A Reckless Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page A

Peninsula. As you so rightly said—I’m no nursemaid.”
    “Thank you, my lord,” Rian said, bowing to the man. “I would, of course, be honored.”
    “Only a damn fool wouldn’t be,” Brede said, smiling once more. “Two days from now, as I have things to do, things that don’t concern you. I’ll see you on Monday, exactly here, sometime before noon, with new orders for you in my possession. You will be ready to go, or I’m leaving without you. Understood?”
    Rian opened his mouth to answer, but the Earl of Brede had already turned to walk away, taking no more than ten steps back out onto the wheat field before gracefully throwing himself up onto the saddle of a sleek, dappled gray stallion whose head had been held by no less than Captain Moray.
    Brede turned the horse, pulled back on the reins so that it reared up on its back legs as the Earl threw Rian a casual salute, and then he was gone, gray figure and gray horse soon fading into the equally gray twilight.
    “Uxbridge isn’t the only flamboyant one,” Rian mumbled as he headed toward a grinning Captain Moray. “He merely dresses better….”

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HIS WASN ’ T TOO TERRIBLE . The countryside was beautiful, the air not too uncomfortably warm, and the horses a grand protection. Fanny might miss her soft bed and Bumble’s fine way with a chicken, but the adventure made up for that.
    And, with every mile, she drew closer to Rian.
    “Who will probably attempt to box my ears for me,” Fanny muttered quietly behind the scarf she’d tied around her nose and mouth to keep out the dust raised by the horses.
    She rode at the back of the troop, which meant that after the dried strip of beef she’d had for breakfast, she was having road dust for luncheon. Mentally, she added the lovely tin tub in her bedchamber at Becket Hall to the list of things she missed most.
    “Private Reilly!”
    Fanny rolled her eyes and straightened her slim shoulders. Honestly, the man was constantly at her; her own father didn’t guard her half so closely. Of course, if he had, she wouldn’t be riding across Belgium at the moment, would she? “Yes, Sergeant-Major!”
    “We’ll be at the cantonment in another few minutes. Just around the next bend, I’m told. Now, here’s what I’m doing. You’ll see that brother you’ve come all this way to see, and then you’ll be off to Brussels with the rest of the women who had nothin’ better to do than follow along with us. No women here for much longer, Private Reilly, to help with the cookin’, the washin’. Uxbridge won’t allow it. You’ll have plenty to do, helpin’ with the wounded when the time comes, honest women’s work, and then you’ll be shipped off home, wherever that is.”
    “But, Sergeant-Major—”
    The Sergeant-Major shook his head, sighing in an exaggerated way. “And here she goes again, dear God, thinkin’ she has somethin’ to say to any of this. Show me an army of women, and I’ll show you pure disaster, every one of them questionin’ me, thinkin’ she knows best. ‘Oh, no, Sergeant-Major Hart, we should camp farther from the stream, it’s too damp here. We’ll catch a sniffle.’”
    Fanny pulled down the scarf and grinned at the man. “When you get to heaven, Sergeant-Major, the good Queen Boadicea may have a word or two to say to you.”
    For the first time since she’d encountered the Sergeant-Major, Fanny saw the man smile. “Her? She was only in a snit.”
    “She raised an army against the Romans, destroyed London and was responsible for killing seventy thousand soldiers. That’s a bit more than a snit, don’t you think? And then we might discuss the Maid of Orleans, the famous Joan—”
    “And they don’t know when to stifle themselves, women don’t,” the Sergeant-Major grumbled, pulling on his muttonchops. You’ll be goin’ on to Brussels, where it’s safe, you hear me?”
    Fanny was fairly certain she shouldn’t ask him to say please, and simply nodded