Moonlight on My Mind Read Online Free Page A

followed.
    The coach lurched sideways, tilting Julianne along with it. Her head knocked against the latch to the door, making her teeth ache with the force of the blow. The vehicle hung in awkward indecision a long, slow moment, and then swung back to center before rolling several more feet to a stop. For a moment there was only the sound of her panicked breathing, but then a quick rap at the window sent both occupants jumping.
    “Is anyone injured?” The voice of the coachman pushed through the thin glass.
    “All is well.” The portly gentleman settled his bulk more squarely on the seat and calmly folded his newspaper, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. “Struck another one, have we, Mr. Jeffers?”
    Julianne rubbed her throbbing head, realizing with dismay that her untied bonnet was now lying in a heap on the filthy coach floor. Her eyes reached for it, but her fingers refused to follow. She could not imagine placing it back on her head. It bothered her to even set her boots upon those sticky floorboards.
    The coachman opened the door and peered in, his eyes owlish in concern. “Are you injured, lass?”
    Julianne’s head ached liked the very devil and her stomach felt tossed by gale force winds, but she could feel no pain in her limbs suggesting an injury of grave magnitude. Still, she hesitated. The dust-covered coachman leaned farther in and his eyes lodged somewhere amid the strands of her hair, which, judging by the curls that swung wildly across her field of vision, had lost several hairpins in addition to the bonnet. Predictably, the driver’s lips tipped up in empty fascination.
    Suddenly, she was not all right. The strain of the three-day journey, her fear of being recognized, and the past few pulse-churning seconds coalesced into a spiraling panic.
    No one knew where she was. If she had died here today, her head dashed against the Scottish dirt, her body crushed beneath the wheels of this fetid little coach, her father would have . . . well . . . her father would have killed her.
    The contents of her stomach—a dubious shepherd’s pie from the posting house in Ullapool—clawed for a foothold up her throat. She shoved past the driver, not even caring that she was abandoning all decorum along with her bonnet. She tumbled out into late afternoon sunshine, dodging the boxes that had come loose from the top of the coach. For a moment she swayed, breathing in the fresher air, willing her roiling stomach to settle. All around her, the town moved in an indistinct smear of browns and blues and greens, storefronts and awnings and people swirling in the maelstrom of the moment.
    She almost missed it. In the end, it was the lack of movement that pulled her attention back for a second look. A small, still form lay in the street, perhaps thirty feet away. Behind her, strangers were already helping to heft the scattered boxes and trunks back onto the coach. She caught snatches of conversation on street corners, and the sound of clattering dishes and laughter trickling out of the open door of a nearby public house. No one seemed to care the afternoon coach had just mowed down one of their citizens, or that the body lay broken and unclaimed in the street.
    The coachman picked that unfortunate moment to approach her. “I’ll ask you to step back inside, lass. We’re running late.”
    Julianne glared at the man. Surely he didn’t expect her to just climb back on board, leaving the body in the street? “We have had an accident , sir.”
    The coachman nodded. “Aye. Happens all the time. Poor little thing darted right out under the wheels. Back in you go, now. The posting house is but a few blocks away.”
    Julianne took two deep breaths, praying for patience and calm—both of which she suspected would require divine intervention. “I am not getting back on that coach,” she ground out, “until someone calls for help.”
    The driver lowered his voice to a more soothing tone, the sort she often