Beloved Castaway Read Online Free PDF Page B

sleeve—“the garment of a cleric.”
    The distant clatter of horses’ hooves broke the silence. Captain Carter whirled Isabelle around and gathered her tight to his side. His angry glare turned to a watchful, blank stare as he cast a long glance down the empty alley. For a moment, he barely seemed to breathe. Slowly, he reached to his waist and palmed the knife.  
    “If I’ve been sent to my doom, Mademoiselle Gayarre, I shall take you with me,” he ground out through clenched jaw as he slid the blade of the knife up his sleeve and cupped its ivory handle in his fist. “Now smile, ma chère, and perhaps you and I shall live to see another day.”
    “Smile?” Isabelle shook her head as the rhythmic clop-clop and the creak of wheels in need of attention moved closer. “I don’t understand. Why would I want to—”
    “Silence, woman.”
    Captain Carter ducked into the shadows and pressed his back against a crumbling brick wall. Beneath a weathered sign advertising the Dumont and Sons Warehouse, he pulled her to face him. Brazenly, he pressed her against him and rested his clean-shaven cheek against hers. With one hand pressed against her spine, he tangled the other in the curls at the back of her neck.
    To the world, they looked like a happy pair out on an evening’s tryst. To Isabelle, the view was much more ominous. Somehow in the hour’s time since she’d stowed her trunk and walked the remaining distance to the docks, she’d managed to come full circle. She’d left the expectation of landing in a stranger’s arms to the reality of doing exactly that.
    Clop-clop. Rattle. Clop-clop. Rattle. The sound rolled closer.
    Isabelle took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing away the nausea welling deep inside her. Closing the door to her lovely yellow and white home on Burgundy Street, she’d made a vow to God to keep only unto Him and never compromise herself.
    Clop-clop. Rattle. Clop-clop. Rattle.
    What sort of woman broke a promise to the Lord so soon after making it? The fact that she’d had no part in initiating this embrace held little comfort. Nevertheless, she stood in the shadows with a man, hiding from the world with the son as she would have been forcedto hide with his father on the morrow.
    Surely the Lord had left her to her wits now.  
    Breathe, Izzy. God is still here, and He understands your plight. Breathe and wait for Him to act.
    At the end of the alley, a horse and cart appeared. A dark figure held the reins, and another rode at his side. The captain’s hand released her hair and shifted to turn the handle of the knife around. Cold against her skin, the knife’s blade scraped gently across the back of her neck.  
    “Beauty in the shadows,” Captain Carter whispered, “yet you’ll not live to charm again unless you convince these gentlemen you’re overcome by my presence.”
    She braved a glance into eyes covered in shadow and darkened by anger. “What would you have me do?” she asked, again saying words she’d vowed never to repeat.
    His lips curved into a wry smile. “Put your arms around me.” Woodenly, she obeyed.
    “Tighter.” He pressed her head against his shoulder, holding the knife flat against the back of her head and covering it with her curls. “I mean you no harm,” he whispered. “Nor do I wish to be found out by those who approach.”  
    Isabelle forced her breathing to settle into a slow inhale and exhale pattern, a gesture both automatic and difficult. As she did, she hid her face in the folds of the stranger’s cloak. He smelled of soap and something else, a fragrance not entirely pleasant and, in a blinding flash just short of recognition, unreasonably frightening.  
    She knew this scent and hated it yet couldn’t put its meaning to words. What was it, and why did it frighten her to the depths of her soul?
    As she pondered the question, Isabelle lifted her head slightly and watched the intruders draw near. The scent continued to assault her,