Her ladyship knew his parents. She knew her great-niece. But he’d be damned if he’d allow her to matchmake him—even with a vision that brought to mind a pantheon of goddesses.
Aside from all else … dragging in a deeper breath, he forced his gaze from its distraction, and looked down at her ladyship, who was clearly waiting to gauge his response. “Lady Congreve, I regret it will not be possible for me and Hassan to act as courier-guide and guard for you during your upcoming journey.”
Lady Congreve regarded him, a frown forming in her eyes. “I understood, dear boy, that you had already agreed to fill the positions subject to informing me of the reason behind your current journey and my confirmation of the appointments subsequent to that.” She opened her eyes wide. “What on earth happened in the space of just a moment to change your mind?”
She knew. Rafe held her gaze, felt his jaw firm. “Regardless, my lady, on further consideration it will be impossible for me and Hassan to join your party.”
Lady Congreve’s eyes narrowed on him, something her niece couldn’t see. “Surely you aren’t reneging on our agreement because of Loretta?”
Yes, he was. While he’d entertained the possibility of joining forces with Lady Congreve, a lady in the latter years of her life and, he judged, with significant life experience, had been prepared to court the risk that through him she might be exposed to the Black Cobra’s minions, he would not, could not, even in his most reckless mood, countenance putting a young lady like Loretta Michelmarsh in any danger whatever.
He held Lady Congreve’s gaze. “There’s a certain degree of risk involved in being associated with me and Hassan, and while I would have considered, should you have been, agreeable once you were fully informed of that risk, accepting the positions you offered in your train, it would be unconscionable of me to continue with that arrangement while you have a young lady such as Miss Michelmarsh traveling with you.”
Loretta frowned. What was going on? Her first thought on sighting the tall, blond-haired man, clearly a military man—she could tell by his stance, the way he held his broad shoulders—was a simple, albeit dazed: Who was he?
Her mind had stalled at that point, her senses scrambling to fill in details, none of them pertinent to answering that question.
How bright the golden streaks in his sandy blond hair, how unexpectedly soft his eyes of summer blue, how absurdly long his brown lashes seemed, how deliciously evocative the subtle curve of his distinctly masculine lips, how square his jaw, how imposingly tall, how strong and powerful his long body seemed to be … all those observations flashed through her mind, and none helped in the least.
She’d felt adrift, her gaze locked on him, her senses … somewhere else. All thought had suspended and had remained beyond her reach, until he’d spoken.
His deep voice, its timbre, the reverberation that seemed to slide down her spine and resonate within her, shook her—enough to shock her out of her mesmerized state.
Bad enough. But apparently Esme had invited him and his friend to act as their courier-guide and guard.
Her immediate thought—the first rational one after her wits had returned to her—was that Carstairs and his friend were charlatans out to rob Esme … but then he’d refused the position.
Because of her. Why?
She listened as Esme artfully twisted Carstairs’s words, then invoked his honor as an officer and a gentleman, intent on browbeating him into acquiescing to being their courier-guide, apparently all the way back to England. She could have told Carstairs that he didn’t stand a chance of wriggling, out of Esme’s talons, but … the notion of having him squiring her around in the guise of their courier-guide filled her with an odd mix of anticipation and trepidation.
If just the sight of him could make her temporarily lose her grip on her wits, what would prolonged exposure—and closer exposure at that—do?
She couldn’t afford to be distracted, especially not now. She needed to get another vignette off to her agent tomorrow; her editor was waiting on it, holding column space for it.
Over the past six years she’d steadily developed a following with her little pieces published in the London Enquirer, three or four paragraphs of philosophical social commentary, a mix of observation and political satire, all delivered with a highly sharpened pen. The public had taken to her writings, but her abrupt departure from England had put paid to that endeavor; she couldn’t observe London society from abroad. But then she’d had the notion to continue in similar vein with her Window on Europe vignettes, and her public had happily followed her through her brief sojourns in France, Spain, and Italy.
She’d known Esme would halt at Trieste, so had warned her agent, and a letter from her editor had been waiting for her there. Apparently the publisher of the Enquirer was an admirer of her work, and the paper was eager to publish whatever she could send them.
Her agent had also written informing her of the sizeable increase in stipend the publisher was providing for each witty installment.
She’d thought her departure with Esme would spell the end of her secret writing career; instead, it had brought her work more forcefully to the attention of both her publisher and his readers.
Her secret endeavor had taken a highly encouraging turn, but close acquaintance with Rafe Carstairs might well endanger that—in more ways than he imagined.
Yet she couldn’t help but be curious over what, exactly, it was that he seemed so set on keeping away from her.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, taking advantage of a temporary silence, “Mr. Carstairs might explain what this unprecedented danger inherent on being associated with him and Mr. Hassan is?”
Carstairs, who she had to admit was giving Esme a run for her money in the stubborn stakes, and was presently furnishing every indication of being as immovable as a monolith, lifted his sky blue eyes to her. He studied her for a fraught moment, then looked down at Esme. “There is no point continuing this discussion. We cannot—”
“Captain.”
The quiet word came from Hassan, who had retreated to stand by the window; turning, Rafe saw him looking outside.
Glancing up from whatever he’d seen, Hassan met his eyes. “Before you make any decision you should consider this.”
Rafe inclined his head to Esme and her great-niece. “A moment, if you would.”
He crossed to Hassan. Halting alongside, Rafe looked down through the lace curtains to the street below.
To where two Black Cobra cultists were ambling along, looking this way and that.
“They are looking, watching, not searching specifically,” Hassan observed.
“Which means they don’t yet know we’re here.”
“True, but …” Hassan waited until Rafe raised his gaze to his before continuing, “what will happen if they learn we have been here, not just in Buda but here in this room, speaking with these ladies?”
Rafe’s heart sank.
“The cult will not have forgotten that it was an English lady, Miss Ensworth, who brought you and the others the Cobra’s letter. Even if we part from the ladies now, that will not save them—the cultists will reason that they have to be stopped and they and their baggage searched, just in case.”
“Damn!” Rafe all but ground his teeth. After a moment, he murmured, “We shouldn’t go on with them and expose them to danger, but not being their guards might be even more dangerous for them.”
“So I think.”
Rafe sighed and turned—and discovered Lady Congreve just behind him. She’d been peering around his shoulder.
Raising her eyes to his face, she arched her brows. “I think, dear boy, that you had better tell us all.” Swinging around, she led the way back to the chairs. “And as we are, apparently, to be traveling companions all the way to England, you may call me Esme.”
Elegantly sitting, beckoning her great-niece to sit alongside her, she lifted openly curious eyes to his face.
Rafe stifled a groan, but accepting the inevitabl
e, walked to the chair he’d earlier occupied. Once Loretta Michelmarsh sat, he sat, too.
Drawing in a long breath, he started at the beginning. “Several years ago, a man—an English gentleman of noble family—went out to India and, exploiting his position in the Governor of Bombay’s office, devised and created a native cult. The cult of the Black Cobra.”
He had them call in their maids, then related the story in its most abbreviated version, alluding only where necessary and in general terms to the atrocities committed by the cult; those he deemed too ghastly to be described in polite company.
By the time he finished, the sky outside was darkening and evening was closing in.
Esme had listened intently, putting shrewd questions here and there. She hadn’t been all that surprised to learn that the man Rafe and his friends were working to expose as the Black Cobra was Roderick Ferrar, the Earl of Shrewton’s younger son.
Esme’s lips had tightened, her features growing severe. “I never did like that boy—or his father, come to that. Vicious blackguards, the Shrewtons, except for the heir, Kilworth. He’s altogether a different sort.”
Rafe took her word for that. All he cared about was bringing Roderick Ferrar to justice.
“So let me see if I have this correct.” Somewhat to Rafe’s surprise, Loretta Michelmarsh had seemed as fascinated with his mission as her great-aunt. “You are one of four … for want of a better term, couriers, who left Bombay on the same day, all heading for England by different routes. All four are carrying identical scroll-holders, but only one contains the original letter—and that original letter must reach the Duke of Wolverstone in order for the Black Cobra to be stopped.”
When she paused and opened her blue eyes wide at him, he nodded. “In a nutshell, that’s it.”
“So which do you have—one of the decoys or the vital original?”
Rafe shook his head. “The four of us decided that information shouldn’t be revealed to anyone, not even shared among us.”
“In case this fiend of a snake seizes one of you and tries to coerce the information from them in order to concentrate solely on the one who carries the original?” Esme nodded. “Excellent idea. Don’t tell us. We don’t need to know that you’re carrying the original.”
Expression blank, Rafe stared at her, but Esme only smiled.
“The Duke of Wolverstone.” Loretta glanced at Esme. “He’s something of a secret war hero, isn’t he? A spymaster or some such?”
“At one time. He retired some years ago, then assumed the title, but I seriously doubt he’ll have lost his lauded skills.” Esme met Rafe’s eyes. “If you’re working for Royce, Dalziel—Wolverstone—whatever name he goes by these days, then as loyal Englishwomen it clearly behooves us to do whatever we can to aid your quest.”
Rafe inwardly blinked. If he’d known Wolverstone’s name would have such an effect, he’d have used it sooner.
“Regardless, however, now that we know about your mission and have been seen with you by people the serpent’s, minions might question, then there’s clearly no option other than to join forces.” Esme smiled with satisfaction. “So no more muttering—you, dear boy, henceforth will be our courier-guide and Hassan will be our guard.”
Esme glanced at Loretta, then looked back at Rafe. “Which makes us your charges.” Her smile was triumph incarnate.
Lips thin, Rafe nodded, then with a glance at Loretta, added, “Until we reach England.”
The Reckless Bride
STEPHANIE
LAURENS
The
Reckless
Bride
THE BLACK COBRA QUARTET
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Savdek Management Proprietory Ltd.
Maps by Paul J. Pugliese
ISBN 978-0-06-179519-0
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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The Reckless Bride
She tried to suck in a breath, but her lungs had constricted. By sheer force of will she kept her feet moving and managed to climb the steps into the carriage. He released her hand and her senses snapped back into focus.
A second later, the carriage tipped as Carstairs climbed in. He hesitated, then sat alongside her, leaving the place beside Rose for Hassan.
Carstairs’s shoulder brushed hers as he settled.
She couldn’t breathe again. Worse, her wits had scattered. As for her senses, they were flickering and flaring, not in alarm but in a most peculiar way.
Fixing her gaze forward, she forced her lungs to work. It was preferable that Carstairs sat beside her rather than opposite; at least she didn’t have him constantly before her. Bad enough that she could somehow feel him alongside her; his warmth, his solidly muscled strength, impinged on her consciousness as if every nerve she possessed had come alive and locked on him.
She was irritated and utterly mortified.
Prologue
September 15, 1822
North of Bombay, India
The incessant tattoo of his horse’s hooves thundered through his skull. Rafe Carstairs, erstwhile captain in the British Army serving with the Honorable East India Company under the direct command of the Governor-General of India, glanced over his shoulder back along the trail, then urged his mount up the first in a series of low hills that spread across their path.
Riding alongside him, Hassan, his man, more companion than batman, kept pace. The long, lanky, frighteningly fierce Pathan warrior had fought at Rafe’s side for the past five years; without hesitation, he’d accepted Rafe’s invitation to join him in this dangerous flight across half the world.
Rafe’s mission was simple. Ferry the original of a damning letter—evidence enough to hang the Englishman who had spawned and now controlled the Black Cobra cult and who, through the cult’s vicious tyranny, was draining the life from too many Indian villages—back to England and into the hands of a man powerful enough to bring the Black Cobra down.
Simultaneously, Rafe’s three closest friends and colleagues, Colonel Derek Delborough, Major Gareth Hamilton, and Major Logan Monteith, were also heading for England via separate routes carrying inadmissible copies of the vital evidence—decoys to distract the Black Cobra from the one man who had to get through.
Rafe.
Like Rafe, Hassan had seen too much of the Black Cobra’s villany not to seize the chance they now had to bring the fiend to justice.
Drawing rein on the crest of the hill, Rafe wheeled his mount and, through narrowed eyes, searched the wide, flat plain they’d crossed through the morning.
Hassan looked, too. “No pursuers.”
Rafe nodded. “It’s too dusty down there to miss racing horses.” Nerves that had been taut since they’d left Bombay the day before eased a fraction.
“Leaving immediately after your meeting with the other three was wise.” Hassan wheeled his mount and walked on.
Rafe followed suit, then they nudged their horses back into a canter, heading nor’northwest. “If they didn’t pick up our trail yesterday, soon after we left Bombay, it’ll be difficult for them to guess our route.”
“They will expect you to go by water—they will look to the harbor and ships. Even if they think to look inland, there will b
e no one to point a finger this way. We are just two tribal warriors, after all.”
Rafe grinned and glanced at Hassan, unremarkable in his tribal robes. Rafe was similarly garbed. With his more European build swathed in loose fabric, his blond hair hidden beneath the headdress and attached scarves, and with all visible skin well tanned by years of campaigning, only his blue eyes gave him away.
And one had to get close to see the color of his eyes.
He looked ahead. “Given the cult aren’t hot on our heels, it’s possible we’ll have an uneventful journey, at least until we near the Channel. I just hope the others got away as cleanly.”
Hassan grunted. They picked up the pace and rode on, the rich lands of the Rajputana their immediate goal, with the more dangerous, desolate reaches of the Afghan Supremacy beyond. There was a lot of Asia Minor to be crossed before they reached Europe, let alone the English Channel. They had a long journey before them, and a schedule to meet.
Rafe still felt a sense of deep satisfaction that he’d been the one to draw the scroll-holder containing the original document from the four identical scroll-holders; the other three had contained the decoy missions. His friend and colleague Captain James MacFarlane had given his life to secure the incriminating letter. Rafe had seen James’s body, twisted and tortured by the Black Cobra’s minions. To his soul, Rafe thirsted for vengeance.
The only acceptable vengeance was to ensure the Black Cobra hanged.
Rafe tapped his heels to his mount’s sides. “Onward. With luck and St. George, we’ll win through.”
They would, or Rafe would die trying.
September 18, 1822
The Michelmarsh Residence