…“The Black Cobra is Roderick Ferrar.”
    “Ferrar? Great heavens! I’ve met him, of course.”
    “What did you think of him?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “Not a nice man.”
    “Indeed not. So we knew it was him, but had no way to prove it conclusively. We kept searching…then, while James was at Poona fetching you, he stumbled on a letter from the Black Cobra to one of the princelings. We’d found similar missives,but this one was different. It was signed by the Black Cobra, but sealed with Ferrar’s personal seal—the ring seal he wears on his little finger and can’t take off. Once you’d brought that letter to us, we had what we needed, and we’d